Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law, is a senior adviser in the Trump administration. Though Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, did not have an official role during Trump's campaign, he was nevertheless seen as a "de facto campaign manager," and he later served as a member of Trump's transition team.

Though Kushner was one of the most influential people in Trump's circle — someone who enjoyed "a Rasputin-like power" with Trump — his influence has reportedly shrunk in the months since Trump took office.



Here's what you need to know about Kushner:

1. His White House transition was reportedly difficult.

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In the early days of the administration, Kushner appeared to have gotten caught up in some workplace politics. Sources told the Washington Post that observers had "been alarmed by Kushner's efforts to elbow aside anyone he perceives as a possible threat to his role as Trump's chief consigliere."

According to Vanity Fair, Kushner's adjustment to Washington has been tough. "Kushner appears unable to control both his father-in-law and those around him," wrote Emily Jane Fox. A source told Fox that Kushner's influence on Trump "may be flagging." After Kushner successfully negotiated a meeting with Mexico's president, Trump canceled it, leaving Kushner "fucking furious." Not only that, Kushnerisn't looking so great these days, according to Fox's source. "His body language and his demeanor toward Trump had changed, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight from his already slight frame in just a week."



2. He had no prior experience in government or politics.

Apart from a semester as a member of the Institute of Politics during his freshman year at Harvard, Kushner has not been engaged politically. While visiting the White House after the election, Kushner reportedly asked, "How many of these people stay?" (Answer: Pretty much none.) Though comparatively inexperienced in politics, Kushner has proved to be a quick study. "Honestly, Jared is a very successful real estate person, but I actually think he likes politics more than he likes real estate," Trump said at a rally. "But he's very good at politics."



Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon. Getty

Kushner's personal political leanings are harder to identify. He fully backs his Republican father-in-law and publishes a newspaper that has become more conservative in its leanings since he purchased it. But he has stated in the past that he admires Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, and has a framed photo of John F. Kennedy, another Democrat, by his desk. Trump has said Kushner will help broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinans, telling him at a pre-inauguration, "If you can't produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can." He has not yet been successful.

3. He was born into wealth.

Jared's father, Charles "Charlie" Kushner, founded the real estate development organization Kushner Companies in 1985 and built it into a billion-dollar enterprise. Jared had a correspondingly privileged upbringing in New Jersey. According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden, Jared benefited from the incredible advantage of being his father's son. Though he did not perform especially well academically, Jared was accepted to Harvard, reportedly after his father gave $2.5 million to the university. While at Harvard, Jared reportedly drove a Range Rover (though he has said that he "didn't have a car" in college). About driving that Range Rover though: "He didn't do it with a sense of humor," a classmate told the New Yorker. "He did it, like, 'I'm fucking rich.'"

4. He is an Orthodox Jew.

Jared Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump, converted to Judaism from Presbyterianism before the couple's 2009 wedding. Religion — specifically, the Kushner family's objection to the fact that Ivanka wasn't Jewish — was reportedly one of the reasons for their brief breakup in 2008. Now, the couple are shomrei Shabbos. They observe the Sabbath, turning off cell phones and walking instead of driving between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. Kushner did make an exception in early October, when he joined a team of Trump advisers on a Saturday to deal with the fallout of the Access Hollywood tape. He and Ivanka also received an exemption during Inauguration weekend so that they could participate in the evening celebrations.

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5. He professes that Donald Trump is not an anti-Semite or a racist.

In July 2016, when Trump tweeted (then deleted) an image from a white supremacist web forum of Hillary Clinton that featured the Star of David and the phrase "most corrupt candidate ever," Kushner defended his father-in-law in his newspaper, the Observer.

"It’s that simple, really," he wrote. "Donald Trump is not anti-Semitic and he’s not a racist." In the piece, Kushner revealed the story of his grandparents, Holocaust survivors from Poland who emigrated to the United States in 1949. His family members called him out on Facebook for it. "That my grandparents have been dragged into this is a shame," wrote Kushner's estranged cousin Jacob Schulder, according to Politico. "Thank you Jared for using something sacred and special to the descendants of Joe and Rae Kushner to validate the sloppy manner in which you've handled this campaign."

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6. He had to shoulder his family business from a young age.

