The Curious Case of Jared Kushner's Security Clearance

[_MeDotOrg]

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

We are always saying 'this is not normal'. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Both McGahn and Kelley wrote contemporaneous notes about the event, which is typically what you do when you want to recall it in the future. I believe Kushner had to revise his original statements about foreign contacts something like 4 times. We don't know what upset the C.I.A., McGahn and Kelley, but it will be interesting to find out.

But the way, Trump, Ivanka, Kushner and Kushner's lawyer Abbe Lowell, have all said that Kushner's clearance went through normal channels and there was nothing extraordinary about it. But consider the carefully worded statement from Abbe Lowell's office after the Times story:

In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.

I think Lowell is saying that he was told that it was a normal transaction by "White House and security clearance officials", and he relied on those representations. It will be interesting to see if Lowell was actually deceived by his client and the President.

Again, in any normal Presidency, this scandal would be a headline for two weeks. Here in Trumpland, it's a blip on the radar.

[_Maksutov]

As one who has held clearances, been interviewed by FBI and CID and IGs, I can tell you that this is a very very very big deal. I'm someone who has never excused Hilary for her web server security issues and I consider this at least as bad. And I understand that there were/are many in the White House who had 'expedited' clearances.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Despite calls for "lock her up," Trump and his wife...ugh, I mean daughter have used unprotected cell phones and e-mails.

Not that his base would care, well, about anything.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

For our Conservative friends, you should know Kushner is a person who is being aggressively targeted and leveraged by foreign governments, yes. It's not at all surprising that the CIA are freaking out.

► Kushner has over a billion dollars in debt that he's struggling to pay back.

► Kushner has keeps having private meetings with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, both of whom have known ties to Russian intelligence.

► Kushner keeps having private meetings with Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman, who has openly bragged about Kushner being "in his pocket".

► Kushner has attempted to hide much of this from the government by lying on his disclosure forms. He's lied about his debt and he's lied about privately meeting with Russian and Saudi Arabian financiers.

This guy is the definition of a red flag. The risk of foreign governments bribing him to get favorable policy outcomes is through the roof. There's absolutely no way anyone like this would ever get security clearance in a normal administration.

- Doc

[_Maksutov]

For our Conservative friends, you should know Kushner is a person who is being aggressively targeted and leveraged by foreign governments, yes. It's not at all surprising that the CIA are freaking out.

► Kushner has over a billion dollars in debt that he's struggling to pay back.

► Kushner has keeps having private meetings with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, both of whom have known ties to Russian intelligence.

► Kushner keeps having private meetings with Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman, who has openly bragged about Kushner being "in his pocket".

► Kushner has attempted to hide much of this from the government by lying on his disclosure forms. He's lied about his debt and he's lied about privately meeting with Russian and Saudi Arabian financiers.

This guy is the definition of a red flag. The risk of foreign governments bribing him to get favorable policy outcomes is through the roof. There's absolutely no way anyone like this would ever get security clearance in a normal administration.

- Doc

Doc says it all.

[_MeDotOrg]

In January, when asked if he had every tried to interfere on Kushner's behalf, Trump told Maggie Haberman of the NY Times "No, I don't think I have the authority to do that. I'm not sure that I do".

In the words of the Church Lady: "well isn't that special?"

By the way, Abbe Lowell's denials are sounding more and more like he was supplied with misinformation. The question becomes who supplied it?

Res Ipsa could probably supply more background, but Abbe Lowell is a very smart lawyer, and he would not consciously make a representation of facts that he knew to be false. This is not something that a lawyer of his stature wants on his resume.

[_Chap]

By the way, Abbe Lowell's denials are sounding more and more like he was supplied with misinformation. The question becomes who supplied it?

Res Ipsa could probably supply more background, but Abbe Lowell is a very smart lawyer, and he would not consciously make a representation of facts that he knew to be false. This is not something that a lawyer of his stature wants on his resume.

Abbe Lowell? Google, Google:


Either Abbe Lowell or Jared Kushner Is Screwed. (Maybe Both Of them)

Ho hum. Looks like the Trump family is in for ... interesting times!

Washington superlawyer Abbe Lowell has had himself a bad week. So has Jared Kushner.

Let me start with Lowell. I was able to watch most of Cohen’s testimony — missed part of it dealing when on the phone for a while with one of my VA practitioners. In other words I might have missed any “cleanup” on this point but post hearing coverage leads me to believe I didn’t.

