Working in government is about teamwork, majority-building and addition — adding more and more people to your coalition. It is about working within legal frameworks and bureaucratic institutions. It’s about having a short memory and not taking things personally.
Clannishness, by contrast is about tight and exclusive blood bonds. It’s a moral approach based on loyalty and vengeance against those who attack a member of the clan. It’s an intensely personal and feud-ridden way of being.
.. apparently trusting the Russians not to betray him, apparently not understanding that these conversations would be surveyed by the American intelligence services, possibly not understanding how alarming they would look to outsiders.
Keeping Kushner would make Trump’s Russia nightmare permanent
are family ties keeping Kushner employed at the White House? Or is it Trump’s mounting sense of persecution and his reluctance to let an aggressive media push him around?
- First, Barack Obama was still president at the time; while it is normal for an incoming administration to have informal meet-and-greets with foreign officials, Kushner’s proposal was so inappropriate that Kislyak was said to be stunned.
- Second, the idea of using only Russian communications equipment for the proposed dialogue suggests the Trump administration had something to hide from U.S. intelligence agencies.
- Third, there is the obvious question of what Kushner wanted to talk about that couldn’t be discussed through existing channels.
The White House should thus be settling in for a long siege. The good news, from Trump’s point of view, is that his senior aides are discussing how to set up a “war room” to handle communications about the scandal
.. Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer, was caught on video trying to lure Beijing investors into participating in a Kushner Companies condominium project in New Jersey by holding out the prospect of immigration visas that could lead to permanent residence in the United States.
.. no communications strategy, however brilliant, has a chance of succeeding so long as Trump has access to his Twitter account.
Grassley wants review of Chinese company’s marketing of deal with Jared Kushner’s family
The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling for a review of “potentially fraudulent statements and misrepresentations” made by a Chinese company in promoting property investments that are partly managed by the company of senior White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family.
.. “As I’m sure you are aware, recent press reports indicate that Qiaowai has touted its relationship with the current administration as a guarantee that potential EB-5 investors will receive lawful permanent residence in return for a no-risk investment in One Journal Square,” Grassley wrote in his letter.
.. the company advertised that the project “in a real sense guarantees a permanent green card and the safety of the investment principal, and we consider it one of the best of Qiaowai’s 87 projects to date!”
Why Would Jared Kushner Trust Russian Officials So Much?
A Washington Post report suggests the president’s son-in-law and adviser sought to give Moscow information he wanted to conceal from America’s own intelligence agencies.
.. If Kushner did in fact make the request, that alone would have put him in a compromising position, since Russian officials could have used it as leverage against him.
But what is also peculiar is the level of trust Kushner would have been placing in Russian officials in asking for such a communications channel. Foreign affairs is often complex, yet Kushner didn’t want the U.S. government’s help—or supervision.
.. “It shows a level of trust in Russian intelligence, and Russian diplomatic personnel beyond the level of trust afforded to American intelligence and American personnel.”
.. Communicating with Moscow using Russian facilities could have shielded Kushner’s correspondence from U.S. intelligence agencies, without denying their Russian counterparts the same access.
.. “The only reason you would operate that way is if you were hiding something from your own government. That’s it. That’s the only plausible explanation,”
.. Reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have cited anonymous administration officials claiming that the purpose of the communications would have been to discuss the Syrian civil war. But that explanation raises similar issues: If that was the topic, why would Kushner want to cut out U.S. officials? And why couldn’t it wait until after the transition?