Charles Kushner Getty

Jared was studying to get a dual MBA and law degree at New York University (father Charles's alma mater and the recipient of another notable donation of $3 million) when his father was sent to prison for tax fraud, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations. Jared took over Kushner Companies as CEO in 2008 when he was 27 years old, abandoning his legal aspirations. "My dad’s arrest made me realize I didn’t want to be a prosecutor anymore," Jared told The Real Deal in 2014. "Seeing my father’s situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him. I just never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to, whether right or wrong. The moral weight of that was probably a bit more than I could carry."

Taking over for his father might have happened sooner than he would have liked, but Jared was fully prepared. Charles had been bringing along Jared and his younger brother Joshua (now a tech entrepreneur and boyfriend of Karlie Kloss; they were both #WithHer) when he was doing business since they were very young children. While at Harvard, Jared had a successful side gig of acquiring buildings in Somerville, Massachusetts, and turning them over for a profit.

7. He remains incredibly close with his father.

Some suspect that Jared is a figurehead and that Charles actually runs Kushner Companies. Regardless, they work on the same floor of 666 Fifth Ave., a building Jared purchased in 2007 for $1.8 billion. At the time, it was the most anyone had paid for a building in New York City.

While his father was serving time in Alabama, Jared visited him on weekends. "He was the best son to his father in jail, the best son to his mother, who suffered terribly, and he was a father to his siblings," Charles told New York magazine in 2009. As a testament to his father, Jared said in the same New York profile, "I speak with my father about everything in my life." Before she married Jared, Ivanka described the father-son relationship as "really beyond beautiful."

8. He has many tangled social and political connections.

This is the part where the story gets even more biblical, so buckle up. Charles had, for many years, been a top political donor, giving large sums to mostly Democratic candidates, including Bill and Hillary Clinton (and Rudolph Giuliani too).

Charles also gave money to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey (the guy who resigned after admitting that his "truth" was that he was a "gay American"). After winning the 2002 gubernatorial race, McGreevey appointed Charles to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.



Donald Trump with Jim McGreevey (right). Getty

Charles's older brother Murray and a former Kushner Companies accountant brought separate lawsuits against Charles relating to his political contributions. Enter Chris Christie, then the U.S. Attorney General of New Jersey, who launched a criminal investigation.

Charles believed that his younger sister Esther Schulder was working with authorities, and he tried to blackmail her by setting her husband up with a prostitute and videotaping the sexual encounter that followed. The trap didn't work, and Charles eventually pleaded guilty to the felony charges against him. Christie later became the governor of the state, then a presidential candidate, and finally, a top Trump adviser.

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It's worth noting too that Jared, through his rise as a member of the Manhattan elite, made many friends with the city's most powerful people, including Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch and his ex-wife Wendi Deng, Chelsea Clinton and her husband Mark Mezvinsky, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and Joel Klein, former New York City schools chancellor.



9. He played a considerable role in the Trump campaign.

Jared Kushner has been credited with masterminding the campaign's social media operation. Along with Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr., he persuaded Trump to fire former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and to pick Reince Preibus as his (now former) chief of staff. He has been instrumental in smoothing Trump's relationships with Fox News, the Republican establishment, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

According to a report in Fortune, "One aide recalled having a private phone conversation with Trump when he heard Kushner’s voice unexpectedly. Trump was talking on speaker phone, the aide realized, while Kushner was in the room."

10. But his influence has since dwindled.

Though he once wielded serious influence in the White House, his power has diminished. Though he's still attempting to broker a peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he has yet to find success. And his Office of American Innovation (see point #18 below) is apparently rootless, taking on a haphazard assortment of projects. He has stepped back from public view, and taken on a reduced role in the administration. Rumors have even swirled that he and Ivanka want to leave the White House and go back to New York.

11. He seems to have an appetite for revenge.

Recall Gov. Christie's role in Kushner's father's downfall in 2004. Now, years later, Kushner has avenged his father with a breathtaking forcefulness. It was widely reported that Christie was being considered for the role of running mate; Kushner pushed for the selection of Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana instead. Christie was later put in charge of Trump's transition team; Kushner again was the agent behind Christie's eventual ouster from that role. On Monday, Christie loyalist former Congressman Mike Rogers suddenly resigned from the transition team. It was reported by NBC News to be part of a "Stalinesque purge" of anyone close to Christie.

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In another example of Kushner's reported ability to hold a grudge, staffers at the Observer have spoken about how Kushner ordered a hit piece on fellow real estate scion Richard Mack after their business relationship soured. For two years, Kushner pushed for the story, but nothing legitimate emerged in the reporting and the piece eventually got killed. Kushner denies these claims.



