JARED KUSHNER CAN’T PASS HIS SECURITY CLEARANCE INVESTIGATION, OFFICIALS SAY

JARED KUSHNER CAN’T PASS HIS SECURITY CLEARANCE INVESTIGATION, OFFICIALS SAY

BY CHRIS RIOTTA ON 12/1/17 AT 6:00 AM

U.S.

Updated | 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.

President Donald Trump's senior adviser has been working under an interim security clearance nearly a year into the administration, as investigators continue to assess his trustworthiness and analyze his web of active foreign investments, according to two sources with knowledge of the status on Kushner's clearance.

Kushner's permanent security clearance was stalled because he initially omitted 100 foreign contacts before revising his forms three times. Kushner's complicated business interests are also being considered after he repeatedly revised financial disclosure forms. But experts said the sheer volume of his ongoing ties to foreign investors is enough to deny anyone access to classified information.

The real question is, Why hasn't his clearance been denied?" said Alan Edmunds, a senior attorney specializing in security clearance law at the Edmunds Law Firm. "Of course, the real reason it hasn’t been denied yet is because nobody has the moxie to tell the president his son-in-law can't be working in the White House, even though he shouldn't be."

The process for getting a government security clearance is well established: Adjudicators from the FBI comb through a form called an SF-86 while making an official assessment as to whether someone can be trusted with the nation's secrets. Those analysts take into account personal history, such as employment, relationships, foreign entanglements and business deals—and review revisions and mistakes that would-be officials have made on their disclosure forms.
Kushner has updated his forms to add a slew of Russian contacts he had throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, following a pattern of not properly disclosing information on government records.

Related: Jared Kushner hid one of his companies on a disclosure form—then profited


Experts say Kushner's original SF-86 questionnaire may have violated the personal conduct code in federal directives for security clearance applicants, since his failure to disclose any foreign contacts on his original forms could be considered the equivalent of making false statements.

Newsweek spoke with seven of the nation's leading law firms specializing in security clearance law, with clients throughout the Trump administration and federal government. All seven said Kushner's security clearance should be suspended until investigators can determine whether his failures to disclose information were intentional. Meanwhile, the White House has claimed the delay in Kushner's clearance is normal due to a backlog in applications.


http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...33089310_0.jpgFor months, Democrats have called for Jared Kushner’s security clearance to be revoked.NICHOLAS KAMM, GETTY"People occasionally treat this like it’s a minor deviation from the truth, the way a person may deviate from the truth on income tax filings, but it’s not just a deviation," Mary Kuntz, a Washington, D.C., attorney at Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, P.C., told Newsweek. "It's serious.... It’s evidence you can't be trusted and makes the likeliness of you getting a security clearance even less."

Kushner's attorneys have maintained their client's innocence from the very beginning, claiming the senior adviser has always tried to be honest and transparent despite his records routinely featuring extensive mistakes. Ethics watchdogs have previously lambasted the former tech entrepreneur and budding real estate magnate for not including one of his companies on a government financial disclosure form, in a move that allowed him to maintain a stake in the young startup while profiting from its explosive success during his transition to public service.

"It's one thing if you call in and admit to forgetting one or two contacts.… Let’s face it, some people in government have multiple foreign connections," Greg Rinckey, a founding partner at Tully Rinckey, told Newsweek. "But when you forget a hundred, that’s concerning. The whole point of security clearances are to minimize threats. All this shows a lack of candor on Kushner’s part, a major issue with receiving a clearance."

Even if his forms were completely accurate from the start, however, Kushner's foreign business dealings would immediately raise investigators' eyebrows.

Kushner maintains a stake in several businesses and properties with international ties, including a 41-story office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City, on which his family business, Kushner Cos., reportedly owes hundreds of millions. To raise funds, the company has sought foreign investment from China, Saudi Arabia, France, Israel and Qatar.

Experts say his stake in the Fifth Avenue building alone is more than enough to cause a suspension of an interim security clearance, as some believe he could use his position in the White House to bail out his family's investment.

"If Jared Kushner was working for any other department in the U.S. government and these issues arose…about falsifying a clearance or omitting information…his access would be first suspended. And then if there’s no other position he could hold, he’d be out of work without pay. He’d be off the job," Joseph Kaplan, founding principal attorney at Passman & Kaplan, P.C., told Newsweek. "If he was anybody else, his security clearance would have already been denied."

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...zP_normal.jpegTed Lieu
✔@tedlieu


Today is Thursday. That means we need to ask again: Why does Jared Kushner still have a security clearance? Also, why does Ivanka have one? https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/918433582183567360 …
8:55 AM - Oct 12, 2017

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Democrats have been sounding the alarms on Kushner’s security clearance ever since Trump took office, questioning how he and his wife, White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, managed to obtain access to classified information, and what qualifications permitted them to work in the West Wing.

