Tillerson: Kushner left him in the dark with foreign leaders
WASHINGTON » In newly disclosed testimony, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said President Donald Trump’s sonin-law, Jared Kushner, operated independently with powerful leaders around the world without coordination with the State Department, leaving Tillerson out of the loop and in the dark on emerging U.S. policies and simmering geopolitical crises.
In a transcript of his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tillerson also described the challenge of briefing a president who does not read briefing papers and often got distracted by peripheral topics, noting he had to keep his message short and focus on a single topic.
“I learned to be much more concise with what I wanted to bring in front of him,” Tillerson told the House panel during a seven-hour session in May.
He stood by his previous characterization that Trump does not dive deep into details and said he learned not to give the president articles or long memos.
A redacted transcript of the meeting was released Thursday.
On several occasions, Tillerson said he was blindsided by Kushner’s discussions with world leaders.
In one instance, Tillerson said he learned that Kushner was meeting with Mexico’s foreign secretary because he happened to be in the same Washington restaurant while the two men hashed out a “fairly comprehensive plan of action” that Tillerson didn’t know about.
“The owner of the restaurant ... came around and said, ‘ Oh, Mr. Secretary, you might be interested to know the foreign secretary of Mexico is seated at a table near the back in case you want to go by and say hello to him,’ ” Tillerson said. “And so I did.”
Tillerson said he saw the “color go out of the face” of the foreign secretary as he walked into the room. “I said: Welcome to Washington. ... Give me a call next time you’re coming to town.”
In another instance, Tillerson explained in detail being surprised by the 2017 Persian Gulf crisis in which key Arab allies severed ties with Qatar, another key U. S. ally. He said he was in Australia at the time with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and both were caught off guard.