The first son-in-law Jared Kushner is Donald Trump’s man Friday, Saturday, and so on. You get the idea. POTUS handed him just a few assignments: Middle East peace, renovation of the VA, the opioid crisis management, criminal justice reform, Mexico liaison, China liaison, and Muslim community liaison, among others. Then, there was the darker side of Ivanka Trump’s husband’s assignments.
Right after Trump won in November 2016, Kushner began trying to set up a back-channel communications link with Russia, one that would circumvent America’s intelligence agencies. The Lincoln Project is a group of former and relapsed Republicans. They have been committed to removing Trump from office. The latest video is entitled:
‘Evil is real. And it lives in Jared Kushner.’
Over a dozen White House officials said Kushner’s link to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO Kirill Dmitriev came from Trump’s belief that he continued to be punished for winning over Secretary Hillary Clinton, according to The Daily Beast. He deeply distrusted what he called the “Deep State,” meaning government employees. In his paranoia, POTUS believed they were trying to eject him from office.
More than a dozen Trump administration officials, current and former, described Kushner’s relationship with Dmitriev. One former senior official spoke about the punishments it rained down on Russia just limping along under the new president:
‘It was a vicious cycle where, even though we were doing a lot of concrete things to take punitive measures against Russia, the president’s own personal behavior and how that was portrayed in the domestic context didn’t allow us to say, “We have a coherent Russia policy.”‘
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien released a statement that read:
‘Jared Kushner has worked closely with our NSC team. Prior to my becoming the National Security Adviser, I worked with Jared on hostage recoveries and his support of the President’s efforts was critical in bringing several of our hostages and detainees home. As the NSA, I have seen first-hand how Jared and his office coordinate their work with the NSC and other U.S. Government departments and agencies as he assists President Trump on important foreign and domestic issues.’
Another former senior administration official said:
‘Dmitriev came into the picture because Putin was always saying, “Talk to my guy because he can help you with the Gulf and with the Middle East peace plan, we can help stabilize.” A lot was going on behind the scenes… they kept it to themselves.’
This official said that after the first of the year in 2017, “the president’s inner circle including Kusher” planned to bypass career officials on “critical national security.” An official said:
‘We were still coming to terms with the aggressiveness with which [the Russians] attacked our electorate process. The whole kit and caboodle—the leaks, the information campaign, the social media initiatives. The new administration just seemed to ignore that. There was a general feeling that we could accommodate the Russians in some way.’
A former senior office noted:
‘We had a brief moment after Flynn had been retired —a window under McMaster—to put together a Russia policy.’
Another former senior official told the Daily Beast:
‘I’d always worried that he’d go and say something that he shouldn’t and that it would blow up in all our faces.’
A third former senior official added:
‘There were questions being asked about where Russia might want to spend its money. Dmitriev was the money guy and held the strings. And the idea on Russia’s part was, ‘We can sell to Jared and everyone else on Middle East peace.’
The president had Secretary Tillerson fired in March 2018. A former senior official added:
‘The Secretary [Tillerson] went in to see the president and whether or not we should be doing this—giving Ukraine the Javelins. And the president’s reaction was, “Are you out of your fucking mind? Why are we giving them anything?” His whole attitude was [the sale] would hurt the Russians. I wondered at that time what it was about the Ukrainians that particularly irritated him. Of course, we later found out.’
Trump called Putin to “congratulate him” — instead of condemning him over interfering in the US presidential election and poisoning a former Russian spy “on British soil.” The president played around with inviting Putin to the White House. A former senior official commented:
‘He really wanted to get on track with Putin and we kept having to react.’
This former senior official said:
‘At the time we had to get that list out, Mnuchin thought he had to do something demonstrative that we were going to punish Russia for election meddling. You had all of the Europeans asking us to delist and for understandable reasons. So, we went through a painful process of trying to force Deripaska out of Rusal so we could delist Rusal.’
A group of international financiers and banking executives attended Kushner’s summit, but no one understood the full depth of Kushner’s plans:
‘No one ever really knew what Jared was up to.’
Russia helped draft parts of the Kushner peace plan, and the first son-in-law bypassed the State Department and National Security Council:
‘There were maybe three or four people who really knew what Jared was up to and who he was speaking with and what was included in the plan. But they didn’t dish to anyone. And sometimes even people working with Jared didn’t know exactly who or how he was communicating with foreign officials.’
Most of the government’s Russian experts left their jobs and moved elsewhere. An official said:
‘It all slowly unraveled and by the end we felt like we didn’t have a Russia policy at all.’
Dmitriev attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2020. He said:
‘I think business cooperation between Russia and the U.S. is important. It’s non-existent right now. [Sanctions are] wrong… Particularly U.S. sanctions, because they really undermine the U.S. long term.’
Dmitriev place an op-ed with CNBC calling for Russian and America to join together to fight the coronavirus:
‘During World War II, American and Russian soldiers fought side by side against a common enemy. Just as our grandfathers stood shoulder to shoulder… now our countries must show unity and leadership to win the war against the coronavirus.’
America’s State Department sounded a great deal like Dmitriev by then:
‘Particularly in times of crisis, we must work together—much like we did during the Second World War, when the people of our two nations and other allies fought valiantly, suffered great losses, and endured great hardship.’
Twitter world went wild over these revelations. Check out some of our favorites below:
Evil is real. And it lives in Jared Kushner. pic.twitter.com/TZQctWyVa1
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 24, 2020
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
