The Kushner Trifecta

Kicking Kushner:  When Trump ran for election he effectively attacked Hillary Clinton for her careless handling of confidential information, her email “malfeasance” and accused her of influence peddling through the Clinton Foundation.  Now, Jared Kushner is being accused of having achieved that Clinton trifecta.  Already under suspicion for trying to hide his meetings with numerous foreign officials and for his involvement with questionable data mining and the exploitation of the DNC and Podesta emails, he’s lost his access to super top secret intelligence and now is being investigated for using his White House position to induce lenders to fund various Kushner family properties.  To the extent that any of the newest accusations are even remotely true, son in law Jared is in even more trouble than previously thought.  The current controversy surrounds Qatar, that country in the Arabian gulf previously known mostly for its oil and natural gas wealth, the Al Jazeera media network, and supporting and exporting Islamic fundamentalism.  On Friday, The Intercept reported that in April 2017 Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, made a pitch to Qatar’s Minister of Finance, requesting funding for the family’s money pit, otherwise known as 666 Fifth Avenue.  Much to the desperate Kushners’ chagrin, the minister demurred.  That the Qataris weren’t interested in providing financing for the Kushner family’s problem building isn’t all that surprising, none of the other sovereign funds inappropriately approached have been all that interested either.  What is garnering all the attention is that one month after the Qataris turned down Charles Kushner, the US, with the backing of Jared Kushner, sided with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in their diplomatic dispute with Qatar, a dispute that led to the blockade of Qatar and the shifting of regional alliances so that the Qataris have moved closer to Turkey and Iran, the two countries helping them get around the effects of the blockade.  The US maintains a large, critical naval base in Qatar, any dispute in the region goes against our national interests, so while Kushner was throwing the US weight behind the Saudis and the UAE, Secretary of State Tillerson was trying to broker a diplomatic solution to end the standoff.  The assertion now is that Kushner got the US to back the Saudi coalition to spite Qatar for stiffing his family business.  As crazy as this sounds, at the time that the gulf crisis erupted foreign policy experts and the international community openly questioned why the US took the position against Qatar, there have even been reports that the Qataris considered complaining to Special Counsel Mueller.  In that context the “blame Kushner” explanation seems that much more believable.  Guilty or not, the optics are awful, the son in law with no diplomatic experience, carries more weight than the Secretary of State and then, while his family’s finances are under extreme duress, influences decision making in irrational ways.  It’s not just Qatar, the New York Times reports that Special Counsel Mueller is also investigating discussions that Kushner and former strategist Steve Bannon had with George Nader, an advisor to the UAE  seeking “information about any possible attempts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to support Trump during the presidential campaign.”  Last week, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal ran editorials calling for Kushner to leave government as has former Governor Chris Christie, a Trump ally and the man once responsible for jailing Charles Kushner.  Christie has a few bones of his own to pick with Jared who he holds responsible for keeping him out of the Trump administration but in this case Christie is right, to the extent he ever was, Kushner has stopped being an asset to Trump.  He’s also in bigly trouble.  For his part, Trump is playing both sides, he has told Chief of Staff Kelly to help him push Ivanka and Jared back to NYC and told Ivanka and Jared to stay and find him a replacement for Kelly, preferably one that would reinstate their security clearances.    

Tariff Tantrums:  When Trump declared his intention to formally announce steel and aluminum tariffs he really did take everyone by surprise.  That is everyone, except for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Ross’s fellow traveler, trade adviser, Peter Navarro.  To push their pro-tariff position, they had organized a “hastily” planned meeting with steel executives to encourage Trump to announce the tariffs despite recommendations from other advisors such as Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin that the tariffs would disproportionately impact allies such as Canada and South Korea more than their intended target, China.  The Ross strategy worked, Trump surprised everyone, including his communications staff, legislative aides, Republican leadership and close allies by announcing his tariff decision during the meeting even though no plan has been formally written or completely analyzed.  Gary Cohn, who had been trying to get Trump to consider a more nuanced, targeted plan is once again on the verge of quitting.  Trump’s vulnerability to manipulation by the Ross faction and his impetuous action is now being attributed to his fury about White House turmoil, Jared’s loss of security clearance, the departure of Hope Hicks and the expanding Mueller investigation.  Cohn and Mnuchin and an assortment of legislators are still trying to walk back the tariffs by hammering home that their imposition will ultimately increase unemployment, hurt the economy, hit Trump’s favorite measure of economic performance, the stock market, and result in a nasty trade war but it’s not clear that their efforts will work because Trump really wants his tariffs and believes that trade wars are so “easy to win,” even though they aren’t.  For their part, the pro-tariff twosome Navarro and Mills traveled the Sunday talk show circuit, exhorting the value of tariffs and dismissing concerns about a trade war.  Despite their assertions, several US trading partners have already announced tariffs on US bourbon and denim.  As to the surprise part, one investor may have had a heads-up, Trump’s good friend and one time administration advisor, Carl Icahn made a killing selling off stock in some negatively impacted companies just days before Trump’s announcement. Just another thing for the investigators to look into.    

International Affairs:  Last week Putin bragged about his country’s enhanced nuclear capability, using cartoon graphics to depict how Russia could evade US warning and anti-missile systems by sending their nukes over the South Pole through to Mar a Lago and other parts of the US.  Much of what Putin had to say wasn’t really all that new, according to former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, our anti-missile systems are meant to interrupt “onesies and twosies” from rogue nations, they don’t do much for major onslaughts from nuclear powerhouses, still Putin’s assertions were unnecessarily hostile and as such a suitable response was warranted.  Trump said nothing but did engage in a twitter battle with his true nemesis, Alec Baldwin.  Also, last week China’s President Xi more or less announced that he’d had it with any pretense of democracy, he now plans on being president for life. Historically, that is the kind of anti-democratic action that would have warranted a stern US comment.  Again, Trump said nothing.  Over the weekend Trump finally broke his silence, in a private meeting he praised Xi, telling a group of Republican donors that he liked the president for life thing, “we should give that a try.”  Saturday night, Trump attended the Gridiron Dinner, notable mostly because he’d been avoiding interaction with members of the press not named Sean Hannity or Jeanine Pirro.  Despite his turbulent week, Trump appeared unflustered.  He managed to throw off a few comical lines, targeting his not so favorite cabinet member Attorney General Sessions, making fun of Kushner’s security problems and Melania’s staying power and race baiting Congresswoman Maxine Waters by questioning her intellect, before mentioning that he is now open to meeting with North Korea because they’ve asked.  Of course, we’ve heard that before.  

Just another week on the Trump train.