The WSJ has broken this new Jared Kushner story which is so bad it's good. But it’s also so good that it’s bad. First off, let’s go to the hot twitter takes:
There’s just too many good ones to put here, so I’ll end the twitter part of the diary with this one:
and now to the article:
U.S. Warned Jared Kushner About Wendi Deng Murdoch
Officials said the businesswoman could be trying to further Beijing’s interests, people familiar with the matter say
by Kate O’Keeffe and Aruna Viswanatha
WASHINGTON—U.S. counterintelligence officials in early 2017 warned Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, that Wendi Deng Murdoch, a prominent Chinese-American businesswoman, could be using her close friendship with Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to further the interests of the Chinese government, according to people familiar with the matter….
…. The counterintelligence officials didn’t provide Mr. Kushner with details about their assessment of Ms. Murdoch, the people familiar with the interaction said. The warning was part of an effort by national-security officials to highlight to Mr. Kushner, who was new to government, the need to be careful in his dealings with people whose interests may not align with those of the U.S.
and an example of the potential problems? Let’s go back to twitter:
So the NSA ultimately said “Nah” on the project, but the overarching theme here is this:
Generally, U.S. counterintelligence officials have been warning of potential attempts by the Chinese government to exploit ethnic Chinese living in the U.S. who have both access to power and family back in China, giving Beijing leverage.
Ms. Murdoch, the daughter of a factory director, came to the U.S. in 1988, studied at Yale University’s business school and later landed a job at News Corp.’s Star TV in Hong Kong, where she met Mr. Murdoch. After marrying the media magnate, Ms. Murdoch helped arrange business deals for News Corp in China and met with top politicians including Jiang Zemin, the Journal previously reported.
Ya gotta love these “dupes and marks” though. We are in such good hands!!!