Thread: Has Jared Kushner Conspired to Defraud America?

Hmmm. All security clearance investigations are confidential and classified. It seems that those with security clearances with purported knowledge of Kushner's security clearance inquiries have violated their own security clearance.

Originally Posted by Judy

Hmmm. All security clearance investigations are confidential and classified. It seems that those with security clearances with purported knowledge of Kushner's security clearance inquiries have violated their own security clearance.

The info comes from an open "House subcommittee oversight hearing."
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Background check chief has 'never seen' mistakes and omissions at level of Jared Kushner forms

By Kara Scannell, CNN
Updated 1:59 AM ET, Tue February 13, 2018

(CNN)The head of a government bureau responsible for clearing background checks told lawmakers Wednesday he has "never seen that level of mistakes" when asked about numerous omissions in Jared Kushner's security clearance application.

Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, a newly created division within the Office of Personnel Management, made the comment in response to a question during a House subcommittee oversight hearing.

Democrats have called on the White House to revoke security clearances granted to Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, and Ivanka Trump over reports of their use of personal email accounts and Kushner's multiple updates to his security clearance questionnaire, known as SF-86, for failing initially to include meeting with foreign officials.

Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois asked Phalen, "can you recall if there has ever been an applicant having to submit four addenda detailing over 100 errors and omissions being able to maintain their security clearance once those errors and omission have been identified?"

Phalen said he has not seen "the breadth" of all applications "but I have never seen that level of mistakes."


Earlier in the hearing, Phalen noted that OPM did not handle the fact checking of Kushner's application. "I don't know in the particular cases you're talking about because we had no visibility in our organization into any of those activities. Those were done by other organizations."

Kushner's initial SF-86 form did not mention any foreign contacts, though he quickly supplemented it to indicate that he would provide that information. He updated the form in the spring, listing about 100 contacts, but did not mention the June 2016 meeting he attended with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump Jr., and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He updated the SF-86 forms once more in June to include that meeting.

Once the meeting was publicly revealed in press reports, it created a firestorm of interest especially after emails revealed Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting after being promised"very high level and sensitive information" that would "incriminate" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, though Trump Jr. says no such information materialized.

Trump campaign officials' meetings with foreign nationals are of interest to Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team and Congressional committees investigating Russian interference with the election.

Jamie Gorelick, an attorney for Kushner, said Thursday, "as we have previously stated, Mr. Kushner's SF-86 was prematurely submitted and, among other errors, did not list any contacts with foreign government officials. The next day, Mr. Kushner submitted supplemental information stating that he had had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" about which he would be happy to provide additional information. He submitted that supplemental information to the FBI and is cooperating fully with its background investigation."

In July, Kushner released a statement saying it was an inadvertent mistake. "I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86," Kushner said.

Earlier that month Gorelick expanded on the reason for the multiple amendments to the application form, noting, "he has since submitted this information, including that during the campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during transition. Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows," Gorelick said.

A OPM spokesman said Phelan's comments was "taken out of context" but did not elaborate.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/12/polit...orm/index.html

LOL!!

The National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) is a semi-autonomous U.S. Government agency housed within the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that is responsible for conducting security clearance investigations into individuals who need to hold security clearances for employment purposes. Creation of the agency was announced in January 2016.[1] NBIB is the primary service provider of background investigations for the U.S. Government and conducts approximately 95 percent of government-wide background investigations for more than 100 federal agencies.[2] The agency's background investigation information technology (IT) systems will be designed, built, secured, and operated by the United States Department of Defense.[3]

The NBIB Director is Charles S. Phalen, Jr., who formerly served as Vice President of Corporate Security for Northrop Grumman Corporation. Director Phalen has more than 30 years of federal service, most recently serving as Director of Security for the Central Intelligence Agency and Assistant Director, Security Division, for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[4] NBIB Special Agents go through training consisting of four weeks of classroom instruction in the Federal Background Investigator Training Program (FBITP), a field investigator course, and one year of on-the-job training.[5] The agency's National Training Center (NTC) and training programs are accredited by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Accreditation (FLETA) Board, and the American Council on Education (ACE) awards twelve undergraduate credits to those who successfully complete and pass the FBITP.[6] NBIB replaces OPM's Federal Investigative Services following a series of intelligence failures[7] and investigations conducted into USIS (company) for contract fraud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...gations_Bureau

FOX WATCHING THE HEN HOUSE.

Disgusting.

