Saudi and Emirati leaders told Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, close advisers to President Trump, over a 2017 dinner in Riyadh about secret plans to impose a blockade on Qatar, a critical American ally in the Middle East, and bypassed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was taken by surprise when the blockade was announced, according to a transcript of an interview with Mr. Tillerson last month by a congressional committee.
Mr. Tillerson said he had no knowledge that the Saudis had told Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon about the blockade in May 2017 until a committee member asked him about it in the interview. “It makes me angry,” Mr. Tillerson said.
“I didn’t have a say,” he added. “The State Department’s views were never expressed.”
The account highlights the extent to which Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, and Mr. Bannon were running foreign policy during the administration’s first year in the world’s most sensitive regions without telling Mr. Trump’s top foreign policy officials and their agencies. The interview especially sheds light on the power wielded behind the scenes by Mr. Kushner.
