Kushner conducted foreign policy without knowledge of Tillerson

WA SHI N GTON» Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cited an awkward encounter with President Donald Trump’s sonin-law in a Washington restaurant as an example of diplomacy being conducted behind his back when he was in the administration, according to a transcript of a congressional hearing released Thursday.

Tillerson, who was fired by Trump in March 2018, mentioned the story during a day of closed-door testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about his rocky, 13-month tenure as secretary of state. He described his surprise to find that he happened to be dining in the same restaurant while Jared Kushner and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray had a private meal.

The former top U.S. diplomat and CEO of ExxonMobil said he “could see the color go out” of the Mexican official’s face when Tillerson greeted them at their table with a smile.

“And I said: ‘I don’t want to interrupt what y’all are doing,’ ” Tillerson recalled for the committee. “I said, ‘Give me a call next time you’re coming to town.’ And I left it at that.”

The White House declined to comment on Tillerson’s depiction of Kushner’s activities, which suggest that Trump’s top diplomat was in the dark as the new administration was grappling with major foreign policy issues.

Trump had harsh words for his former top diplomat in December after Tillerson said in rare public remarks that the president was “undisciplined” and did not like to read briefing reports. Trump called him “dumb as a rock” in a tweet.

Tillerson described the restaurant incident as an example of one of the “challenges” he faced during his 13-month tenure as secretary of state that ended when Trump abruptly fired him over social media.

He said it was a “unique situation” to have the president’s son-in-law as a White House adviser, saying “there was not a real clear understanding” of the diplomatic role.

Tillerson said there other examples. He noted that Kushner “met often” with Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and that the president’s son-in-law requested that the secretary meet with an official from the kingdom to discuss a document they had been developing that was “kind of a road map” for the future of the relationship between the two countries.

The foreign trips raised concerns, the former secretary said, because Kushner would not coordinate with the State Department or the local embassy in the countries he visited. Tillerson said he raised the issue with Kushner, but “not much changed.”

The testimony — with Tillerson accompanied by a personal lawyer and a State Department attorney — took place in private last month. A transcript was released Thursday. There were large sections redacted — including some where he discusses issues related to an Oval Office meeting that involved Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.