Specifically I recall Cohen at one point being asked who at the White House reviewed and edited his testimony. He mentioned Jay Sekulow who I guess passes for the role of Trump’s lead personal lawyer but he also said Abbe Lowell who is Jared Kushner’s lead attorney might have been involved. The topic of the White House editing the written testimony/statement Cohen would give to Congress in his first go around (the one that got him convicted for lying to Congress) came up again. In addition to some fleshing out of the details (in particular altering the timeline on the Trump Tower Moscow project) the question of who at the White House reviewed and made changes to Cohen’s draft he sent them. Cohen again cited Jay Sekulow. And again he cited Abbe Lowell. Keep in mind the Joint Defense agreement that Cohen was still part of at the time, as was Kushner. It’s not at all crazy to think Lowell might have had a hand in reviewing and editing Cohen’s testimony, especially if his client Jared Kushner suggested he take a look. After all, Trump’s own attorneys are at best second rate, with their third rate selves struggling towards the surface.

Trump might be the kind of guy who can’t get top line lawyers to represent him (in part because he doesn’t listen and in part because he’s got a history of stiffing lawyers just like he does almost everyone else) but many in Trump’s orbit including Kushner (Ivanka is also his client) have good attorneys. And Lowell is one of the elites in the DC legal community. He’s not some sleazeball known for dirty tricks or pushing the envelope ethically. On the contrary. Abbe Lowell is well respected and those coming up against him know they are facing as worthy an opponent as any they will encounter. He couldn’t have been happy to hear his name dropped like that. Twice! Lowell has had a sterling career and gotten rich doing so. He’s young enough he wants that to continue and I can only imagine his fellow partners at his law firm spitting our their coffee hearing his name invoked. If Trump has fast Twitter thumbs these folks by comparison were texting Lowell at light speed asking him basically WTF?

The whole thing begs a question or two. Did Cohen misspeak? Or was there some sort of back and forth communication between him and Lowell that makes him certain Lowell took part in crafting the changes in testimony that got him (Cohen) convicted of lying to Congress? Did Lowell, like so many others who have flown too close to the Trump orbit become corrupted?

Or did Kushner and perhaps even Trump himself give Lowell false information?

Either Lowell knowingly assisted in (arguably) suborning Cohen’s perjury to help protect Trump and by extension his client Kushner, or Lowell was given bad information by Kushner as well as Sekulow and others.

If it’s the first, then Lowell has ruined a sterling career and reputation. He’ll be just one more person used by Trump & the Trump Crime family and then discarded.

I think the more likely option is that he (Lowell) was lied to. Not just by Sekulow and the other lightweights (second rate lawyers with their third rate selves struggling towards the surface) on Trump’s personal legal team, but by or also by Jared and Ivanka. That doesn’t get him totally off the hook however for reasons I’ll discuss later. Anyway, what went down Wednesday would make for a very bad week for Lowell (and his firm’s) reputation but the week wasn’t over. Because we then learned that Kushner was controversially granted the highest level security clearance on the orders of his father-in-law Trump. Trump ordered then Chief of Staff (and still P.O.S. and disgrace to my Marine Corps) John Kelly to order the folks in the White House office responsible for such things to approve Kushner’s clearance. Kelly was disturbed enough to write a cover-his-ass memo to file on what he’d been ordered to do and why he didn’t think Kushner should have that clearance. Then White House Counsel Don McGahan was somehow looped in and he did the very same thing.

What does this have to do with Lowell? He first issued a statement which upon a closer look seemed carefully crafted saying all was on the up & up. Now, as Kushner’s lawyer he would definitely know about Jared getting his security clearance! Only the village idiot(s) would think everything had been kosher with all that mess however. And I suspect that once again Lowell’s law partners were texting/calling him in full blown WTF? mode. This evening while watching MSNBC I heard Lowell has just issued another statement, which in effect says he was just going on what he’d been told at the time by Kushner (and presumably Ivanka & others) that everything was ok.

Sorry Abbe, but I don’t think that dog is going to hunt. What you are in effect saying is that given all the public knowledge/controversy about Kushner’s clearance (and who knows what you learned that’s still private) you never thought to check with folks like Kelly and McGahan to see why all of a sudden the White House Security professionals who determine such matters changed their minds. Out of the blue. Methinks you didn’t want to know the answer, and practiced some willful ignorance. You are supposedly one of those elite lawyers who doesn’t play that kind of crap. And this weekend I suspect your law partners are going to be playing Ricky Ricardo doing his “Lucy Abbe — you got some splainin to do!”