"I find it demoralizing. I'm a member of Congress, and I've had a security clearance when I was in the Air Force. I know if I submitted two false clearances, they would have me under investigation," Representative Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who has long advocated for Kushner’s security clearance to be revoked, told Newsweek.
"If I also was responsible for a $1.2 billion debt on a building in which half is attributable to me and my family, they would simply not give me a security clearance," Lieu added. "We also need to ask: When Jared Kushner takes trips to foreign countries, is he asking foreign officials to help him finance the 666 building?"

Several requests for comment from Kushner’s legal team and the White House communications office went unanswered. Representatives from federal agencies involved in the security clearance application process declined to comment on the record, citing a practice of not commenting on specific applications.

Regardless of whether Kushner is actually qualified to get a security clearance, little is likely to change in the West Wing, as the president has the ultimate authority in determining whether his son-in-law and Middle East peace envoy eventually receives a permanent clearance.

"The entire security clearance process comes down to the president," said Sean Bigley, an attorney who did background checks for security clearances and worked in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush. "It would be extremely rare—almost unheard of—though [Trump] could order a clearance to be granted, or reverse an adverse decision made by adjudicators if he wanted to. But most of the time we see these cases are left to nonpolitical career personnel."


http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...-624466188.jpgKushner remains in the White House despite multiple failures to disclose his foreign contacts and business assets.
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http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushne...d-trump-723993

Okay, it's time to show Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to the door! Being Trump's son-in-law and daughter does not entitle them to special treatment where our nations security is concerned. Kushner sound like a very shady character with plenty of reason not to be trusted with our nations secrets!

Debt may be one of the problems preventing him from getting a security clearance. Massive amounts of debt doesn't exactly make one a good risk. Folks drowning in debt become desperate.

Jared Kushner needs a billion dollars—and isn't picky about how he gets it



https://images.dailykos.com/avatars/...jpg?1454078865
By Mark Sumner
Thursday Aug 31, 2017 · 9:06 AM EDT


https://images.dailykos.com/images/4...jpg?1500919030


Jared Kushner and other members of his family real estate firm have twice been caught using Kushner’s closeness with Trump as a means of peddling $500,000 deals that come with an inside track to a US visa.

Now Bloomberg has made it clear why Kushner was willing to risk running afoul of regulators. He really needs the cash.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood.

In fact, Kushner’s financial situation is so precarious, that it might be driving more than just his efforts to sell Chinese investors on his ability to get Trump’s attention.

The mortgage on their tower is due in 18 months. This has led to concerns that Kushner could use—or has perhaps already used—his official position to prop up the family business despite having divested to close relatives his ownership in many projects to conform with government ethics requirements.

Like Donald Trump, it’s hard to determine just how much Jared Kushner is really worth. But the speed with which he’s been burning through other resources, and the desperation to make a deal with foreign investors, suggests that Kushner is in a very tight spot. Because the depth of the hole his company dug to buy this white elephant of a building is staggering.

It was 2006—the height of the real-estate market boom—when Kushner Cos. agreed to buy 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, then a record for a Manhattan building. All of it was borrowed except for $50 million. The company still holds half of a $1.2 billion mortgage, on which it hasn’t paid a cent. The full amount is due in February 2019.

Kushner bought at the market peak, and hasn’t managed to either unload the building or secure additional partners. Instead, supporting 666 5th is causing the family to run through their remaining assets.

The family, once one of the largest landlords on the East Coast, sold thousands of apartments to finance its purchase of the tower in 2007 and has borrowed extensively for other purchases. They are walking away from a Brooklyn hotel once considered central to their plans for an office hub. From other properties, they are extracting cash, including tens of millions in borrowed funds from the recently acquired former New York Times building. What’s more, their partner in the Fifth Avenue building, Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steve Roth, has stood aside, allowing the Kushners to pursue financing on their own.

And while it may seem that Kushner has billions in other real estate holdings, the truth is that many of these sites are little more than the kind of naming deals that his father-in-law often arranges.

One Brooklyn development site purchased in 2014 for about $75 million and heralded by the real estate press as “Jared Kushner’s big Gowanus project”—so-named for the canal it abuts—is in fact barely owned by the Kushners at all. SL Green Realty Corp., their partner in the endeavor, owns 95 percent of it, according to a regulatory filing. The remaining 5 percent is split between the Kushners, and LIVWRK, another developer.

