November 16, 2017
White House officials and others with knowledge on the matter told Politico on Thursday that the application Kushner filed had not yet been cleared, despite his status as Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser
December 1, 2017
Jared Kushner is a security risk embedded in the West Wing since he still hasn't passed a comprehensive background investigation required of anyone seeking a permanent security clearance—and no one will question the president's decision to put his son-in-law in a crucial government role, experts and officials told Newsweek.
Six Days ago.
“The unprecedented delay in clearance represents a violation of security norms and suggests that Kushner continues to receive special treatment due to his relationship to President Trump.”
No shit?
You want to know what else it suggests? It suggests that the FBI sees Jared Kushner as too crooked, too big a risk, to be trustworthy.
The other thing it doesn’t so much suggest, but screams, Trump just doesn’t care about any sort of risk that Kushner poses, nor any actions taken to earn that distrust. Trump will plow forward anyway. Given that reality, one wonders why the FBI doesn’t just throw up its hands, file its report recommending one be issued, given the embarrassment to the country in dealing with other nations, or simply finish up what it has and recommend the clearance be denied and see what Trump might do about it.
One can easily see why the FBI doesn’t want to give the clearance given the sheer brazenness of Kushner’s possible conflicts. In the most conflicted White House ever, Kushner manages to stand out.
At least Kushner seems to show some diversity in his conflicts and isn’t “just” Russia Russia Russia.
Earlier this month, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal published a curious article about Wendi Deng Murdoch, Murdoch’s ex-wife. According to the paper, United States counter-intelligence officials had warned White House senior adviser Jared Kushner that Deng might be using her friendship with him and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to advance Chinese interests in the U.S.
On the other hand, maybe not.
Deng, who is now allegedly dating Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the gossip magazine Us Weekly
Oh, sweet Jesus. Really?
*As an aside here, if someone is looking for evidence that Putin knew he could manipulate voter rolls to ensure, not just “help,” but ensure, a Trump victory, one might well want to look at why a global ahhh “mover” like Deng decided to pal-up with Jared and Ivanka at precisely the time that nearly every sophisticate believed that the Trumps were simply on a humiliating downward spiral to a devastating loss, yet Deng was there. Something to think about, did she know something?
Jared seems to share yet another trait with his father in-law which makes him an even bigger risk, not knowing what he doesn’t know, coupled with mind-bending arrogance. From the Vanity Fair link above:
“Why do I have more of a risk of telling her state secrets than anyone else?” Kushner said, according to The New Yorker. “Either I’m qualified to handle state secrets or I’m not qualified to handle state secrets. I think I understand my responsibilities.”
Maybe not, Jared. This is one of those “if you don’t know who is the asshole in the office, it’s you” things, where if the entire intelligence community believes you’re a security risk, and you’re the lone person insisting you’re not, you likely do need to re-think the basis for this conclusion.
Just hours ago, it was reported that these interim clearances are not the least bit hard to get, and thus Kushner’s ability to get an “interim clearance” means nothing.
The low threshold for granting what is known as an interim security clearance should be cause for alarm inside the Trump White House, says Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Cummings cited the report in calling on the committee's Republican chair, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, to help him investigate the "troubling irregularities" with the security clearances held by President Donald Trump's senior aides
Ha ha, good one, Cong Cummings.
But, it is very much noteworthy that Cummings is highly interested in “senior aides” who are unable to get real security clearances, given that many of them receive the President’s Daily Brief. It also leads me to the point of this whole review.
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All of this is nice and everything. Kushner wiggles into the villain role like a comfy sweater.
But, I think there is something much deeper at work here. I’ve written before about Jared’s extremely concerning actions involving Cambridge Analytica and Cambridge's "deep-data" approach to micro-targeting social media, and the feeling among the intel community that such mircro-targeting fit a little too perfectly with Russian actions involving Facebook and Fake News. So, too, I’ve previously noted that the single fastest way to end the Trump investigation, should speed become important, was to arrest Kushner on the obvious lies in the applications for the security clearance and force Jared to talk. When you put those considerations together with Kushner’s “security clearance issue” it leads to a conclusion that we’re perhaps too numb to see clearly.
Kushner might well be a human neon sign, flashing “Mueller is about to take us all down, sooner rather than later.”
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Think about it.
It appears that Trump is determined to include Jared as a senior advisor without regard to the massive security risk Kushner poses, intel clearance or not. We can be sure that, Trump being Trump, he would very likely order someone to give Kushner a security clearance if needed or ignore a denial on the application. So, why not either deny it altogether or issue it? The ongoing indecision is a little embarrassing and causes confusion.
The obvious conclusion is the FBI appears to be holding out for an interim period, believing that the problem will resolve itself (through Mueller) before unbearable pressure comes down from the Oval Office. The decision to withhold it is being made by some of the few people in the world who are in a position to know exactly what Mueller has, what Trump has done. These people are saying: “You will not be around long enough to require us to resolve the issue with finality. We’ll just tread water for now.”
We actually don’t get a lot of substantive indications as to the strength of the Special Counsel’s findings and ultimate case. I am throwing out there that the FBI’s continued withholding of Kushner’s security clearance and their willingness to talk about that inability in the media, means that the findings are damn strong and will make those who refused to issue the clearance look very reasonable, and sooner rather than later.
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Oh, it also means that Kushner is a greedy, self-interested little snit who would sell his country out by 9:00 a.m. if it meant getting a better loan on his dump of a building and will continue to squeeze this opportunity for every dollar he can get. It means that, too.
I think I will say this in every single diary from now on: This is not normal.