Trump needs to take charge of all his security clearances and bring them in-house inside the White House. That's his Constitutional power to protect his administration from a coup, which in my opinion is what is being attempted here. All background information during a security clearance is confidential and classified never to be revealed to the media or Congress in any type of public setting.

Judy wrote (excerpt):

Trump needs to take charge of all his security clearances and bring them in-house inside the White House.

Wow, talk about the fox watching the hen house!

No, Trump is the Big Rooster running the hen house and he needs to run all these dopey crooked CIA and FBI derelicts out of our government.

Originally Posted by Judy

No, Trump is the Big Rooster running the hen house and he needs to run all these dopey crooked CIA and FBI derelicts out of our government.

It's President Trump, not King Trump. Just wanted to clear that up.

What was confusing you? You think our government is run by the FBI and CIA? It probably has been which is why everything is such a mess. Trump will fix it.

Another Leak: Kushner’s Business Got $500+ Million In Loans After He Met With Banks At White House

ALLAHPUNDITPosted at 11:21 am on March 1, 2018



You have to feel for poor Ben Carson, who’s watching the extended Trump family convert their political influence into riches while he gets raked over the coals for $31,000 in dining room furniture.
SEE ALSO: Condi Rice to Adam Schiff: ‘I really hope you can wrap it up’

You have to feel for Omarosa too. She took a beating in the media for using her presidential connections to host bridal events at the White House. Meanwhile, Prince Jared was holding court on the premises with banks who later went on to approve mega-loans for his family business, the sort of sleaze that would have given right-wing media weeks of material if, say, Chelsea Clinton had swung it under President Hillary.

Don’t the lower-ranking guys in this syndicate get a cut? Why should the Trumps be the only ones in the administration to have fun splashing around in the Washington swamp?

Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration officials on infrastructure policy. During that period, he met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said three people familiar with the meetings. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Mr. Harris.

The job never materialized, but in November, Apollo lent $184 million to Mr. Kushner’s family real estate firm, Kushner Companies. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.
Even by the standards of Apollo, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, the previously unreported transaction with the Kushners was a big deal: It was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm, securities filings show.

The Kushner family’s firm got a $325 million loan from Citigroup last year too not long after the company’s CEO met with Jared to discuss “financial and trade policy.” Everyone involved naturally insists that the transactions were above board: Jared no longer works for the family business, Harris didn’t take part in the loan consideration process, Citigroup had had the Kushner firm as a client before, etc. But Jared hasn’t divested from the business. The Trump family’s basic indifference to conflicts of interest has allowed him to maintain the majority of his holdings in the firm even as he meets with potential creditors to discuss government matters, so he’s profiting directly from their decisions. And loan officers at the banks surely don’t need direct pressure from the top to have their decisions about the Kushner firm influenced by political considerations. If you work for Citigroup or Apollo and you know the CEO has an “in” in the West Wing with an advisor as powerful as Jared, you’re going to think very, very carefully about declining credit to the Kushner family business.

As I say, all of this would be instantly apparent to Republicans if Chelsea Clinton were the beneficiary instead of Jared Kushner. Trump himself would be doing entire “Crooked Hillary” riffs about it on Twitter, and rightly so. How strange it is, though, that we’re only finding out about these highly dubious meetings now, many months after they took place. Just like it was strange that we only found out on Monday that Kushner had maintained his own foreign contacts as a diplomat without sharing them with the NSC. There sure are a lot of damaging leaks about Jared all of a sudden, now that John Kelly’s downgraded his security clearance. It’s almost as if Kelly and his allies are airing Kushner’s dirty laundry to the press to justify Kelly’s decision to downgrade him, and to put pressure on Trump not to grant Jared any special waiver from the clearance process. CNN reported last night that Kushner has seemed increasingly “paranoid” lately about people in the White House being out to get him, but is it paranoia if people really are out to get you?

Kushner, whose business dealings and wide portfolio have been the subject of intense scrutiny, told people that he suspected the timing of the story about his foreign contacts was coordinated to be released when issues surrounding his security clearance were in the news, according to a source familiar with his thinking, who described his demeanor in recent days as paranoid…

Kushner also feels that he has come under fire from his own West Wing colleagues recently, with the notion that “everyone is out to get him,” a source said. This person noted that Kushner remains exasperated by Kelly’s decision to overhaul the security clearance process, feeling that it is mainly directed at him. He has been asking others, “Why is John Kelly doing this?”