The Kushner Group has already bailed from other deals and sold its remaining ownership in some buildings. But none of it seems enough to plug the hole at the center of the operation.

While Kushner, like Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort, is dismissive of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with representatives of the Russian government, Trump’s son-in-law may have had a simpler reason to talk with the Russian representatives than the American adoption of Russian orphans that Trump offered as an excuse for the meeting. That reason is called “money.”

Federal investigators are examining Kushner’s finances and business dealings, along with those of other Trump associates, as they probe possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Kushner has already testified twice before closed congressional committees and denies mixing family business with his official role.

After all, the June meeting was the only time Kusher had a chat with Russian representatives.

Federal investigators know that Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Trump Tower last December and later met with Sergey Gorkov, head of the Kremlin-controlled VEB bank in two meetings that he didn’t, at first, disclose publicly or on his application for his national-security clearance.

Representatives of VEB bank indicated that Kushner wasn’t in these meetings to secure a political deal for Donald Trump. They say he was there in an effort to secure a deal for his own real estate firm. And for once, that may be true.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...how-he-gets-it

I would like to see both Jared and Ivanka return to New York and work on their companies. Trump's got this. He doesn't need them. If there is ever a peace deal in the Middle East, Trump will have to do it himself.

Kushner Resists Losing Access as Kelly Tackles Security Clearance Issues

https://www.alipac.us/{"default":"//...f&f=png"}The New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and MAGGIE HABERMAN1 day ago

https://www.alipac.us/{"default":{"l...&y=495"}}© Tom Brenner/The New York Times

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is one of dozens of White House officials operating under interim security clearances because of issues raised by the F.B.I…Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is resisting giving up his access to highly classified information, prompting an internal struggle with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, over who should be allowed to see some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, according to White House officials and others briefed on the matter.

Mr. Kushner is one of dozens of White House officials operating under interim security clearances because of issues raised by the F.B.I. during their background checks, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the clearances. The practice has drawn added scrutiny because of Rob Porter, the former staff secretary who resigned under pressure this month after domestic abuse allegations against him became public.

Mr. Porter’s post entailed handling and reviewing the flow of documents to and from the president, which routinely includes highly classified material. He had been allowed to continue in the job for more than a year with a stopgap clearance even though the F.B.I. had informed the White House of the damaging accusations against him.

Mr. Kushner’s clearance has afforded him access to closely guarded information, including the presidential daily brief, the intelligence summary Mr. Trump receives every day, but it has not been made permanent, and his background investigation is still pending after 13 months serving in Mr. Trump’s inner circle.

Now Mr. Kelly, his job at risk and his reputation as an enforcer of order and discipline tarnished by the scandal, is working to revamp the security clearance process, starting with an effort to strip officials who have interim clearances of their high-level access. In a memo issued on Friday, Mr. Kelly said he would revoke top clearances for anyone whose background check had been pending since June 1 or earlier, and review such clearances every month thereafter.

Mr. Kushner, frustrated about the security clearance issue and concerned that Mr. Kelly has targeted him personally with the directive, has told colleagues at the White House that he is reluctant to give up his high-level access, the officials said. In the talks, the officials say, Mr. Kushner has insisted that he maintain his current level of access, including the ability to review the daily intelligence briefing when he sees fit.

But Mr. Kelly, who has been privately dismissive of Mr. Kushner since taking the post of chief of staff but has rarely taken him on directly, has made no guarantees, saying only that the president’s son-in-law will still have all the access he needs to do his job under the new system.

“As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement the White House released on Tuesday in which he refused to address Mr. Kushner’s security clearance or elaborate on his memo.

“Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering the president’s agenda,” Mr. Kelly said of Mr. Kushner. “There is no truth to any suggestion otherwise.”

It is unclear why Mr. Kushner would want or need to review highly classified information. His current portfolio — which includes acting as an intermediary with Mexico, trying to forge Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, participating in an economic dialogue with China and working on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement — seems unlikely to involve major intelligence or national security secrets. But Mr. Kushner, by dint of his relationship with Mr. Trump, has wide-ranging access to the president and the information that he sees, and does not want to surrender it.

The fact that the White House chief of staff would take the step of publicly denying that a policy change would harm the president’s son-in-law pointed up the tension in the West Wing after the Porter episode, particularly between Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, who had been close allies of Mr. Porter, and Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have been critical of Mr. Kelly in conversations with the president, who spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. surveying people about whether he should fire his chief of staff. Since Mr. Porter’s departure, one official said, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have told people around the White House that they have been vocal in their attempts to defend Mr. Kelly but are being treated unfairly in return.

