Why the closest adviser is the easiest to drop

26 October 2026 · The Law of Derivative Power

In October 2026, Vanity Fair printed an excerpt from Princes and Thieves, a new book by the investigative journalist Matthew Cole. It alleges that Jared Kushner had access to about two billion dollars from the rulers of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The money is said to have funded foreign-policy goals outside the reach of Congress. Kushner denies it and has called the reporting insane.

Nobody outside a courtroom can settle those claims. This post does not try. It asks a different question. Suppose the story runs for a year. Who gains, who pays, and what does the President do with his son-in-law?

Who is really playing

The President. He gave Kushner his position, his access and his missions. He can also take them away. He is the one player who does not need anyone else's permission to change the game.

The adviser. Kushner's standing in Washington was never his own. He held no elected office and no independent base. His power came from one relationship. That is the Law of Derivative Power in its plainest form: a power granted by another power cannot outlast its source.

The Gulf rulers. Mohammed bin Salman and Mohamed bin Zayed wanted outcomes from Washington. A channel to the President's family was cheaper and faster than a channel through the State Department. Their interest is in the channel, not in the person who happens to fill it.

The opposition in Congress. If they win the House in November, they gain subpoena power. Their real target is the President. The adviser is the door they try to go through.

The intelligence agencies. They were wary of Kushner from the first months of 2017, and his security clearance came late. The excerpt says Dutch intelligence could read his phone by early 2018. A story held for eight years and released now is a move in its own right.

The public. It will watch hearings, and it will form opinions. It is affected, but it is not a player. It has no lever on what the President does with his own family.

What each player is rewarded for

The President is rewarded for keeping power and keeping risk away from himself. His horizon is the rest of his term and his legacy after it.

The adviser is rewarded for staying protected. As long as the President stands behind him, he is untouchable. Once the President steps back, he is a private citizen with a foreign fund and a Congress that wants to talk.

The opposition is rewarded for headlines and for reaching the man at the top. Its horizon is the next presidential election.

The pattern of the last decade tells you how this kind of case tends to run. Paul Manafort pleaded guilty over his work for Ukraine. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, in a case that included undeclared work for Turkey. Both were later pardoned. Tom Barrack was charged with acting for the UAE and was acquitted. In none of these cases did investigators reach the President.

Why the adviser gets the hard missions

Here is the move that looks strange until you see the structure. Kushner and Steve Witkoff were sent as envoys into some of the hardest negotiations on earth. Neither had deep technical training for them.

From the President's side, that is a sensible bet. If the talks succeed, the credit goes to the man who sent the envoy. If they fail, the blame lands on the envoy. Heads, the principal wins. Tails, the agent loses.

Professor Jiang, who has spent years inside Chinese school politics, reads it through a Chinese idea called pengsha: flattering someone to death. You give a rival too much, too fast, until the weight of it brings him down. Whether the President intends this is unknowable. The structure does not need the intention. It produces the same result either way.

The equilibrium

Put the players together and the likely path is narrow.

The opposition investigates the adviser, because he is reachable and the President is not. The adviser stays loyal and quiet, because loyalty is his only insurance. The power to pardon sits with the President, and so does the power to withhold it. That one tool keeps an exposed adviser silent without a word being said.

The President keeps his distance in public. He does not need to attack Kushner, and he gains nothing by defending him hard. Every speech in his defence ties the President more tightly to the fund. Silence costs nothing and keeps every option open.

No one can move alone. The adviser cannot turn on the President without losing his only protector. The opposition cannot reach the President without testimony it is unlikely to get. The President cannot embrace the adviser without taking on his risk. Each is doing what is sensible, and the result holds.

That is what "dropping" looks like in practice. Not a public break. A quiet withdrawal of the thing that made the adviser powerful, so the cost of the scandal falls on him alone.

What would change the game

1. Testimony that crosses the line. If the adviser or someone close to the fund can show the President directed it, the cheap move of silence stops working for everyone. 2. The pardon taken off the table. If the President signalled that no pardon was coming, the adviser's best move would shift from silence to cooperation. 3. A Gulf ruler changing sides. The rulers care about the channel. If they open a better one, the adviser loses his last independent value. 4. Family politics. Kushner's standing runs through his marriage. Any public rift in the family weakens the one link that constitutes his power.

The general shape

The pattern is older than this case. A courtier, a chief of staff, a fixer: anyone whose power comes from one patron is exposed the same way. The closer they stand, the more useful they are, and the more blame they can carry.

A simple test you can apply to any adviser in any organisation: what would they still have if the person above them withdrew support tomorrow? If the honest answer is nothing, their power is derivative, and their patron already knows it.

Here is the claim this post makes, and it can be wrong. If the House opens a formal inquiry into Kushner's foreign funding in 2027, the White House will not spend real capital to stop it. There will be no claim of executive privilege covering the fund, and no sustained public campaign in his defence. If the President shields the fund with privilege or fights the inquiry as an attack on himself, this reading fails.

Common questions

What is derivative power?

It is power that someone else granted and can take back. An adviser with no office or base of their own holds it. So does a state whose security depends on a larger ally. The rule is simple: a power constituted by another power cannot defeat it. Everyone inside the arrangement senses the ceiling, even when no one says it out loud.

Why would a leader give a family member impossible missions?

Because the payoffs are lopsided. Success is credited to the leader who sent the envoy. Failure is blamed on the envoy. The leader carries little risk either way. This holds whether the leader means it as a trap or simply as delegation. The structure produces the same outcome regardless of motive.

Why do investigators go after the adviser rather than the leader?

Because the adviser is reachable. Investigators charge the people they can prove things about, and hope they will testify about the people above them. In recent cases involving Trump's advisers, that second step never came. The adviser had more to gain from loyalty and a possible pardon than from cooperation.

Does the pardon power change the game?

Yes, sharply. A leader who can pardon holds the only insurance an exposed adviser can get. That keeps the adviser loyal without any promise being made. The Law of the Junior Partner works the same way between states: the weaker side cannot afford to break with its protector.