I’m guessing Kelly’s doing it because the Rob Porter clusterfark was a thorn in his and Trump’s side for the better part of two weeks and there are plenty of reasons to believe Kushner is even more compromised than Porter was by his private dealings. If news breaks tomorrow that the president’s extremely influential son-in-law has been selling influence to foreign diplomats — and/or is being indicted by the special counsel for shady dealings abroad — that’s easily the worst crisis of Trump’s presidency so far. The chief of staff is supposed to protect his boss, right? Well, pushing Kushner out is an obvious way to protect him, even if Trump doesn’t realize it.

One X factor, though. With Hope Hicks on her way out and Javanka’s status in the White House suddenly shaky, POTUS is on the brink of being left all alone without anyone left from his inner circle. Reporters were tweeting last night that that’s a bad place to be for a man who famously seems to trust no one apart from family (or near-family like Hicks). I wonder if that’s why Trump is suddenly leaning on Kelly to find jobs in the West Wing for Corey Lewandowski and Anthony Scaramucci. As confidants like Omarosa and Keith Schiller have departed, he may have convinced himself that they need replacing with other old-school Trump cronies. Kelly may succeed in shedding Hicks and Kushner but at the price of installing Scaramucci and Lewandowski in their place. Will that make his job easier or harder?

Here’s Scaramucci this morning exacting some revenge on the man who fired him last year by insisting that morale in the White House under Kelly is at an all-time low. I wonder if he’s working with Jared and Ivanka on the sort of arrangement I speculated about yesterday vis-a-vis Lewandowski: If Trump cronies outside the White House can save Javanka by convincing Trump to fire Kelly, Jared and Ivanka may reward them by going to bat for them with new White House jobs once Kelly’s gone.

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/03/01/another-leak-kushners-business-got-500-million-loans-met-banks-white-house/?utm_source=hadaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign= nl

Senator says Kushner must go if he swayed foreign policy against Qatar for personal financial reasons

DANIEL MARANS
Mar 4th 2018 12:50PM

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Sunday “if it’s true” that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner swayed U.S. foreign policy against Qatar for personal financial reasons, he “has to go.”

“If it’s true, it’s damning. If it’s true, Jared Kushner has to go,” Murphy, a prominent voice on foreign policy, said of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
The Intercept reported on Friday that representatives of Kushner Companies, including Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi in New York in April in a bid to secure Qatari financing for the firm’s distressed signature property, 666 5th Avenue.

There was a follow-up meeting between Kushner Companies representatives and Qatari officials the following day. But a deal never materialized.

RELATED: Where Jared Kushner has traveled since becoming Senior Advisor

13 PHOTOS
Where Jared

Then, in early June, a coalition of nations led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates abruptly severed diplomatic relations with Qatar. They proceeded to blockade the small, natural gas-rich nation, ostensibly in retaliation for Qatar’s support of islamist movements abroad and cordial relationship with Iran. The blockade remains in effect.

Trump surprised many in the diplomatic community by initially backing the Saudis and Emiratis so whole-heartedly. Qatar, a longtime American partner, is home to a key strategic base for the U.S. military in the Middle East where thousands of troops are deployed.

“We could not understand why the Trump administration was so firmly taking the Saudis’ side in this dispute between the Saudis, the Emiratis and Qatar, because the United States has very important interests in Qatar,” Murphy said Sunday.

Murphy noted the large U.S. troop presence in Qatar.

RELATED: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in Saudi Arabia, Israel

17 PHOTOS

“To so firmly take the side of the Saudis against the Qataris that could potentially result in the downward spiral of the Qatari economy put thousands of Americans at risk,” he said.

Jared Kushner’s friendship with UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman raised suspicion at the time he had encouraged Trump to take a hard line against Qatar.

News of the Kushner family’s attempts to gain Qatari financing for a family-owned property raises the prospect that Kushner advised the president to side with the Saudis and Emiratis for personal financial reasons.

If verified, that should be grounds for Kushner’s ouster, Murphy said.

“If the reason this administration put U.S. troops at risk in Qatar was to protect the Kushners’ financial interests, then that’s all the evidence you need to make some big changes in the White House,” he said.

NBC News reported Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Kushner’s business discussions with foreign powers during the presidential transition, well before his father’s April 2017 meeting, later influenced American foreign policy. In addition to Qatari representatives, Kushner met with figures from Turkey, Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to the report.

