This is the second part of an editorial series on nepotism in the White House. Read more on the history of nepotism and politics here, and on Ivanka Trump’s role here.
For
a Middle East negotiator, President Trump could have chosen a seasoned
envoy trusted by all stakeholders and fluent in the region’s nuance.
Instead he appointed the heir to an opaque Manhattan real estate empire
with deep ties to Israel who boasts that, as a businessman, “I don’t
care about the past.
To
lead his initiative on government innovation, Mr. Trump could have
named a dynamic authority on technology and entrepreneurship. Instead he
chose someone who failed in an expensive effort to bring a New York
newspaper into the digital age.
When
selecting his closest adviser, Mr. Trump could have chosen from among
seasoned and wise strategists. Instead, he picked a political novice
with no experience in government.
For
all of these crucial roles, Mr. Trump turned to his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner. Though Mr. Trump voices high praise for Mr. Kushner’s talent,
the fact that he’s family is qualification enough for a president
obsessed with close-lipped loyalty and uninterested in policy unless it
benefits himself.
So
one year in, what has Mr. Kushner accomplished? The answers point to
why, from the nation’s founding to the present day, the architects of
American democracy have tried so mightily to restrict the hiring of
presidential relatives.
Mr. Kushner’s achievements have not only been
paltry, but he is directly implicated in some of the president’s most
destructive — and self-destructive — decisions, as well as in some of
the most serious accusations of self-dealing that have been made against
the administration.
For
more than two centuries, the principle that federal officials would be
selected on the basis of merit, not heredity, has been protected as much
by tradition, cultural norms and a desire to avoid the appearance of
impropriety as it has been by law. That has proved an insufficient
bulwark against an insecure, ignorant president, and his administration,
and the American people are now paying the price.
What
a liability Mr. Kushner has proved to be. American officials have
intercepted conversations in which at least four countries, including
China and the United Arab Emirates, discussed ways to take advantage of
Mr. Kushner’s indebtedness, naïveté and ignorance of foreign policy to
further their interests, according to The Washington Post. This week,
The Times reported that Kushner Companies received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans
through American companies, including Citigroup and the private equity
firm Apollo Global Management, after their top executives met with Mr.
Kushner in the White House. The Qatari government’s investment fund was a
major investor in Apollo’s real estate trust.
This
was all occurring while Mr. Kushner had access to top-secret
intelligence, despite having failed to secure a permanent security
clearance. His faulty disclosures of his financial interests and foreign
contacts and his indebtedness have most likely held up his clearance
for more than a year. His access was downgraded this week from top secret to secret, hardly reassuring.
Mr.
Kushner leads the Office of American Innovation. This was once a forum
for seeking ideas from the nation’s top corporate executives, who served
in advisory roles. But most of them resigned after Mr. Trump defended
neo-Nazi protesters in the aftermath of a deadly riot in
Charlottesville, Va. The office’s effort to continue the overhaul of
outmoded government computer networks, begun under President Obama, has
been slowed, according to people working on the project, partly because
many government agencies lack chief information officers and other
experts to implement the change. Mr. Kushner is partly responsible for
the vacancies. Even though Chris Christie, then governor of New Jersey,
was running a credible presidential transition, Mr. Kushner helped oust
him. (When Mr. Christie was a United States attorney he sent Mr.
Kushner’s father, Charles, to federal prison for tax evasion, illegal
campaign donation and witness tampering.) Of the nearly 640 key
Senate-confirmed positions that President Trump can appoint, fewer than half have been confirmed — the most laggard staffing record in decades.
The
innovation office was also supposed to focus on the opioid crisis, but a
comprehensive list of recommendations written by a presidential
commission last year are mostly gathering dust.
Mr.
Kushner holds a broad foreign policy portfolio, with responsibility for
Mexico, Canada, China, and Middle East peace efforts. The Kushner
family’s friendship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and
the Kushner Companies’ extensive business ties to Israel fueled
skepticism among Palestinian leaders. Any hopes of progress were
effectively dashed when the president recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s
capital, a coup for Israel for which the United States got nothing in
return.
Finally,
there’s Mr. Kushner’s role as senior presidential adviser. Mr.
Kushner’s multiple contacts with Kremlin-connected Russians while
helping to run Mr. Trump’s campaign and transition are now part of the
special counsel’s inquiry into whether Trump operatives colluded with
Russia’s effort to swing the campaign in Mr. Trump’s favor. Fortified by
Mr. Kushner’s advice, Mr. Trump fired F.B.I. Director James Comey,
hoping to derail the investigation. This colossally foolish decision led
to Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel, and the beginning
of a criminal investigation that could range widely through Team Trump’s
finances and connections.