One person familiar with Mr. Kushner’s thinking, who insisted on anonymity to describe it, denied that he felt personally targeted by Mr. Kelly or was agitating to have him removed. Another White House official denied that Mr. Kushner had ever raised the issue of the intelligence summary in his discussions with Mr. Kelly over his clearance.

But the memo, deliberately or otherwise, has shone an unflattering light on Mr. Kushner, raising questions about whether he can be effective in his post and how much authority he has. That debate threatens to complicate what Mr. Kelly has acknowledged is a long-overdue effort inside the White House to get a handle on the clearance process, a national security imperative over which top officials appear to have placed little priority after Mr. Trump took office.

“We should — and in the future, must — do better,” Mr. Kelly said in his memo last week.

The questions surrounding Mr. Kushner’s clearance are particularly acute because of the possibility that his extensive contacts with foreign actors — including travel, meetings with leaders overseas and multiple business ventures — might be relevant to the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Kushner initially failed to disclose scores of those contacts on the standard form required for all prospective government officials, and has since amended his submission, substantially delaying his background check.

That meant that his background information was not submitted in its entirety until June, after the June 1 cutoff that Mr. Kelly set in his memo.

Under the new policy, anyone holding interim clearance to see top secret or sensitive compartmented information whose background investigation had been pending since then is to be stripped of that access by Friday. Even if Mr. Kushner was not in that initial group, the document suggested that his status would soon be reviewed, and that his access going forward would be subject entirely to Mr. Kelly’s discretion.

“Similar reviews will occur monthly for long-outstanding adjudications,” Mr. Kelly wrote. The new rules, he said, would “limit access to certain highly classified information for those individuals working with interim clearance status absent explicit chief of staff’s office approval, which would be granted only in the most compelling circumstances.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...D=ansmsnnews11

Sounds like General Kelly is afraid of ruffling President Trump's feathers. Also seems Kushner thinks he has more power than he actually does ...... or should have. Is this a case of the tail trying to wag the dog?

LOL!! Yes, and that's the way it should be. They weren't elected, he was. They serve at his pleasure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judy

LOL!! Yes, and that's the way it should be. They weren't elected, he was. They serve at his pleasure.

---

I understand that and agree that they should tread lightly. However, Kelly's responsibility of office should demand certain things without waiver and one of those things is ensuring the security of our country. That should hold true of all cabinet members and presidential staff.

Heck, I think Kelly would be doing President Trump a favor if he was able to convince him to send his daughter and son-in-law along their merry way. I believe them both to be a distraction. Furthermore, I question their loyalty. Not to Trump because I'm sure they're loyal to him, but Trump's campaign promises. For all we know, it could have been them that encouraged him to change his position on ending DACA after moving into the White House. We do know they were against ending DACA.

I've never known nor cared what the Chief of Staff is supposed to do. I thought they were office managers.

Report: Kushner Mad That He Might Not Get To See Classified Info Anymore Because He … Still Can’t Get A Full Security Clearance

ALLAHPUNDITPosted at 3:31 pm on February 21, 2018

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You know what the weirdest thing about this is? Trump could grant him a full clearance at any time. If I understand the law correctly, as head of the executive branch he’s entitled to share classified information with whomever he likes, no matter how untrustworthy and prone to blackmail that person is. Does he know what? If so, why doesn’t he solve Jared’s problem for him by granting him a clearance?

All I can think is that POTUS knows how poorly that decision would be received and was happy until recently with the status quo. If Trump grants Kushner a full clearance without the FBI’s endorsement, Democrats might go nuts. Better to leave his status unsettled with an interim clearance; that way, if critics complain about Jared accessing classified info despite not having been cleared yet, Trump and Kelly can turn around and say, “Yet. He hasn’t been cleared yet. He will be. It’s a process!” But the Rob Porter fiasco made that untenable . Kelly’s been sufficiently damaged by it, and by the reports of *lots* of other Trump aides having their clearances held up, that he can’t let people linger indefinitely with interim clearances anymore.

Which means, unless the FBI suddenly surprises everyone by clearing Kushner after all this time, Trump’s going to need to make a move. Does he send Kushner home to New York, as I’m sure Kelly would like, or does he override the FBI’s misgivings by granting the princeling a clearance himself?

In a memo issued on Friday, Mr. Kelly said he would revoke top clearances for anyone whose background check had been pending since June 1 or earlier, and review such clearances every month thereafter.

Mr. Kushner, frustrated about the security clearance issue and concerned that Mr. Kelly has targeted him personally with the directive, has told colleagues at the White House that he is reluctant to give up his high-level access, the officials said. In the talks, the officials say, Mr. Kushner has insisted that he maintain his current level of access, including the ability to review the daily intelligence briefing when he sees fit.

