They say it’s the quiet ones you have to worry about, and in this case, it would be a senior adviser to Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, a man that stays in the shadows while also not accomplishing very much. The peace in the middle east he promised to deliver hasn’t happened, and Trump has been in office for over three and a half years. And it’s always been hard to understand why Javanka has security clearances.
On Sunday, Axios reported about the upcoming book by the New York Times’ Michael Schmidt, Donald Trump v. The United States. According to a leaked memo from former White House counsel Don McGahn to former chief of staff John Kelly, Trump’s former attorney revealed that he believed that Kushner’s security clearance should be downgraded.
“The information you were briefed on one week ago and subsequently relayed to me raises serious additional concerns about whether this individual ought to retain a top security clearance until such issues can be investigated and resolved,” McGahn wrote in the memo according to the forthcoming book.
“Interim secret is the highest clearance that I can concur until further information is received,” McGahn said in the two-page memo. It was a reference to the classified information that Kushner would have access to.
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“By reducing Kushner’s clearance from top secret to secret, McGahn and Kelly had restricted Kushner’s access to the PDB, the closely held rundown provided by the intelligence community six days a week for the president and his top aides, and other highly sensitive intelligence that exposed sources and methods,” Schmidt writes.
“McGahn did note that there was a possibility that when the background check was complete, it could be resolved in Kushner’s favor, or there could be a recommendation that he not receive a clearance,” he continues.
According to the book, in the Memo, McGahn said, “that Trump could if he chose simply disregard any security concerns and circumvent any standard procedures and grant Kushner the security clearance himself.”
Axios reports:
The bottom line: President Trump ultimately intervened to ensure Kushner got his top-secret security clearance.
Schmidt reviewed more than 1,000 pages of federal government documents that have not been previously reported on. These include sensitive materials from Mueller’s office, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s office, the White House counsel’s office, the president’s legal team and the FBI.”
So, a guy with zero political experience gets the keys to the White House, then brings onboard his family members that also have zero political experience — and here we are.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