12. He has shown unvarnished disdain for the press.

A former Observer editor told the New Yorker that Kushner "hates reporters and the press. Viscerally." He blames the New Jersey media for damaging his family's reputation. He even said that he didn't like reading the Observer before he purchased it. "I found the paper unbearable to read, it was like homework," he told New York. Kushner also doesn't think the mainstream media had any bearing on the Trump campaign. One source told Bloomberg Businessweek that, "One thing Jared always tells Donald is that if the New York Times and cable news mattered, he would be at 1 percent in the polls." Still, he was rumored to want to start a Trump television network after the election.

13. He is intensely private.

Kushner rarely gives interviews and has no social media presence of his own other than a Twitter account that has zero tweets. When he appears on social media, it's through Ivanka's Instagram, and he is usually pictured holding one of their three children.



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14. He is genteel.



Hardly a story has been written about him that doesn't reference his politeness, or the fact that he is soft-spoken and well-behaved. "I’ve never seen any kind of erratic behavior from him," real estate lawyer Robert Ivanhoe told The Real Deal. The publicist Peggy Siegel gushed to Vanity Fair: "Besides being devastatingly handsome, he is well mannered, well bred, and so well turned out."

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15. He and Ivanka like to talk business.

The meet-cute story Ivanka most often tells is that she and Kushner met for the first time because a mutual acquaintance thought it would be good for them to know each other professionally. They fell for each other, and now they refer to it as "the best deal we ever made!" When asked in 2015 by the New York Times if his wife was involved in his business, Kushner said, "She’s a great sounding board." They support each other's work lives: "I'm happy for him when he is in the office working late," Ivanka told New York. "I know how good that feels when you sit down and return e-mails." In a Vogue profile, Ivanka shared a story about one of her date nights with Kushner. "So, my husband's idea of a date night somehow always involves me looking at one of his development sites."

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In that same Vogue story, Kushner said, "I would say she is definitely the CEO of our household, whereas I'm more on the board of directors. We both pick up slack for each other where it's needed, but she doesn't want to outsource mothering, so she's very involved."

16. He expresses pride in his growing family.

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Kushner appears to be a hands-on father from the occasional images of him with his children on social media. "You see in life that things can be taken from you, whether it's money, status or freedom," Kushner told the Guardian in 2008. "But the things that can't be taken are the things that are most important to work to achieve, such as love and family and friendships."



Kushner has also expressed his support for his wife. "She always has it in her to accomplish whatever she puts her mind to," he said in a promotional video for Ivanka's #WomenWhoWork campaign.



The feeling is mutual. "He's a bit of a hero of mine," Ivanka told New York. "His ability to remain focused — he lacks an anxiety that’s natural for someone his age handed so much responsibility. Sometimes I catch myself looking at him and being thankful that I have grown to a level of personal maturity that I would value so much the qualities he has."



17. His family was negotiating a $400 million real estate deal with a Chinese firm.

Kushner's family's New York real estate company was in negotiations to sell a stake in its Fifth Avenue flagship skyscraper to a Chinese insurance company, according to the New York Times. The insurance company, called Anbang Insurance Group, has ties to families of the Communist Party, and the results of the deal could have potentially presented a conflict of interest. While Kushner, senior adviser to Trump, would be helping to oversee American foreign policy, his family would have been receiving financial gains from a Chinese company.

When asked about the deal, then-White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, "Jared went through extraordinary lengths” to comply with conflict-of-interest rules. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks also said Kushner had sold his interest in the building to a trust in which no one in his immediate family is a beneficiary.

The New York Times also reported that a spokesman for Anbang said in a statement there was no agreement and “there is no investment from Anbang for this deal.” In February 2017 the Times reported that the deal had fallen apart.

18. He runs the White House Office of American Innovation.

Trump tapped his son-in-law to head up a new office focused on fixing U.S. bureaucracy through business-world ideas. “Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements,” the Washington Post reported. “The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens,” Kushner said. Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, and Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk are among the business leaders who work with this office.

19. He reportedly failed to disclose $1 billion in loans and his position as part-owner of the startup, Cadre.

Kushner did not reveal his stake in the real-estate finance startup on his government financial disclosure form, though his stake in the company means he is also a business partner of Goldman Sachs, George Soros, and Peter Thiel, according to the Wall Street Journal. He also failed to note at least $1 billion in loans, given to properties and companies that Kushner partly owns.

Kushner's lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, says that a new, revised version of Kushner's financial disclosure form — one that includes the Cadre stake — will be made public once it's certified by ethics authorities.

