incoming boss [Flynn] what to do … unless they were instructed to do so by someone higher in the chain of command.”289 A former National Security Council spokesman who speaks to Business Insider will agree, telling the digital media outlet that McFarland “wasn’t calling the shots, and certainly not giving her own orders to her putative boss.”290 The list of those who outranked Flynn on national security issues during the presidential transition period was short indeed; similarly, the circle of those within the PTT who understood the interconnected nature of the Middle East Marshall Plan and the Russian sanctions issue was small, though McFarland was herself a member. At one point during the transition she writes future Trump homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert to remind him that “Russia is key that unlocks door [sic].”291 Bossert forwards McFarland’s email to four people, one of whom is Mike Flynn and another of whom is Steve Bannon.292 In the days following Flynn’s ouster, Trump will be so concerned about alienating McFarland that when his first pick to replace Flynn as national security advisor, Vice Admiral Robert Harward, says that he will only take the job if he can replace McFarland, Trump withdraws the job offer.293
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According to the New Yorker, just days before the 2016 presidential election, MBZ, “during a private meeting … float[s] to a longtime American interlocutor what sounded, at the time, like an unlikely grand bargain. The Emirati leader told the American that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, might be interested in resolving the conflict in Syria in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”294 The magazine notes that not only the UAE but Israel and Saudi Arabia backed the plan, and at various points they had “encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.”295
Almost immediately after Trump’s election, “a delegation of Saudis close to [MBS] visits the United States … and [brings] back a report [to MBS] identifying Jared Kushner as a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration.”296 The Saudis’ secret report on Kushner notes his “scant knowledge about [the Middle East], a transactional mindset and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that [meets] Israel’s demands.”297 Almost immediately, even though Trump is still only the president-elect and cannot legally negotiate U.S. foreign policy, MBS reacts to this report on Kushner by “offering [to Trump] to help resolve the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians … and offer[ing] hundreds of billions of dollars in deals to buy American weapons and invest in American infrastructure.”298 Moreover, MBS has his agents in D.C. invite Trump to come to Riyadh for his first foreign trip as president.299 The Saudi delegation to Kushner is extremely high-level, including Musaad al-Aiban, “a cabinet minister involved in economic planning and national security,” and Khaled al-Falih, “minister of energy and chairman of the state oil company.”300
In a portion of its notes on Kushner leaked to the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, MBS’s November 2016 delegation to the president-elect and Kushner reports that “[Trump’s] inner circle is predominantly deal makers who lack familiarity with political customs and deep institutions, and they support Jared Kushner.”301 According to the New York Times, another section of the Saudi delegates’ report makes “special note of what it characterized as Mr. Kushner’s ignorance of Saudi Arabia.”302 MBS’s team underscores Kushner’s unfamiliarity with the history of Saudi terrorism—for instance, the fact that nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens. MBS’s agents plan to remedy this knowledge deficit to Kushner’s “satisfaction” by “explain[ing]” to him what they describe as “their international leadership in fighting Islamist extremism.”303 The Saudis also propose an “intelligence and data [exchange] to help the [incoming] American administration carry out its strategy of investigating those requesting residency” in the United States—a proposal relevant to what will become Trump’s travel ban two months later (a ban that will, in the event, be crafted to leave Saudi travel to the United States unaffected).304
Two additional November 2016 Saudi proposals to Kushner will end up becoming active agenda items early on in the Trump presidency: the first, “a joint center to fight the ideology of extremism and terrorism,” will be inaugurated when Trump travels to Riyadh in May 2017 as part of his first foreign trip, and the second, “an Arab NATO” (see chapter 9), is presented to Kushner as “an Islamic military coalition of tens of