In December, Jared Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, who somehow managed to sneak into Trump Tower for the meeting, and he failed to disclose it when he applied for security clearance. Turns out, he left out dozens of meetings with foreign officials:
When Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, sought the top-secret security clearance that would give him access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets, he was required to disclose all encounters with foreign government officials over the last seven years.
But Mr. Kushner did not mention dozens of contacts with foreign leaders or officials in recent months. They include a December meeting with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, and one with the head of a Russian state-owned bank, Vnesheconombank, arranged at Mr. Kislyak’s behest.
Of course, Kushner (via his attorney) is calling this an error and saying they will submit amended forms. It’s a pretty damn big error to leave off dozens of contacts with foreign government officials. And not amend that information until it becomes public knowledge. In fact, it can be a criminal matter:
This is not just bureaucratic paperwork. The form warns that “withholding, misrepresenting, or falsifying information” could result in loss of access to classified information, denial of eligibility for a sensitive job and even prosecution; knowingly falsifying or concealing material facts is a federal felony that may result in fines or up to five years imprisonment.
One of those undocumented meetings with foreign officials took place in December, when Russian Ambassador Kislyak somehow managed to sneak into Trump Tower for the meeting. Nevertheless, the unelected, unconfirmed, unpaid advisor to Donald Trump is privy to the most sensitive intelligence we have as a nation. Just last night he was playing host, with Ivanka, to China’s President Xi and his wife.
