Even setting the scandal aside, it is clear that Kushner gradually emerged as the most powerful of Trump's senior advisers  and is not doing a very good job. His fingerprints were not on the health care disaster; and while he hasn't made relations between Israelis and Palestinians any better, he hasn't made them any worse. But he has shown absolutely no sense of how to turn intention into legislation. And his instincts are so out of tune that he reportedly advised Trump that firing FBI Director James Comey would be a sure political win, rather than the equivalent of opening the gates of Hell.