But Mr. Kelly, who has been privately dismissive of Mr. Kushner since taking the post of chief of staff but has rarely taken him on directly, has made no guarantees, saying only that the president’s son-in-law will still have all the access he needs to do his job under the new system.

No big deal, said Sarah Sanders yesterday. Jared can do his job without a security clearance if need be. Uh … what? He’s a lead U.S. diplomat on the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, with more influence over the president than Rex Tillerson or Nikki Haley have. How do you do that job without seeing sensitive material? There’s no way says Dan Pfeiffer, who used to have Kushner’s job:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...x6_normal.jpegDan Pfeiffer
✔@danpfeiffer


Kushner and I had the same title and he sits in my old office. There are only three options:
1. Sanders is lying
2. Kelly is lying and Kushner is keeping his interim clearance
3. Kushner’s new portfolio includes staring at the wall from 9-5 https://twitter.com/shaneharris/status/966051510483341317 …
5:54 PM - Feb 20, 2018

Suggesting that Kushner can fulfill his duties without a clearance, i.e. without needing to see classified information, raises an obvious question: Why does he keep requesting so much classified information? A source told WaPo a few days ago that “apart from staff on the National Security Council, he issues more requests for information to the intelligence community than any White House employee.” Why? Why does he need access to the President’s Daily Brief if his job, supposedly, is now mainly focused on Israeli and the Palestinians? Remember, this is a guy who:

— has seen his personal debt climb by millions of dollars since joining the White House;

— is being investigated by Bob Mueller not just for his role in Russiagate but for his financial dealings;

— has had to revise his disclosure forms repeatedly since he first submitted them.

He’s as fat a target for blackmail as you could hope to find in the West Wing (apart from the president himself), which no doubt explains why the FBI won’t sign off on him. If they recommend him for a full clearance and he’s caught later passing classified information to some extortionist, they don’t want to have to explain why they greenlit him. After all the media hype about seamy nationalists like Steve Bannon infiltrating the White House under a Trump presidency, what an irony it would be if the rich Democrat from Manhattan, Jared, ended up being one of Trump’s biggest scandals.

By the way, at the height of the Porter coverage last week, when John Kelly was twisting in the wind and seemed like he might lose his job, some stories about him noted as asides that certain unnamed enemies of his in the West Wing were using the Porter mess opportunistically to try to turn Trump against him. Any doubt now who those unnamed enemies were? It’s not just Kushner who has it in for Kelly, reportedly; he’s also made an enemy of Ivanka by privately scoffing at her family-leave plan. It wouldn’t surprise me if the source who told WaPo that Kushner has an unusually voracious appetite for classified info is a Kelly ally, if not Kelly himself. How POTUS is going to manage a situation in which his chief of staff and his family are waging war against each other in the media shadows, lord only knows.

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/...tm_campaign=nl

When was the last time you remember listening and reading media reports about concern that someone working in the White House could be black-mailed? The first time I ever heard it was from Sally Yates about Flynn possibly lying or making a misstatement to the Vice President.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judy

When was the last time you remember listening and reading media reports about concern that someone working in the White House could be black-mailed? The first time I ever heard it was from Sally Yates about Flynn possibly lying or making a misstatement to the Vice President.

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Too many question about the debt ridden Kushner. I don't know how valuable Trump thinks he is to the White House team, but it is a fact that he has become a big distraction. Time for he and Ivanka to go home and raise their children.

The media and anti-Trump and Dems are the only ones who really care about Kushner. There's nothing Kushner has done to hurt the President, the White House or our country, and there won't be. People get excited about him because of the news reports which are usually Fake News or taking normal events out of context.

I would like to see Ivanka and Jared go back to New York, because I think it's the best thing for them personally. I think their businesses are suffering because they are not there to attend to them.

But, the word came down just a couple of minutes ago that Kelly's memo about security clearances will not impact Jared Kushner, so he's not going anywhere until at least the completion of the Middle East peace negotiation is finished. Ivanka probably wants to stay also to get her maternity leave program implemented for working women.

Sigh. "and the beat goes on ..."

Settle in. A Trump, even an in-law Trump, will never back down.

Jared Kushner Should Be Kicked Out Of The White House On February 23, 2018

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/defaul...?itok=w5Yt14nq

The republican President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, like the Staff Secretary Rob Porter could never pass a FBI background check to quality for the required security clearance levels to be handling classified, sensitive material in the White House. Mr. Porter because of his history of spousal/ significant other’s abuse and his avoidance of being forthcoming, would be susceptible to blackmail. As this fact became public, he quickly resigned.

