On Monday night, the Associated Press published an extensive report detailing the efforts of Elliott Broidy, a top fund-raiser for Donald Trump, and his business partner, Middle East fixer George Nader, to score more than $1 billion from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by lobbying the Trump administration to adopt a harsher position on Qatar. The operation, it seems, was wildly successful. Broidy supplied the relationship with the president, and Nader allegedly had a connection with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Qatar, despite its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, has long been a critical U.S. ally in the Gulf region, providing a military base for U.S. Central Command. But Broidy, who dubbed Qatar “the snake,” helped convince Trump otherwise, using scripts prepared for him by Nader.

In the run-up to the initial meeting, Nader told Broidy the princes “are counting on you to relate [their position] blunt and straight,” and advised him to make sure to “take advantage of this priceless asset,” i.e. the president of the United States. When the two met in the Oval Office, Broidy reportedly passed “messages to the president from the two princes” relaying their interest in working together. So when Trump announced his support for the U.A.E.- and Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, Broidy and Nader were reportedly ecstatic—as were M.B.Z. and M.B.S., as the two princes are known. As Broidy reportedly told Trump during a December 2 meeting, the crown princes were “most favorably impressed by his leadership,” and offered to assist with the Middle East peace plan being devised by First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner. Kushner, after all, had reportedly developed a close relationship with M.B.S. when he took a last-minute trip to Riyadh in October—just weeks before the blockade—during which the two men apparently “stayed up until nearly 4 A.M. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy.” According to one report, Kushner even provided M.B.S with a list of names of people who were disloyal to him, based on U.S. intelligence. (A spokesperson for Kushner’s lawyer called the story “so obviously false and ridiculous” that it did not merit a response.)

Naturally, as the A.P. notes, Broidy did not share Nader’s true opinion of Kushner with the president, which was—is?—that he’s a total moron.

“You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals”—presumably M.B.S. and M.B.Z.—“think of ‘Clown prince’s’ efforts and his plan!” Nader, who was convicted in 2003 on 10 counts of sexually abusing minors, wrote to Broidy, who had been convicted in 2009 of bribing public officials. “Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn’t for who he is married to.”

Obviously, Nader and the crown princes were not alone in their assessment of Kushner‘s abilities, or in their conclusion that cultivating Boy Wonder was child’s play. In February, The Washington Post reported that the U.A.E., along with several other countries, had discussed ways to gain leverage over the senior adviser to the president by taking advantage of his “complex business arrangements, financial difficulties, and lack of foreign-policy experience.” One month later, reports surfaced that Prince Mohammed had bragged about making Kushner his own personal emissary, claiming to have the First Son-in-Law “in his pocket.”

M.B.Z., too, was eager to take advantage of the “Clown Prince,” reportedly claiming in private to have requested that Kushner convince Trump to fire former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, having used “everything in [his] power to make Kushner pass on the message that Tillerson need[ed] to be removed.” Once the deal was done, a source closed to the Emirati ruler said the prince had been “gloating to every member in the Gulf ruling families that he was the mastermind behind firing Tillerson.”

Of course, there’s always the danger that Kushner’s conflicts of interest will start to overlap. Last week introduced a new wrinkle in the Kushner-Middle East story when his family company, in desperate need of a financial bailout for its underwater Midtown tower, was reported to be close to signing a deal with a real-estate company whose largest investor is the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.

This article has been updated.