The news that Jared Kushner had lost his high-level security clearance, on Tuesday—a decision that cost him access to the all-important President’s Daily Brief and potentially jeopardized his work on Israel and the Middle East—is precisely the sort of story that Josh Raffel knew how to spin. As was the report that came out shortly after from The Washington Post, which said that officials in at least four countries have privately talked about how they could potentially manipulate Kushner based on his political inexperience and tangled web of financial debts. It was a skill that elevated the senior communications aide from a little-known spokesperson for the Office of American Innovation into a one-man crisis manager, P.R. consultant, and familiar adversary for those reporting on the resident West Wing princeling.

Raffel, a Democrat and former Clinton supporter, never became a household name or target of the Saturday Night Live writers’ room. He never appeared on CNN to offer vociferous defenses of the president, like Kellyanne Conway; or challenged media reporters to a duel, like Sebastian Gorka. He never dropped f-bombs or conjured for the world the gruesome image of a self-fellating Steve Bannon, like Anthony Scaramucci. But among reporters covering the White House, and, in particular, anyone writing about the second First Couple, Raffel was the first line of defense.

It is unusual for two White House aides to essentially bring in a personal flack to mostly oversee their own press. But Raffel’s relationship with the Trump-Kushners dated back far before the White House. He worked for the New York crisis P.R. firm Hiltzik Strategies, alongside now-White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. Back in New York, Raffel handled press for both Ivanka’s brand and Kushner Companies at various points before moving on to work for the horror-flick giant Blumhouse Productions. In April of last year, the couple recruited their old pal to oversee communications for Kushner’s Office of American Innovation, but he soon took on a much larger role within the administration, partly due to the fact that the communications shop was shorthanded, and partly due to the constant flood of news that the Trump West Wing produced each day. And, in large part, it had to do with the effectiveness with which Raffel did his job. He seemed to flack for his clients in the way that would have made the fictitious John Miller proud.

Last year, when I reported on the Office of American Innovation, a team seemingly filled with Kushner mini-mes, two of his former colleagues said that Raffel had earned the trust of both Kushner and Ivanka Trump by working hard, understanding their sensitivities and priorities, and not creating drama of his own. (The value of that last quality could not be overstated in an administration where Omarosa Manigault was reportedly escorted out of the building for overusing the White House car service.) While Trump staffed his West Wing with amateurs, Raffel appealed to reporters as the rare pro. He promptly returned phone calls and tried to stomp out palace-intrigue gossip where he could. And when it came to the Trump-Kushners, he also pushed back on anything reporters planned to report about them, particularly during unpleasant news events, such as, say, the loss of Kushner’s security clearance.

On Tuesday, however, Raffel finally became the story. Shortly after White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refrained from commenting on the status of Kushner’s clearance in the White House briefing, Axios reported that Raffel was leaving—a significant blow to the Jivanka rump state. According to Axios’s Jonathan Swan, Raffel’s departure is reportedly a mixture of family obligations and a desire to return to the private sector. Even if long planned, as Axios reported, it leaves Kushner at a time when he is most vulnerable. Without his high level of security clearance, and with special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly breathing closer down his neck, the need for a Raffel-like flack is perhaps most necessary. Whether this means they will recruit a new trusted figure to fill his role, or if it signals that Kushner could be on his way out of the White House with Raffel, is, for now, unclear. All we know is that Raffel may now get to work on spinning his own next act.