Mr.
Kushner pushed for the hiring of Paul Manafort as Mr. Trump’s campaign
chairman, despite Mr. Manafort’s history of shadowy lobbying contracts
with Kremlin allies. He also backed Michael Flynn’s appointment as
national security adviser, a job he lost after he lied about discussing
American sanctions against Moscow with Russia’s ambassador to the United
States. Mr. Manafort is now under indictment, charged by Mr. Mueller
with a range of financial crimes, including that he concealed years of lobbying for the pro-Russia government in Ukraine,
and laundered millions of dollars in proceeds from that work. Mr. Flynn
has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the F.B.I. about his
conversations with the Russian ambassador and is cooperating with the
special counsel. Some of those conversations, portrayed in the indictment as part of a coordinated effort by Trump aides to create foreign policy before they were in power, were apparently at the direction of Mr. Kushner.
Mr.
Kushner attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump
Jr. and Kremlin-linked Russians who promised “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
When news of that meeting leaked last year, Mr. Trump initially said the topic was adoptions. The truth later came out, and the meeting is part of the F.B.I. inquiry.
In December of 2016, Mr. Kushner held a private meeting with Sergey Gorkov, who runs a Kremlin-connected Moscow bank under sanctions by the United States. A White House official said the meeting was under the auspices of the presidential transition, while the Russians said Mr. Kushner was acting in his capacity as head of Kushner Companies. Federal and congressional investigators say the meeting may have been part of an effort by Mr. Kushner to establish a direct line to President Vladimir Putin of Russia outside established diplomatic channels.
Mr. Kushner said his failure to disclose the Trump Tower meeting, the Gorkov meeting and scores of other foreign contacts as part of his application for security clearance was an error.
At this point, the right question to ask is why Mr. Kushner still has any diplomatic role at all.
The Kushner family is scouring the globe for investors
to shoulder billions in debt and redevelopment costs that Jared Kushner
encumbered the company with when he bought a skyscraper at 666 Fifth
Avenue, at a record price for the time. How handy, then, that Mr.
Kushner, who still owns a hefty stake in the Kushner Companies, is Mr.
Trump’s chief liaison with some two dozen nations, often operating outside formal guidance by the State Department or the National Security Council.
After
the election, Mr. Kushner met with Anbang Insurance Group, a
conglomerate closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party, about a joint
venture in the 666 Fifth Avenue project, potentially worth billions,
even though Anbang’s shadowy ownership had drawn national security
concerns. The talks ended after a storm of Democratic outrage, but that
didn’t stop the Kushners from continuing to trawl for Chinese
investments, using Mr. Kushner’s big White House job as a lure.
Last May, Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer mentioned her brother and Mr. Trump in a pitch to Chinese investors in Beijing. This time the Kushners were seeking $150 million in financing for a Jersey City housing development, through the EB-5 visa program,
derided as “U.S. citizenship for sale” because it awards foreigners who
invest at least $500,000 in American enterprises with a path to
citizenship. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating
Kushner Companies’ past use of the EB-5 visa program. Federal
prosecutors have sought records on Kushner Companies from Deutsche Bank,
which over the years has lent hundreds of millions to the Kushner and
Trump family businesses. Last week, the New York State Department of
Financial Services, which regulates New York and some international
banks, asked Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and several others for
information about their relationships with Mr. Kushner and his finances,
The Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr.
Kushner has spent his career until now inside a cocoon of family wealth
and connections. Former associates say that as chief executive of
Kushner Companies and as owner of the struggling New York Observer,
which the Kushners bought in 2006, Mr. Kushner disregarded relevant
experience and rules, leaving it to lawyers and advisers to clean up
after his mistakes.
It’s
beginning to dawn on Mr. Kushner that Washington doesn’t work like
that. And the walls seem to be closing in on him. Mr. Kelly, the chief
of staff, has been working to narrow Mr. Kushner’s lane, and limit his
access to classified material and briefings. But as F.B.I. investigators
circle the West Wing and extend their scrutiny to the Kushner
businesses, Mr. Kushner might still want the protective umbrella of the
White House.
Clearly,
Americans deserve better from their public servants, but the law
doesn’t provide sufficient protection from a president who doesn’t get
that. Firming up the anti-nepotism law to cover White House advisers has
been criticized as an infringement on a president’s right to seek
private personal counsel. But Congress could require that presidential
appointees across the federal government possess relevant credentials
and experience, that they meet enforceable performance metrics, and — do
we really need to say this? — that they can pass a background check. If
Mr. Kushner’s performance inspires such reforms, it could prove his
only real achievement.
NYT
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