The potentially damaging revelations about Kushner surfaced during an already punishing week for the Trump relative and confidant. Kushner, who had enjoyed a temporary top-secret security clearance, saw his clearance downgraded by the White House to merely “secret.”

Although the justification for the downgrade was not immediately clear, experts note that it was unusual for someone to have a temporary clearance for so long without receiving permanent access. The White House’s decision not to grant him a permanent security clearance likely sprang from intelligence agencies’ concerns that foreign governments have tried to influence him and that he initially failed to report his meetings with officials from those governments.

Also speaking on “This Week,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a onetime Trump transition team chief, implied that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump (who’s also a White House adviser), should consider stepping down from their posts for the good of the president. (As a United States attorney, Christie sent Kushner’s father to prison, which likely chilled his relationship with Jared.)

Asked by Stephanopoulos whether Trump should fire Kushner, Christie responded, “The president’s going to have to make that judgment.”

He went on to suggest that Kushner and Ivanka might do well to spare Trump the difficulty of spurning family members by volunteering their resignations.“The situation is made much worse by the fact that we have family members in the White House,” he said. “So for Jared and for Ivanka and for all the other members of the family who were involved in one way or the other, I think everybody’s got to focus on what’s best for the president.”

https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...sons/23376507/

Jared Kushner has 'got to go' if reports about his role in Qatar blockade true: Leading Democrat

• By ALLISON PECORIN
• QUINN SCANLAN Mar 4, 2018, 2:18 PM ET

PlayJason Szenes/EPA/REX/Shutterstock
WATCH Senate Democrat: Gun reform won't happen if Trump is 'not willing to lead'
A leading Democratic senator said Sunday that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner needs to leave his post if recent reports are true alleging the Trump son-in-law took a position on certain Middle East political issues in response to his family's business interests.
The Intercept reported that Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, sought financial support from the Qatari financial minister for the family business’s 666 Fifth Avenue property in New York City but failed to get it. Weeks later, Jared Kushner backed diplomatic moves, including a blockade, by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other neighboring countries against Qatar, the Intercept reported.
“If it’s true it’s damning,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" Sunday. “If it’s true he’s got to go.”

Andrew Harnik/AP, FILE
President Donald Trump speaks to White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, left, in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., April 21, 2017.
Murphy also said that the administration's support of the blockade could have endangered U.S. troops stationed in Qatar.
“If the reason that this administration put U.S. troops at risk in Qatar was to protect the Kushners’ financial interests, then that’s all the evidence you need to make some big changes in the White House,” Murphy said.
The Intercept reported that a White House spokesperson referred questions to Kushner Cos., whose spokesperson said, “We don’t comment on who Charlie meets with,” and added, “We don’t do business with any sovereign funds.”
Last week, Jared Kushner’s top-secret security clearance was downgraded after White House chief of staff John Kelly imposed new rules about clearances. The background check on Kushner for his security clearance has gone on more than 15 months as officials examine issues in his application, sources have previously told ABC News.

In addition to the report about Kushner and Qatar, The New York Times reported Wednesday that early in 2017, Kushner allegedly held multiple meetings at the White House with executives from two major Wall Street companies. After the meetings, the companies allegedly loaned more than half a billion dollars to Kushner Cos., the Times reported.

President Trump has privately expressed concerns about the potential legal trouble Kushner’s family business ties could pose for his presidency, a source previously told ABC News.
In another interview on "This Week" Sunday, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said the fact that Kushner is Trump's son-in-law makes the allegations about him more difficult for the president.
“It does make it more complicated with family,” Priebus said.

Andrew Harnik/AP, FILE
Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, attend a news conference with the president and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room of the White House in Washington, March 17, 2017.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an ABC News contributor and Trump ally, said some had advised the president against giving staff roles to family members.
“There were many of us who counseled the president… [about] members of his family having official positions, not because they weren’t competent or qualified or that the president didn’t trust them, but because when circumstances come up that the president couldn’t have been aware of, and in a normal situation, you might terminate a staff member for that reason,” Christie said.

Kushner, who has divested from parts of the family real estate company, has denied any wrongdoing in a statement. Kushner Cos. also said in a statement obtained by ABC News that his role in the White House has had no impact on their business dealings.
“To suggest that Jared, when taking on his role in the White House, has suddenly affected our long-standing relationships or that we do business differently than we have in the past is made up and without substantiation,” the statement read.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jared...ry?id=53487405