Even before Trump stood up to take part in the largest inaugural ceremony ever to be held ever, Senior Son-in-Law Jared Kushner had a stack of assignments. The opioid crisis was in Jared’s scope. So was reforming the Veteran’s Administration and dealing with Chinese trade. In fact, Jared had the task of reforming the entire government. And, of course, Kushner was going to do what no one has been able to manage—broker a lasting peace in the Middle East.
But ten months in, Gabriel Sherman’s grade card for Kushner is littered with incompletes. In part, because the new principal doesn’t like him.
Since his appointment, according to sources, Kelly has tried to shrink Kushner’s responsibilities to focus primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And even that brief appears to be creating tensions between Kushner and Kelly.
Tensions. Little tensions. Because, not only has Kushner failed to pull off a miracle in Jerusalem. His talks with the Saudi royal family seem to have not only sparked a purge within the Saudi royal family, they’ve given the Saudis the impression that all this met Jared’s approval …
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have found themselves at odds of late with US State Department diplomats and Defense Department leadership, taking provocative actions by blockading Qatar; summoning Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh earlier this month, where he abruptly resigned; and blockading since Nov. 6 major Yemeni ports from desperately needed humanitarian aid shipments in retaliation for a Nov. 4 Houthi missile strike targeting Riyadh's international airport.
It appears that while Kushner failed to make any progress on his other projects, he’s pulled off a real miracle in the Middle East—he’s made it worse.
Trump’s chief of staff is none too thrilled by Kushner’s Saudi exploits.
According to two people close to the White House, Kelly was said to be displeased with the result of Kushner’s trip to Saudi Arabia last month because it took place just days before 32-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman arrested 11 Saudi royals, including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The Washington Post reported that Kushner and M.B.S., as the prince is known, stayed up till nearly 4 a.m. “planning strategy,” which left Kelly to deal with the impression that the administration had advance knowledge of the purge and even helped orchestrate it, sources told me.
Kushner is also finding himself more and more implicated in the Trump–Russia investigation. Like many other members of Team Trump, he’s proven to be extremely forgetful about both meetings with Russian contacts and emails that he reviewed or forwarded connected to cooperation with the Russian government and their pals.
As Kushner’s Russia troubles mount—last Friday the Senate disclosed that he had not turned over e-mails about WikiLeaks, a claim his attorney, Abbe Lowell, denied—insiders are again speculating, as my colleague Emily Jane Fox reported last month, about how long Kushner and Ivanka Trump will remain in Washington. Despite Kushner’s efforts to project confidence about Robert Mueller’s probe, he expressed worry after the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates about how far the investigation could go. “Do you think they’ll get the president?” Kushner asked a friend, according to a person briefed on the conversation.
Oh, it may not just be Trump who “they’ll get.” Think … closer to home, Jared.