In other words, I find it hard to believe Lowell was easily duped on this. And added to the business of him potentially being involved in the reviewing/editing of Cohen’s initial false testimony to Congress your star power is growing dimmer. Fast. Playing the “I just went with what my client told me” card probably isn’t going to cut it, especially given how you came to be Kushner’s lawyer in the first place. Another DC elite lawyer (Jamie Gorelick) got fed up with Kushner withholding information (all those things he kept “forgetting” to have included on his SF-86) and (as quietly & gracefully as she could) bailed. Gorelick and her firm (Wilmer & Hale) washed their hands of the Kushners. Oh, they were polite and professional about establishing distance but everyone knows what went on, and after a suitable transition period as you got up to speed we never heard Gorelick or Wilmer & Hale mentioned in respect to Jared & Ivanka again. Lowell damned sure had to know all this, which makes his “I didn’t know my client was lying to me” shtick pretty lame.

So let’s talk about someone we are all (sadly) all too familiar with — Jared Kushner. And I guess we should include Ivanka too. It’s possible and probably likely that Lowell sat the both of them down before agreeing to represent them and gave them a version of “You will tell me every goddamned thing and if you don’t, if you embarrass me the way you did Jamie I’ll walk.” It’s even possible that for a while that got Kushner to behave. I doubt it, but we have to at least admit that for a while at least Kushner felt chastised, and in turn Lowell though Kushner had “learned his lesson.”

Clearly, if (and that’s a big if) Kushner was rattled and decided to behave the lesson wore off. He strikes me as being a smug and, without good reason to feel that way believe he’s smarter than everyone else. Just like his father-in-law. That’s despite his own business failures by the way which again is just like his father-in-law except not so many but then he’s much younger. The point however is that when it comes to listening to others who actually know what they are talking about in certain areas Kushner seems to not be able to help himself any more than Trump does — and instead decides he knows better.

I have no doubt at all that Kushner was up to his eyebrows in the whole mess of the Trump candidacy and its misdeeds from the beginning. The same with the transition and the actual administration once Trump was sworn in. And also in the coverup. Regarding the coverup part and dealing with the lawyers, and knowing his father-in-law’s attention span is far too limited to read anything longer than a tweet or listen to someone giving a presentation/briefing longer than five minutes (assuming those five minutes are mostly telling Trump how awesome he is) if fell to Jared to oversee the lawyer’s work. Including coordinating statements (like Cohen’s) of people who were going to testify to Congress. Given it was controlled by the GOP and with assurances from McConnell and Ryan that the GOP would run whatever interference was necessary Jared calculated they’d get away with organizing a group of loyalists to tell the same lies.

And he either rope-a-doped Lowell into at least part of the cover up or Lowell chose to stick with Kushner and collect what I’m sure is a small fortune in legal fees. After all, during 8 years of Obama’s administration there wasn’t all that work representing high level administration officials once their Senate confirmations were over.

So, with all that here’s what I mean by the title of this diary. Either Lowell chose to go over to the dark side (so to speak) and if so ruin his reputation and that of his law firm who will dump him, and possible find himself disbarred, or he’s “only” damaged his reputation and that of his firm. The only fix is for him to follow Gorelick’s example and quit. The problem is that things have gotten to the point where he won’t be able to gently fade away the way Gorelick was able to do. A “breakup” with Jared & Ivanka will be significantly more public and therefore messy. That will reflect on Winston & Strawn who will likely want to go about working out a deal with Lowell to move on to “new opportunities” and leave Lowell’s reputation damaged at a point in life where it will be difficult to rebuild. But if Lowell was duped, it’s really his only option — the “best bad option.”

As for Kushner, he will lose a great and (formerly at least) highly respected attorney just when things are about to explode with the Mueller investigation. I haven’t bought in to the whole “the Mueller investigation is wrapping up and he’ll submit a report in early/mid March stuff. Not with Mueller having extended the use of the grand jury he’s worked with for another six months which won’t be up until June. There are some explosive times ahead in the next few months however. At least I think so. And Mueller has already farmed out an awful lot of stuff to other jurisdictions. Probably stuff we don’t know about yet. We also know there are a boatload of sealed indictments and unsealing them could lead to not only Mueller’s work continuing but even expanding. Regardless, Mueller has methodically been working, circling ever closer to the Trump family which includes Kushner and there’s a decent likelihood that within a few months the much anticipated (and hoped for) “Mueller Time” will finally be here.

That will be a very bad time for Kushner to be trying to transition to new legal representation. Worse, as I’ve noted Trump hasn’t been able to get first rate lawyers not only because of his history of stiffing them, but because he doesn’t follow their advice. Kushner is giving every indication that on the latter point at least, he’s no better than Trump. Because he at least paid his legal bills he was able to attract top rate legal representation. Then he blew it with his first lawyer. If as I suspect Lowell dumps him as a client in the weeks ahead (days?) Kushner is going to have a hard time getting a good lawyer from a high end firm from now on. Just as some top lawyers might have wanted to represent Trump in the belief they could get paid by demanding a huge up-front retainer, their firms have decided it was better for their reputation not to get too close to Trump. Those kinds of firms have a lot of very rich clients who care about their own reputations and can take their business elsewhere.

