Had this secure communications plan been implemented, [Michael] Flynn and/or [Jared] Kushner, if using the channel, could have potentially: There is plenty of public information available—and presumably classified information available to White House officials—that details Russian foreign intelligence efforts. If one knows that a secure communication line exists between U.S.-based diplomatic facilities and Moscow; one certainly knows why it exists. An effort on the part of an American government soon-to-be official to evade U.S. government intelligence collectors by using secure communications out of foreign facilities, comes awfully close to the line of aiding and abetting the clandestine intelligence activities of a foreign power that presumably take place out of those very facilities.

The propriety of Kushner’s alleged behavior is not a close call, nor a matter of reasonable debate. That Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and others would bless conduct inimical to the United States’ national security interests illustrates how far these officials are willing to go to defend the president at the expense of their obligation to deter conduct that poses a national security risk.

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We should be as concerned about the Kushner allegations as we are about top national security officials opening the door to future political candidates, lower-level government officials and, to be blunt, suspected spies, who will claim back channels are “always a good idea” or “business as normal.”

More generally, watching military figures get sucked into the brew of partisan spin should make us all uncomfortable. “The thing that troubles me is that it is a backdoor way of politicizing the military,” cautions Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute. “Politicians of all stripes have begun to hide behind the uniforms, but the Trumpers take it to new heights. And it’s especially egregious in the case of [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis, Kelly and McMaster, because of their successes in command.” He adds, “No one event necessarily stands out — although the content of the back-channel communication could make it such, depending on what it turns out to be — but the total effect is increasingly ruinous.” This should be one more reminder that civilian government should be civilian, not a retinue of current or just-retired military men.

Here’s an idea for a responsible member of Congress: Introduce a bill to make it illegal for anyone with a national security clearance to set up a channel with an adversary using that adversary’s communications, unless approved by the president or his designee. Would Republicans vote against such a measure? If the propriety of such a rule is self-evident, it is hard to fathom how they can dismiss Kushner’s alleged conduct or continue to trust the professional judgment of Kelly or McMaster.

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Listen, Hillary Clinton was deemed to be unfit for the presidency for setting up a server that Russians could have hacked into, thereby gaining access to classified material and/or compromising U.S. officials. Had she done this with the intent to make information available to the Russians but not the intelligence community, she would have been labeled a traitor or a spy.