Gorelick also said it's "normal" for someone to revise his or her financial disclosure form and that Kushner has "resigned from Cadre's board, assigned his voting rights, and reduced his ownership share.”

In July 2017, updated financial disclosure forms revealed that he has a $25 million stake, not a $5 million stake, in Cadre. He also had "inadvertently omitted" more than 70 assets worth at least $10.6 million from previous forms, CNBC reports. "He and his wife also disclosed that their contemporary art collection is valued at between $5 million and $25 million," according to the Washington Post.

20. He attended a meeting with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin during the campaign.

In July 2017, the New York Times reported that Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter, reached out to Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 to try to set up a meeting with a “Russian government attorney” who had, he said, information that “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” He also said, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting and asked to include Kushner as well as then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. In a statement to the Times, he said: “I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance.” Trump Jr. posted his email chain with Goldstone on Twitter. The Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, said in a statement that “nothing at all about the presidential campaign” was discussed at the meeting and she “never acted on behalf of the Russian government.” Kushner's lawyer confirmed that he "briefly attended" the meeting.

Kushner did not originally disclose his contact with Veselnitskaya on the security clearance form required by the FBI. According to the New York Times, he has since updated his forms three times and added more than 100 foreign contacts.

In October 2017, Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, told a House subcommittee, “I have never seen that level of mistakes."

21. He denies any collusion.

Before his July 24, 2017, his closed-door meeting with the Senate intelligence committee, Kushner released an 11-page statement saying he had "nothing to hide" and "I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government." He said the meeting with Veselnitskaya was a "waste of time" and noted that he emailed his assistant to get him out of it early. And he blamed his failure to disclose foreign contacts on a miscommunication with his assistant, who he claims submitted his forms before they were complete. He also gave a statement on the White House grounds after his meeting.

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22. He was questioned by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's team about Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

In March 2017, the Senate Intelligence Committee informed the White House that, as part of its investigation into possible links between Trump associates and Russian officials or other people linked to Russian president Vladimir Putin, it wanted Kushner to answer questions about meetings involving Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to the New York Times. A meeting is said to have occurred on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower in New York and was attended by Kushner and Michael Flynn. Kushner later that month met with Sergey N. Gorkov, head of the Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told the Times Kushner would talk to investigators because “he isn’t trying to hide anything and wants to be transparent.”

In May, the Washington Post reported that according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports, Kislyak told his superiors in December that Kushner asked him about setting up a communications channel between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin. Kislyak was reportedly "taken aback" by the request, and the Washington Post wrote that people familiar with the situation say it's of investigative interest to the FBI. Kushner denied trying to set up this back channel with Russia, saying instead that he had asked Kislyak about a secure line on which to discuss policy in Syria but was told this wasn't a possibility.

A few days later, the New York Times reported that federal and congressional investigators were looking into what Kushner and Gorkov wanted to get out of their meeting. On June 15, the Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to oversee the FBI investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, was looking into Kushner's business dealings.

In November 2017, CNN reported that Kushner had met with the special counsel's team earlier that month to talk about Michael Flynn. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians in December 2017 — and, the Washington Post reported, acted in consultation with Kushner in his dealings with Russian officials. Court records indicate that a “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team” directed Flynn to contact foreign governments — including Russia — about the United Nations resolution on Israel. The Post reported that sources familiar with the situation said that official was Kushner.

23. He reportedly used a private email account to conduct White House business.

In September 2017, Politico reported that Kushner had been using a private email account, as well as an official White House email account, to correspond with White House officials. Politico verified about two dozen emails, which included exchanges with former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, released a statement, which read:

“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business. Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”

Hillary Clinton, who faced tons of criticism during the campaign for her use of a private email server, said this behavior was the "height of hypocrisy."

24. He had his security clearance downgraded.

Until February 2018, Kushner had access to top-secret intelligence, including the president's daily brief, but in the wake of the scandal in which former staff secretary Rob Porter resigned amid allegations of domestic abuse, it was revealed that dozens of White House aides, including Kushner, did not have permanent clearance because they hadn't yet passed their FBI background checks. Trump said he would let chief of staff John Kelly decide whether Kushner could keep his full clearance, but on February 2018, Politico reported that a memo – not signed by Kelly – informed all White House aides working on the highest-level interim clearances that their clearances were being downgraded.

This post has been updated.

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STORY BY HELIN JUNG Helin Jung is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles.

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