Jared Kushner’s position as President Donald Trump’s son-in-law seems secure for the time being, so far as we can tell, but otherwise it’s hard to see how he continues doing the additional jobs of bringing about Middle East peace and reinventing the federal government and solving America’s opioid crisis and being the country’s go-to guy with China and getting Mexico to pay for a border wall.
A pesky bureaucracy has denied him top-level security clearance, what with all the meetings with foreign powers that he forgot to disclose on his forms and the recent reports by the even peskier news media that China and Mexico and a couple of other countries have tried to exploit the billion-dollar debts owed by the company he last ran and is still fully invested in. The White House press secretary assures us that Kushner can continue dealing with the Middle East and China without access to the most top-secret stuff, and has the full support of former the four-star Marine general and current White House chief of staff who doesn’t seem to like Kushner much and recently announced the street policy limiting access to the top-secret stuff to those with top-secret security clearances, but that seems suspicious.
We suppose that Kushner can reinvent America’s federal government and solve its opioid crisis and somehow convince Mexico to pay for a border wall with the same meager information available to the internet-browsing public at large, but our reading of the news suggests these are all tough tasks. All the tougher when you can’t get a security clearance and reports are swirling that foreign government have been trying to exploit the billion-dollar debt you incurred in your last job and still owe, and the father-in-law who handed you these tough jobs has his own problems dealing with eerily similar swirling reports about possible indebtedness to foreign powers.
There’s also the lingering question of why any 37-year-old without any previous public service or foreign relations experience, whose only credentials were taking over the family real estate business when his dad went to prison and driving it a billion dollars into debt and marrying a future president’s daughter, wound up in such demanding jobs. When Trump ran for president he promised that he would hire only the best people, and but it turns out he meant the best people he knew. His limited circle of acquaintances includes his son’s wedding planner who wound up in a sweet position at the Department of Urban Development, a former bit player from his “Apprentice” reality show who wound up as the only black woman in the white House but got fired and wound up on another reality and got fired again, as well too-many-to-link-to others who wound up in high-ranking jobs after serving low-level duty in Trump’s businesses or campaign.
Trump is reportedly going to appoint his former personal jet pilot to head the Federal Aviation Administration, and we marvel at how all the best people happened to be people he knew before he ran for office. Still, we hope he starts considering other job applications from outside his family and circle of friends, if any are forthcoming,
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 