According to two senior officials, some government staffers have become “increasingly confused as they have received emails from private-industry employees on Kushner’s team and have been on conference calls with them, unsure what their exact role is in the government response.” Others involved in the pandemic response have said the involvement of Kushner’s team of outside advisers, who are, among other things, communicating with government employees from private email addresses, “raises legitimate security concerns” as to whether proper protocols are being followed. “We don’t know who these people are,” one senior official said. “Who is this? We’re all getting these emails.”

Kushner defended his role during an interview, saying his makeshift team’s goal is to bring, you guessed it, “an entrepreneurial approach” to the situation. “We’re getting things done in record speeds and are doing everything possible to avoid damage and mitigate the negative impacts,” Kushner said. “In America some of our best resources are in our private sector. The federal government is not designed to solve all our problems; a lot of the muscle is in the private sector and there’s also a lot of smart people.” The White House also defended Trump’s son-in-law, saying, “For those who are involved in the effort, they aren’t confused. For those who deal with this day-to-day, the structure is quite clear.” While it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that Kushner’s efforts coordinating with the private sector could be helpful, the fact that he “operates from a nearly untouchable perch within the White House hierarchy” and can get in a private word with the president whenever he pleases, worries some officials. Some people involved also told the Post they don’t know who is in charge at this point or if Mike Pence’s team has been sidelined. While Kushner “generally” tells the official task force what he’s doing, three senior officials said “they did not know precisely what he was working on” and that Kushner briefs the president separately. And then there’s the matter of his conflicts of interest:

One potential conflict for Kushner is the fact that Oscar, a health insurance company cofounded by Kushner’s younger brother, Joshua, last week launched its own digital portal that helps direct people to virus testing centers and assess their own risk of becoming infected. A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, including about whether Oscar plans to seek a government contract.

“The first concern is to make sure no government officials are participating in those discussions that own stock in any of those companies, because if they do or their spouse do, there’s going to be a lot of trouble,” Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the Post. He added that as long as “you clear out the conflicts...this is something that’s going to happen. This is going to be necessary. On any kind of emergency, we do use the private sector, especially in wartime.”

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