The Rob Porter saga had been headline news for about a week because with only an interim security clearance status, he should not have been near all the classified data that he saw on a regular basis. In addition, it is suspected that his boss, Chief of Staff John Kelly was aware that Mr. Porter would never pass the FBI’s background check at an earlier date, but General Kelly still permitted him to deal every day with classified data.

https://i0.wp.com/s.newsweek.com/sit...8/rts11cbs.jpg

“After the Rob Porter scandal, the president’s Chief of Staff announced last Friday, February 16, 2018 that anyone still working in the White House with only an interim clearance, had to be fully cleared within the week or by Friday, February 23, 2018, or they could no longer work at the White House. This is significant because as per news reports, there is no way that Jared Kushner could pass a FBI background check with his high level of indebtedness which exposes him to being bribed. ”

Jared Kushner is the one operating in the White House who reads every morning the president’s daily briefings prepared by the Intelligence community.

With the Chief of Staff General Kelly’s edict,the question is what will become of the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor on February 23rd. The president is the one who could waive the clearance requirement, but will he?

It is my opinion that Mr. Kushner should be required to leave because he is not remotely qualified to be in the position that he holds, as well as for his inability to be fully cleared for service by the FBI.

The update on 2/20/18 is that the president has decided that Jared Kushner can remain in his current position without passing the FBI’s background check and/ or without the normally required security level status.

Bloomberg has published a lengthy report pertaining to Mr. Kushner’s financial entanglements. There is a link to the entire article, footnoted below.

Here’s the rest of the story…

On August 31, 2018, David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby of Bloomberg penned the following exposé, “Kushners’ China Deal Flop Was Part of Much Bigger Hunt for Cash”

Excerpts:

“Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.”

“Over the past 2 years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.”

https://i0.wp.com/i2.cdn.turner.com/...7-1024x576.jpg

“The family, once one of the largest landlords on the East Coast, sold thousands of apartments to finance its purchase of the tower in 2007 and has borrowed extensively for other purchases. They are walking away from a Brooklyn hotel once considered central to their plans for an office hub. From other properties, they are extracting cash, including tens of millions in borrowed funds from the recently acquired former NY Times building. What’s more, their partner in the Fifth Avenue building, Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steve Roth, has stood aside, allowing the Kushners to pursue financing on their own.”

“Kushner Cos. says it will prevail. Laurent Morali, the president, said the company has a variety of contingency plans for the building and its broader portfolio will allow it to sustain any setback. He said he is encouraged by the interest of several potential investors, but declined to name them.”

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/defaul...?itok=mVei7YQE

“Reports that portray it as a distressed situation are just not accurate for the building or for the company,” Morali said in an interview on the 15th floor of the building, 666 Fifth Avenue.”

“But there are challenges all around. The mortgage on their tower is due in 18 months. This has led to concerns that Kushner could use—or has perhaps already used—his official position to prop up the family business despite having divested to close relatives his ownership in many projects to conform with government ethics requirements. Federal investigators are examining Kushner’s finances and business dealings, along with those of other Trump associates, as they probe possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Kushner has already testified twice before closed congressional committees and denies mixing family business with his official role.”

“This article, which describes new details of the company’s troubled finances and its overseas fundraising efforts, is based on a review of thousands of pages of financial documents and interviews with more than 2 dozen executives, business partners, real estate agents, deal participants and analysts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deals. Some feared legal reprisals or other retaliation from one of the country’s most powerful families.”

https://i1.wp.com/s.newsweek.com/sit...bellatrump.jpg

“The portrait that emerges is that of a real estate company established by a pair of penniless Holocaust survivors, its extraordinary expansion by their children, the rise of a grandson to a top White House role and a big bet that has complicated its financial future.”

“It was 2006—the height of the real-estate market boom—when Kushner Cos. agreed to buy 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, then a record for a Manhattan building. All of it was borrowed except for $50 million. The company still holds half of a $1.2 billion mortgage, on which it hasn’t paid a cent. The full amount is due in February 2019.”

“The strain has become increasingly evident across their holdings. One person familiar with the company’s finances describes the tower, with its low ceilings and outdated floor plan, as the Jenga puzzle piece that could set the empire teetering.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...img/whole4.jpgPHOTOGRAPHER: VICTOR J. BLUE / BLOOMBERG

“The family’s idea of how to salvage its investment requires razing the building to the ground and constructing an 80-story tower with greatly expanded retail areas and high-end condominiums. No short- or medium-term return can be expected from such an aggressive approach. Even a return over the long run would be speculative, though Morali describes the plan as “ambitious and creative.” That narrows the pool of investors to those interested in something other than profit. Real estate experts say this almost certainly precludes U.S. companies. More likely: a foreign firm looking to get capital out of its country or seeking a trophy Manhattan property.”

