Politico and the New York Times reported on Tuesday that on Friday the White House notified a number of staff who are on interim security clearances had their access downgraded from Top Secret to Secret information. Kushner was included in this.
The Washington Post reports that Kushner’s clearance is being held up in part because four countries have tried to manipulate him to gain access, and he held rogue meetings that the National Security Council was not aware of until after the fact.
Two business groups gave Kushner’s family company millions of dollars after White House meetings.
A New York Times analysis makes that astute comparison between Trump’s Apprentice TV show and how he runs these table meetings with lawmakers where he appears to go against GOP orthodoxy on immigration and guns, like he did this week. Trump enjoys these sessions and will probably do more of them, even though they will have no impact on actual policy making. Like with immigration a few weeks ago, he erased his gun control comments when he met behind closed doors with the NRA.
Reporters are writing that they are witnessing a more chaotic than usual White House.
The New York Time’s chaos story suggests that Trump has sent mixed signals about Kushner and Ivanka remaining in the White House, and that he has privately asked Kelly to push them out.
Yuval Levin in National Review writes “a White House dealing with an intense crisis needs to rely on established patterns of mutual trust and respect and familiar procedures for handling and channeling information, putting options before the president, and keeping things calm and organized. More than a year in, this White House lacks almost all of that. Confronted with a serious crisis, their system could easily crumple.”
The Washington Post interviewed 22 people close to Trump in the latter part of the week and into Saturday about the recent chaos. Many of them are worried about his emotional state, and that fact he is becoming more isolated. Some of this may be exacerbated by communication director Hope Hick’s announcement that she will resign.
In Russia News:
Two reports came out this week with information from people who have been interviewed by Mueller. The reporting has focused on when Trump began his ties with Russia, and how much Trump and Roger Stone knew about the stolen Podesta emails before it became public that they had been stolen.
And here is a WaPo story that says Mueller is investigating Trump’s efforts to push Sessions to resign in July and August 2017. Trump also tweeted criticism of Sessions on Wednesday.
Bob Baur on Lawfare explains why Sessions’s response to Trump is astounding and historic. Here is what Session replied: “As long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”
Speaking of guns, NPR reports that a Kremlin-backed politician has been cultivating ties with the NRA for years, and that Russia may have used the NRA to funnel money into American politics.
David French argues that the Schiff memo undercuts the Nunes memo’s main argument. And here is Andy McCarthy saying the opposite.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 40.4%