So Lowell screwed and the only question is how much. If he really was duped by Kushner he can get by although his reputation will never be as good as what it was before. If he took active part in the Cohen stuff then he’s royally screwed. Kushner? As I said he’s screwed himself too, because if his lawyer is complicit in the Cohen part of the cover up they are both going down. But even if Lowell is innocent, or allowed himself to be duped (and again I maintain that would take some actual willful ignorance) Lowell will be gone. Having lost two top lawyers who both came from top firms he won’t get a third such person to sign on to his defense. He might get someone better than a Jay Sekulow but that’s not saying much. Whomever he gets will be badly overmatched. And that’s very bad news for a guy who knows what it’s actually like inside a federal prison, having visited his own dad in one.

I of course have no sympathy for either Jared or Ivanka. Given what happened with their first top lawyer (Gorelick) it’s hard for me to muster much sympathy for Lowell either. He should damn well have known to do some checking of his own on some things. Not “trust but verify” but on things like the security clearance business tell himself “screw the trust part — I’m checking this out with some key people who know better than to lie to me about the process.” The bottom line is that Jared and Ivanka are probably going to lose a top flight lawyer who was highly experienced in just the kinds of matters they need just when they are going to need him the most. Worse, it’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to find anyone nearly as good to replace him. Not after blowing through two such lawyers.

And I say good. They deserve to go down. I don’t give a damn how many problems they have. As it says in a meme I saw somewhere my field of "F"s to give is barren.

[_Res Ipsa]

In January, when asked if he had every tried to interfere on Kushner's behalf, Trump told Maggie Haberman of the New York Times "No, I don't think I have the authority to do that. I'm not sure that I do".

In the words of the Church Lady: "well isn't that special?"

By the way, Abbe Lowell's denials are sounding more and more like he was supplied with misinformation. The question becomes who supplied it?

Res Ipsa could probably supply more background, but Abbe Lowell is a very smart lawyer, and he would not consciously make a representation of facts that he knew to be false. This is not something that a lawyer of his stature wants on his resume.

I don’t know anything about Lowell other than what I read in the paper. Weren’t Kushner and Cohen part of a Joint Defense Agreement? If so, there’s nothing odd in Lowell being involved in prepping Cohen for testimony. Given Lowell’ reputation, I’d assume he was lied to. Instructing witnesses to lie is a good way to lose one’s license to practice.

[_MeDotOrg]

In January, when asked if he had every tried to interfere on Kushner's behalf, Trump told Maggie Haberman of the New York Times "No, I don't think I have the authority to do that. I'm not sure that I do".

In the words of the Church Lady: "well isn't that special?"

By the way, Abbe Lowell's denials are sounding more and more like he was supplied with misinformation. The question becomes who supplied it?

Res Ipsa could probably supply more background, but Abbe Lowell is a very smart lawyer, and he would not consciously make a representation of facts that he knew to be false. This is not something that a lawyer of his stature wants on his resume.

I don’t know anything about Lowell other than what I read in the paper. Weren’t Kushner and Cohen part of a Joint Defense Agreement? If so, there’s nothing odd in Lowell being involved in prepping Cohen for testimony. Given Lowell’ reputation, I’d assume he was lied to. Instructing witnesses to lie is a good way to lose one’s license to practice.

I think we're confusing two things. I was talking about Trump's interference in Kushner's security clearance, not Kushner and Cohen. Their joint defense agreement fell apart when Cohen began cooperating with Mueller.

I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Abbe Lowell actually knew the truth, but I rather suspect it was a situation where he thought it better not to pursue the situation. But he should very much listen to Michael Cohen when he talks about people being sucked into the culture of corruption.

[_Res Ipsa]

I think we're confusing two things. I was talking about Trump's interference in Kushner's security clearance, not Kushner and Cohen. Their joint defense agreement fell apart when Cohen began cooperating with Mueller.

I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Abbe Lowell actually knew the truth, but I rather suspect it was a situation where he thought it better not to pursue the situation. But he should very much listen to Michael Cohen when he talks about people being sucked into the culture of corruption.

You’re too kind. Only one of us was confused and it wasn’t you.

If I had a client who told me that kind of whopper and hung me out to dry, they’d be a former client. Life’s too short, and there are lots of clients out there, especially for a lawyer with Lowell’s reputation. It certainly is possible that he knew the truth or suspected but looked away. That would be a shame.