“Before Trump began his rise to the presidency and the 36-year-old Kushner became his senior adviser, 666 Fifth Avenue struggled to attract serious offers. Meetings the Kushners requested were often rejected. After Trump’s nomination, billions of dollars in Asian and Middle Eastern money came under discussion. Two potential deals that made it to advanced stages, with China’s Anbang Insurance Group and a top Qatari sheikh, fell apart.”

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/60/47/61/...3/920x1240.jpg

“The new status meant the Kushners’ calls were more readily answered—but they came with additional scrutiny, not only of the Kushners but also of the investors. Since January, the company has ceased entering into business relationships with sovereign entities, Morali said. Federal investigators want to know if the Fifth Avenue building’s finances came up in a post-election meeting Kushner had with the head of Russia’s state-controlled development bank.”

https://grondamorin.com/2018/02/20/j...ruary-23-2018/

Having financing (debt) and looking for sources to refinance (cash) is what developers do.

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“It was 2006—the height of the real-estate market boom—when Kushner Cos. agreed to buy 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, then a record for a Manhattan building. All of it was borrowed except for $50 million. The company still holds half of a $1.2 billion mortgage, on which it hasn’t paid a cent. The full amount is due in February 2019.”

“The strain has become increasingly evident across their holdings. One person familiar with the company’s finances describes the tower, with its low ceilings and outdated floor plan, as the Jenga puzzle piece that could set the empire teetering.”

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Pretty troubling and trump has made him head of his infrastructure project which would include privatizing water & selling our roads, etc. Sorry, but the kid is a jerk loser.
from Food and Water Watch:

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There has been so little transparency around the Trump administration. One blatant example is the “Office of American Innovation” — a department Trump created to, among other things, work on an infrastructure plan.

This agency, headed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (no conflict of interest there...), has failed to respond to the Freedom of Information Act request we’ve submitted. We think the public should know what this department is doing, especially since it could have a dangerous impact on the drinking water of millions of Americans.

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JARED KUSHNER HID ONE OF HIS COMPANIES ON A DISCLOSURE FORM — THEN PROFITED

BY CHRIS RIOTTA ON 10/12/17 AT 6:00 AM

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...hnerfiles2.jpgJared Kushner's partial ownership of a real estate investing platform is raising ethical questions.ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS RIOTTA[COLOR=rgba(12, 11, 11, 0.8)]SHARE

U.S.JARED KUSHNERCADREFINANCIAL DISCLOSUREETHICS

Jared Kushner "enriched himself" by not revealing his ownership of a real estate tech business that raised millions of dollars while he served in the government, said a member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it part of a pattern of unethical behavior that he believes should cause the White House Senior Adviser to be stripped of his security clearance.

Congressman Ted Lieu told Newsweek that Kushner's failure to list a company called Cadre on his initial financial disclosure forms—an oversight that could mean millions for the president’s son-in-law—is an ethical lapse that should have severe ramifications.

"It appears [Kushner] ended up being the beneficiary of that omission," said Lieu, a California Democrat. "He enriched himself by failing to disclose the asset."

Kushner’s lawyer has said that her client’s failure to list Cadre on the initial filing in March was merely an "administrative error." But that "error" allowed Kushner to maintain a stake in the start-up at a time when the three-year-old business doubled its venture funding from rich private investors.


http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...-845621054.jpgJared Kushner's failure to disclose a company he had financial interests in allowed him to maintain reduced ownership while serving in the White House, according to records obtained by Newsweek.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, GETTY

Kushner's failure to cite Cadre on his financial disclosure form came as the Office of Government Ethics was deciding whether to grant him a Certificate of Divestiture, which requires incoming government employees to divest "100% of all financial interests" from listed companies so they don't violate conflict-of-interest laws. It also allows those government employees to sell their assets without paying heavy capital gains taxes.

The timeline suggests more than just an inadvertent oversight, but an effort by Kushner to hold onto Cadre rather than be forced to divest his interests in the emerging company, according to ethics experts.

On March 9, Kushner submitted his original financial disclosure form to the Office of Government Ethics. It did not specifically list Cadre as one of Kushner's assets, though he co-founded the company with his brother, Joshua Kushner and his Harvard classmate Ryan Williams, who remains Cadre CEO.

The company was already attracting attention in New York's real estate and tech circles because of its promise to disrupt both industries by allowing investors to buy shares in real estate developments much like they would buy shares of companies on the stock market.

