Jared Kushner's Worst Week In Washington
CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 5/30/2017, 12:45 p.m.
(CNN) -- The Secretary of Everything is suddenly in trouble.
Jared Kushner, he of the marriage to Trump daughter Ivanka and the massive portfolio in the White House, reportedly sought to set up a secret back-channel with the Russians during the presidential transition -- a major no-no that raised even more questions about the campaign's ties to a foreign government and Kushner's viability in the White House.
"This is off-the-map," former CIA Director Michael Hayden told Hayden told CNN's Michael Smerconish this weekend. "I know of no other experience like this in our history, certainly within my life experience."
According to The Washington Post, which first reported the story, Kushner in early December huddled with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to discuss the possibility of an off-the-books communications operation with the Russians, Kislyak told higher-ups in Russia. The Post reported that "Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications." Michael Flynn, the national security adviser-in-waiting, also attended.
The news of the secret channel proposal came in the same week that Reuters reported that Kushner had three unreported contacts with the Russians between April and November of last year. And that Kushner is now a focus of the federal investigation into the Trump campaign now being run by former FBI director Robert Mueller.
The knives quickly came out for Jared, who had, until now, enjoyed untouchable status within the Trump orbit because he is family. This, from Politico, is telling:
"Kushner, who some say has sealed himself off from the competing White House power centers, may now be in a position of needing allies. And the pool of people in New York City eager to come to his defense has shrunk."
Those same stories also make clear that Kushner isn't planning to go anywhere. And the fact that he is family -- the one (only?) thing Trump is ultimately loyal to -- makes it less likely that Jared will go anywhere. But, sometimes you don't get to decide when -- or if -- you go.
Jared Kushner, for turning from Secretary of Everything to Secretary of Eh????, you had the Worst Week in Washington. Congrats, or something.
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