From the outset, Jared Kushner has battled headwinds against his myriad of White House projects. He famously butted heads with former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who took a dim view of such “globalist” initiatives as solving the Middle East crisis, or withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, or keeping his father-in-law, Donald Trump, from provoking a trade war with Canada. Bannon, of course, has since been cut loose from the West Wing and the president’s kitchen cabinet. But the Trump administration is never without its Lord of the Flies-style internal politics. And Kushner still finds himself at odds with another corner of the White House.

For the past six months, Kushner has been quietly building support for prison reform, Axios reports, under the auspices of his Office of American Innovation. Along with Ivanka Trump, he has convened Democratic and Republican senators; met with former inmates, policy experts, and religious leaders; and begun workshopping options to address recidivism, such as church-based awareness campaigns. For years, prison reform has garnered support from institutions as far-ranging as the N.A.A.C.P., the Democratic Socialists of America, and Koch Foundation. The White House reportedly views the issue as an easy bipartisan win—a crucial factor in the face of upcoming partisan battles over DACA and welfare reform, as well as a bitter midterm election that threatens the slim Republican majority.

Yet as Kushner angles to introduce legislation curbing the U.S. prison population, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s Justice Department is working overtime to increase it. In recent weeks alone, Sessions has revoked an Obama-era guidance that discourages federal prosecutors from pursuing marijuana cases in states where weed is legal, and rescinded another guidance designed to curtail debtors’ prisons. Last year, the D.O.J. reversed a policy reducing minimum prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, which a United States Sentencing Commission study shows will lead to an increase in rates of incarceration. This week it was reported that Sessions is aiming to seek the death penalty more often for federal crimes. An official familiar with his thinking told the Wall Street Journal that the attorney general views execution not just as a deterrent, but also a “punishment for the most heinous crimes prohibited under federal law.”

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has found itself working at cross-purposes. Last year, Ivanka launched an effort to secure a child-care tax credit, just as her own father began slashing away at women’s health initiatives in an Obamacare repeal attempt. Trump is pushing a new initiative to expand rural broadband access just as his F.C.C. is changing rules that could curb it. Other conflicting policies have more apocalyptic implications. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley often contradict Trump’s belligerent tone on North Korea, which is seemingly designed to bait Kim Jong Un into a nuclear exchange. (Trump himself seems to enjoy undercutting Tillerson in public, once chastising him on Twitter for even thinking of negotiating with Kim.) But the Kushner-Sessions kerfuffle is particularly glaring. While Trump oscillates between compassion (calling on Congress to codify DACA) and malign neglect (rescinding DACA), the Justice Department has often appeared to operate as its own fiefdom on matters of public policy.

The issue of criminal justice reform is personal for Kushner, whose father, real-estate billionaire Charles Kushner, served prison time for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering. It’s also one that could help rehabilitate his own image, uniting fiscal conservatives (who worry about prison costs) with Kushner’s more liberal-minded peers. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to see another West Wing initiative self-destruct over ideological confusion. Trump, under pressure from his right, could steer those efforts toward increased privatization of prisons, or greater reliance on religious organizations. All of which could be moot, given Sessions’s enthusiasm for mass incarceration.