Kushner’s lawyer says Cadre was not specifically cited on the March 9 form because his holding company, BFPS Ventures, acquired his interest in Cadre on February 17. That transaction appears to be noted on his financial records as a $100,000 to $250,000 sale.

But that amount does not match subsequent disclosures. When Kushner finally amended his financial disclosure form on July 21, he valued his interest in Cadre from $5 million to $25 million.


http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...0/rtx30uy3.jpgLawmakers are calling to have Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's security clearances revoked for their omissions on financial and security records.REUTERS

That disclosure came after Cadre had raised $65 million more in venture funding from major donors including Andreessen Horowitz, adding to a list of prominent venture capitalists such as Democratic donor George Soros and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

The disclosure form suggests that Kushner has not fully divested from Cadre. Indeed, a representative for the start-up told Newsweek that Kushner maintains "a small, passive investment," but has "no operational or advisory role," describing the cofounder as "an early investor in the company."

Government watchdogs have a problem with Kushner’s continued ownership of Cadre.

"Mr. Kushner co-founded Cadre and continues to own a significant part of it," the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote to then-Ethics Office Director Walter Shaub on July 6. "As a result [the Ethics Office] appears to have granted the certificate of divestiture based on incomplete information."

Shaub, who resigned on July 19 from the ethics office complaining of the Trump administration's disregard for conflict-of-interest guidelines, never signed off on Kushner’s Certificate of Divestiture. Instead, it was approved by the office's general counsel, David Apol on July 20, the day after Shaub quit. Apol replaced Shaub the next day. The New York Times described Apol as having "a much more cordial relationship with the White House" than Shaub.

Kushner's failure to include the full value of Cadre in his initial filing likely allowed him to hold onto most of his interest rather than be forced to divest, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says. And had Kushner revealed his ownership in Cadre, the company might not have been as attractive to investors, who would obviously be keen on putting money into a company so closely linked to a person inside the White House. A Kushner representative admitted that investors would certainly have known about Kushner’s holdings in Cadre from publicly available information, which concerns ethics experts.

"(Kushner) could potentially have been wanting to not disclose this asset as the latest round of funding was happening," Elana Fine, executive director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, College Park, said. "When a venture capitalist like Jared Kushner invests in a company, they’re always expecting a return on that investment."


http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.news...0/rtx34gcd.jpgUnder President Donald Trump, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has been tasked with Middle East peace negotiations, heading the American Innovation office and criminal justice reform.REUTERS

The type of business Cadre does is also noteworthy because it sits at the nexus of Kushner’s two power bases: real estate and, now, politics.

Cadre operates as an online platform, connecting wealthy investors like Soros, for example, to emerging real estate properties in which they can buy partial ownership. The billionaire was one of Cadre's initial key investors, opening up a $250 million line of credit between his family offices and Kushner’s start-up.

But ethics experts think the real estate investing platform may allow foreign investors to hide their identities to the public, though not to Cadre insiders.

"It's a novel kind of business," said Virginia Canter, who is executive branch ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Because of the real estate interests that can be traded on the platform, and who can be buying and selling that real estate, [Kushner’s] financial interest in Cadre concerns me … You can have foreign governments or other individuals who have significant interests before Jared Kushner. This is the man responsible for Middle East peace talks and the American Innovation office.

"The point is, Cadre could result in a benefit to him and there’s no way for us to have any insight or to hold him accountable," she added. "In any other administration, he’d be required to divest of this asset. You line this up with [Kushner's] failures on his security forms … and it’s a lot to just say it was an inadvertent failure. It looks like it’s a systemic problem and, in some cases, more than that."

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushne...illions-679231

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When Kushner finally amended his financial disclosure form on July 21, he valued his interest in Cadre from $5 million to $25 million.

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The disclosure form suggests that Kushner has not fully divested from Cadre. Indeed, a representative for the start-up told Newsweek that Kushner maintains "a small, passive investment,"

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His interests went from $5m to $25m - "a small investment". Get rid of this kid - we don't want him influencing any gov't decisions with the mindset of enriching his somewhat teetering wealth. The infrastructure plan is looking to be more for profiteers than the people and kushner is in charge too?

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Originally Posted by artist

His interests went from $5m to $25m - "a small investment". Get rid of this kid - we don't want him influencing any gov't decisions with the mindset of enriching his somewhat teetering wealth. The infrastructure plan is looking to be more for profiteers than the people and kushner is in charge too?

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Yep, Kushner's shady dealings should be concerning to anyone paying attention. Lying by omission is still lying.