A new report that a White House official appointed by Donald Trump overruled the advice of two specialist adjudicators to award top security clearance to the president’s son-in-law has raised fresh questions about the way the White House is conducting top security matters.

Jared Kushner was awarded top security clearance giving him access to highly sensitive national security intelligence last May after a prolonged delay in his FBI background checks. Kushner had lost his full clearance a few months before, after it emerged that he had failed to disclose adequate information.

The NBC News report, published on Thursday night, suggests new intrigue within the White House over the clearance process. Two career White House officials specializing in assessing individuals for their security risk turned Kushner down for the sensitive “top secret” category, the report states.

Unnamed sources told NBC News that the adjudicators based their rejection of Kushner on FBI background checks that raised red flags over Kushner’s family’s businesses as well as his foreign contacts.

Having rejected Kushner for the clearance, the decision was reversed by Trump appointee Carl Kline, a former official in the department of defense who was put in charge of the personnel security office at the White House four months after Trump took office.

Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. He holds the role of special adviser in the White House with responsibility over the Middle East, criminal justice reform and innovation in government.

The NBC News report is likely to generate fury over the way the White House is conducted because it suggests a drastic reduction in security standards in order to benefit members of Trump’s entourage. NBC News reports that not only did Kline grant Kushner a top secret pass, he also overruled security specialists and approved clearance for other Trump appointees in at least another 30 cases – vastly more than the norm in recent presidencies.

Reaction to the news on Thursday night was swift and sharp. “This would be a major scandal for any other White House,” said Chris Lu, a former White House cabinet secretary.

Kushner’s foreign links have long been a source of anxiety in national security circles. During the transition period, after Trump had won the presidential election but before he entered the White House, Kushner had private discussions with a Russian ambassador about opening a secret “back channel” with Moscow to discuss policy.

Last February, the Washington Post reported that at least four countries had discussed the president’s son-in-law as a possible target of manipulation given his financial straits – the paper named the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico.

News of the irregular way in which Kushner procured access to very sensitive intelligence could prove difficult for the White House special adviser. On Wednesday the powerful oversight committee of the House of Representatives, now controlled by the Democrats, opened in-depth an investigation into what it said were “grave breaches of national security at the highest levels of the Trump administration”.