Trump’s son-in-law, among the president’s closest advisers, has had a number of questionable contacts with foreign officials

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Early this month, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, placed a delicate call to the White House. A hitch had developed that would further delay top security clearances for Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

The call came at a bad time for the West Wing. Two days earlier, the resignation of the staff secretary, Rob Porter, had focused public attention on the fact that an unknown number of White House aides were still working with only interim clearance status.

This after Donald Trump had won the presidency while repeatedly demanding that his opponent be thrown in prison for mishandling classified information.

But as Rosenstein’s call made clear, the Kushner delay was especially problematic. Kushner was closer to the president than almost anyone else, with more responsibilities than any other aide, and his clearance application had raised more red flags within the intelligence community.

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Rosenstein did not tell the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, what the apparently new problem with Kushner was, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the call.

Which leaves the increasingly urgent question still open: why can’t Kushner gain clearance?

The White House has declined to comment on Kushner’s failure to gain security clearance while expressing confidence in his work. It is unclear whether the White House knows or suspects the reason for the Kushner delay; Trump’s aides professed shock when allegations of domestic abuse emerged against Porter.

Kushner and others have for now been stripped of top-secret clearance, according to reports on Tuesday – although as president, Trump may continue to share any information he pleases with his relations or anyone else.

It is unclear whether the latest hitch in the clearance process for Kushner relates to the regular background checks process conducted by the FBI, or to the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Rosenstein, who made the call to the White House, oversees both.

Kushner was interviewed by Mueller’s team last November, in a session that was said to focus on a meeting Kushner held during the presidential transition with the former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Kushner reportedly asked about setting up back-channel communications with Russia.

Kushner has denied making the request of Kislyak. Also in the meeting, however, was the future national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with Mueller.

If the story Kushner told investigators about the Kislyak meeting or a different meeting conflicts with Flynn’s story or other evidence, Kushner may be in criminal legal jeopardy. Kushner has denied all wrongdoing.

With a vacuum of reliable public information about Kushner’s security clearance delays, reporting led by the Washington Post has indicated that Kushner’s contacts with foreign officials, and those officials’ regard for him as an easy target, have been a factor.

The national security adviser, HR McMaster, was surprised to learn in his daily intelligence briefing, the Post reported, that Kushner had bypassed him in the White House to take meetings with foreign officials who, it turned out, saw Kushner as pliable.

“It was a dream come true” for Chinese diplomats to deal with Kushner, a former national security council member told the New Yorker. “They couldn’t believe he was so compliant.”

Kushner’s legal team declined to comment on reports that he was seen as an easy target by foreign officials. “We will not respond substantively to unnamed sources peddling secondhand hearsay with rank speculation who continue to leak inaccurate information,” a spokesperson said.

Kushner has had trouble in the past with undeclared meetings. In initial filings to gain security clearances, he omitted more than 100 calls or contacts with foreign officials or entities and at least 70 assets, oversights he later blamed on inexperience and overwork.

Those omissions included a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russian operatives, and a meeting during the presidential transition with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian bank Vnesheconombank, which is subject to US sanctions.

Gorkov said they discussed potential business deals, which Kushner denied.

Kushner’s business dealings are the focus of intensive speculation as to why he cannot gain security clearance. Kushner claimed to have divested from his family real estate firm, Kushner Companies, when he joined the White House, and last July he said: “I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.”

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But Kushner Companies appears to need money. Next year, a $1.2bn debt comes due on the company’s flagship property, 666 Fifth Avenue, purchased by Kushner at a record price at the height of the real estate bubble.

Kushner pursued but failed to obtain a $500m bailout from the former Qatari prime minister, the Intercept reported last July. Kushner denied the report. Kushner companies also sought financing from China’s Anbang Insurance Group.

In the spring of 2017, Kushner’s family firm received about $30m from one of Israel’s largest financial institutions, the New York Times reported. Shortly afterward, Kushner made his first trip with Trump to Israel as the president’s official envoy on Middle East peace.