For more than a year, Jared Kushner has snuffed out any whiff of insurrection against him, outlasting a stream of White House aides. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Kushner shifts to 2020 campaign talk amid clearance downgrade The presidential son-in-law and adviser was at work as usual on Wednesday, despite a series of blows to his role in the White House.

Jared Kushner showed up for work at the White House on Wednesday and acted like everything was normal.

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser attended the daily senior staff meeting, where he launched into a discussion about Trump’s 2020 reelection bid, according to an administration official.


He was in the meeting despite his recent security clearance downgrade, first reported Tuesday by POLITICO, and a Washington Post story that detailed discussions among foreign officials about using Kushner’s tangled business relationships to manipulate him.

For more than a year, Kushner has snuffed out any whiff of insurrection against him, outlasting a stream of White House aides — from former chief strategist Steve Bannon to former chief of staff Reince Priebus — who had tried to take him down or minimize his role in his father-in-law’s administration.

Now, he is in an increasingly tenuous position, restricted in his ability to view information and limited in his duties — and there is growing speculation about his future in the White House.

The resignation of White House communications director Hope Hicks, a longtime aide who has served as a trusted confidante to both Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, as well as to the president, is another blow to the couple, whose easy access to the Oval Office has been curtailed by chief of staff John Kelly.

Amid the furor, Trump’s closest allies have begun defending Kushner, insisting that his clearance downgrade won’t prevent him from doing his job.

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“I think if the president feels like Jared is able and loyal and willing, he absolutely should keep him on the team, and I encourage Jared to stay just as long as he has the energy and the dedication to serve,” said American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, who regularly talks to the president.

But those in the administration who have long resented Kushner are quietly experiencing some schadenfreude over the firestorm.

“Let’s not forget the early, eye-rolling days when the national security and foreign policy trio was of Reince, Bannon and Jared who have now been replaced by Kelly, McMaster, Mattis, and Tillerson,” an administration official told POLITICO. This person added that these days, people “whose first title does not begin with secretary, general or director” are at a disadvantage when it comes to national security and foreign policy.

Kushner’s recent focus on the 2020 election has led some in the White House to wonder whether he’ll eventually transition out of the West Wing to become an adviser to his father-in-law’s reelection bid. Trump’s newly announced campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is a close ally of Kushner’s and the two men speak on the phone regularly.

Kushner has seen his close circle of allies shrink in recent weeks with the departure of Reed Cordish, a staffer in Kushner’s Office of American Innovation, and the decision by spokesman Josh Raffel, a key defender of Kushner and his wife, to leave the administration in the coming months.

People close to Kushner do not expect him to make a sudden departure — unless more damaging news stories make his continued presence in the White House untenable. If he does leave, he’s expected to do so on his own terms, administration officials said.

Even before this week, Kushner had become a regular subject of gossip in the White House as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election heats up. For weeks, some aides have been reluctant to speak freely in front of Kushner because they see him as a potential target of Mueller's probe, according to the administration official.

Kushner’s moment under the microscope has coincided with White House chief of staff John Kelly’s rise. Since joining the White House in July, Kelly has sought to limit access to Trump and eliminate any perceived special treatment that the president might give to favored aides.

Kelly has sometimes disagreed with Kushner, while Kushner, for his part, has sometimes resisted Kelly’s efforts to limit his access. But the White House insists that the two men have a good relationship, pointing to an unusual statement Kelly issued last week voicing confidence in Kushner.

“As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,” Kelly said in the statement.

A White House spokesman declined to comment further.

While administration officials insist the backstabbing that characterized Trump’s first few months in office has died down, they acknowledge that powerful allies are essential to survival in this administration.

As a result, Kelly is looking shore up his power base in the White House.

The retired Marine general has started looking outside the White House for a principal deputy chief of staff, a position he hasn’t been able to fill since his former No. 2, Kirstjen Nielsen, was confirmed to replace him as Secretary of Homeland Security in December, according to two people familiar with his plans.

Most of the major figures in the Trump White House came to the West Wing surrounded by loyalists — Bannon with like-minded colleagues from Breitbart, Priebus with a team from the Republican National Committee, and Kushner and Ivanka Trump with their own communications aide. Kelly arrived with a much smaller circle, composed principally of Nielsen and his former military aide, Zach Fuentes, and he has struggled to build it back up since Nielsen’s departure in early December.

Kelly’s decision to look outside the White House for a deputy comes after a failed attempt to replace Nielsen with somebody already serving in the administration: He told associates he was disappointed in the performance of Jim Carroll, an administration lawyer who joined the West Wing as deputy chief of staff in December. The White House nominated Carroll as national drug czar earlier this month.

The churn in Kelly’s office is a reflection of two persistent challenges for the Trump administration: retaining the talent it has and replacing valued aides as they depart or move to fill more senior positions.

The chief of staff is also expected to look for a deputy chief of staff for policy, a step toward reinstating a role that’s been key in previous White Houses but that the Trump administration has never filled. The former White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, who left the administration earlier this month after two ex-wives accused him of domestic abuse, was at one point a candidate for that position.

Nielsen served in the White House as Kelly’s no-nonsense enforcer and was integral to his attempt to impose discipline on the unruly White House that he inherited.

Without trusted deputies, he has had more difficulty managing the White House. The Porter scandal made clear that the order he has brought to the White House has not been cost-free, as many presidential aides were quick to use it as an opportunity to undermine him.

Even so, he has succeeded where others, including Bannon and Priebus, failed — in going up against Jared Kushner and, at least for now, winning.

Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.

