Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner suffered several blows this week, from flouting ethics rules and losing access to top secret information to facing criticism from colleagues for “being tricked” by foreign officials.
Kushner faced an onslaught of unflattering headlines beginning Tuesday, after news broke that the top secret interim security clearance he had been operating on as a senior adviser to President Trump had been downgraded to that typically held by low-to-mid-level staffers. The decision was made by Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly, whom Kushner and Ivanka Trump have struggled to get along with since he assumed control of the West Wing last July.
Hours later, word spread that Josh Raffel, a senior White House communications official, was headed for the door. A longtime friend of the couple, he developed a reputation among reporters as the de facto spokesman for Kushner and Ivanka Trump, often downplaying or hyping their influence depending on the reception to a policy change or proposal.
Raffel, who was promoted to deputy communications director last fall, also worked closely with Kushner on Mid East policy and the Office of American Innovation, a division one administration official likened to the satirical news site the Onion in a New York Times story on Thursday.
Before the day was over, the Washington Post dropped a devastating report about the ways in which officials from China, Israel, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates had sought to manipulate Kushner by exploiting his “complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.”
“Officials in the White House were concerned that Kushner was ‘naive and being tricked’ in conversations with foreign officials,” the Post reported, claiming that some foreign officials refused to deal with anyone but Kushner inside the Trump administration.
The headlines only grew worse for Kushner in the 48 hours that followed Tuesday’s blistering news cycle.
Several sources told Bloomberg on Wednesday that Kushner had become the focus of an investigation by New York’s Department of Financial Services. The state’s banking regulator had reportedly asked Deutsche Bank and two other lenders for information on credit lines and loans that had been extended to Kushner and his family’s Manhattan real estate business.
Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, claimed the investigation was politically motivated, describing the Kushner family business as “a multibillion dollar enterprise that is extremely financially strong.”
“Before our CEO voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries,” Taylor said in a statement. “These types of inquiries appear to be harassment solely for political reasons.”
Two days later, the Intercept published a lengthy report detailing Kushner’s endorsement of a Middle Eastern blockade against Qatar just weeks after the country’s minister of finance refused to offer financial support for a troubled New York office tower owned by Kushner Companies.
The company’s meetings with Finance Minister Ali Sharif al Emadi and other Qatari officials, led by Kushner’s father Charles, occurred the week of April 24, 2017. Less than two months later, a host of Arab countries cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed trade and travel bans on imports and immigrants from the Gulf country. Several news outlets later reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were furious over Kushner’s support for the economic embargo.
And on Friday, NBC News reported that special counsel Robert Mueller had instructed his team to look into whether Kushner’s private-sector interests ever influenced White House policy. According to the report, federal investigators are specifically looking into discussions Kushner had with officials from Russia, Turkey, Qatar, China, and the UAE.
Any of the issues Kushner is facing would lead outsiders to believe his time in the West Wing is limited. However, a source close to the administration said he and Ivanka “are hanging in there.”
“He’s not going to pack up his things because he had a shitty week,” the source said, referring to rumors that Kushner and Ivanka Trump may be looking to return to New York earlier than expected. “Unless and until the president asks him to leave, I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
The source added that the same situation goes for Kelly, who himself has faced criticism over his recent handling of staff secretary Rob Porter’s resignation, following reports of spousal abuse.
But unlike Kushner, the president’s chief of staff maintains access to the government’s most sensitive information, allowing him to perform his job without the burden of being restricted from viewing classified intel.
“For someone like Jared Kushner with a very broad remit, it’s very hard to conceive of how he could functionally do his job” going forward,” Laura Terrell, an attorney who served on the White House clearance counsel during the George W. Bush administration, told Time earlier this week.
