Kushner could be ‘flying blind’ after losing his top clearance
Limited access to information may hinder work
WASHINGTON — White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has lost his access to the nation’s deepest secrets. His credibility as a negotiator may be next.
Kushner’s loss of his top-secret clearance could be problematic in his role overseeing the Trump administration’s efforts to produce Mideast peace.
“I could not have done my job” with a security clearance at Kushner’s level, says Frank Lowenstein, who served as special envoy to the region during Barack Obama’s second term.
Others who have handled the Mideast portfolio say access to highly classified intelligence is essential in a negotiation. Without it, one likened the situation to “fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” another to “flying blind.”
The White House insists that Kushner’s job will be unaffected by this week’s downgrade to his security clearance. But the new limits on Donald Trump’s sonin-law’s access to information may well curtail his work — and raise questions about his longevity in the West Wing.
Former U.S. and international officials say that even if Kushner stays, his job won’t be the same.
Chris Hill, who led nuclear negotiations with North Korea during President George W. Bush’s administration, said it would be nearly impossible to be effective without a full clearance.
“You can do the job, but you can’t do it well,” Hill said. “Or rather, you can do the job, but you will do it badly.” When it comes to classified information, Hill said, “you have to know as much as you can because the other side knows as much as they can.”
The downgrade is only the latest clipping of Kushner’s once-sweeping foreign policy role.
During the presidential transition, Kushner, 37, was the principal liaison for more than a dozen foreign governments that sought to build relationships with Trump. Last year, he played a significant role organizing the president’s foreign trips to the Middle East and Asia, and made solo trips in his own right. But Kushner has seen his portfolio in the administration shrink steadily over the last year, amid concerns from chief of staff John Kelly and others that he was undermining Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
On foreign policy, officials said his recent focus has been the U.S.-Mexico relationship as well as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The impact of his clearance downgrade on his domestic assignments is expected to be minimal. He leads the Office of American Innovation, which is focused on publicprivate partnerships that can transform government, promote economic growth and repair the nation’s infrastructure.
Intelligence officials have expressed concern that his business dealings were a topic of discussion in conversations he was having with foreign officials about issues of interest to the U.S. government, a former intelligence official said.
The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said there was a difference of opinion among intelligence officials about the significance of the conversations.
Some believed Kushner knew his business dealings would likely come up in the conversations and was too naive or inexperienced to know how to steer clear of the topic, the official said. Others thought Kushner knew the topic would likely surface and used the opportunity while talking to the foreign officials to engage in conversations about his business interests.