Kushner still waiting on permanent security clearance
November 17, 2017 by admin
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The White House said the timeframe for Jared Kushner is “completely normal” and that the process can often take 300 or more days. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Jared Kushner is still working with an interim security clearance 10 months into President Donald Trump’s administration, according to White House officials and others with knowledge of the matter.
The top adviser and Trump son-in-law, who joined Trump for part of his Asia tour this month, has continued to work on sensitive foreign policy issues and other matters while his application for a permanent clearance remains under review, these people said.
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On Thursday, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein—who jointly oversee the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Russia probe—requested documents from Kushner including “transcripts from other committee interviews, additional documents from previous requests, communications with (former national security adviser) Michael Flynn and documents related to his security clearance.”
Grassley and Feinstein said Kushner, citing confidentiality, declined to produce documents connected to his security clearance application, which includes a form that has been repeatedly amended to list Kushner’s contacts with foreign officials.
Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that Kushner “will be open” to responding to requests from the committee.
Many senior White House officials have obtained a permanent security clearance – some received the clearances five months ago or longer – but interviews and paperwork continue for Kushner, a senior campaign adviser who joined the administration on Day One.
People familiar with the situation say Kushner’s interim clearance allows him to view sensitive material, and that it is valid unless revoked.
The White House said there is a backlog given the number of officials in Trump’s administration who joined the government for the first time and did not previously hold security clearances.
The White House also said the Kushner timeframe is “completely normal” and that the process can often take 300 or more days. Officials also said there is heightened scrutiny for officials like Kushner who need the very highest clearance.
Several experts said that each situation is different.
“As a general rule, with respect to clearances, when you have people who have never had one before and they have massive financial and foreign connection and a staggering amount of business interests, like some of the people accompanying Trump, it wouldn’t be unheard of,” said Mark Zaid, a prominent security clearance lawyer.
In order to obtain a security clearance, officials must complete an SF-86 form, which delineates foreign contacts. They must provide a robust financial history. Then, officials are interviewed extensively – and their family members, friends and former colleagues and bosses are also contacted. The interviews often begin within weeks of the application.
Kushner was interviewed this summer, according to people familiar with the matter, after other officials were interviewed.
He has a number of complicating factors, including complex financial transactions involving his family’s real estate business as well as the changes to his form listing foreign contacts, which now includes more than 100 meetings, including with Russians during the transition.
“I have never seen that level of mistakes,” Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, said in a Congressional hearing earlier this fall.
Leslie McAdoo Gordon, a lawyer who has worked on security clearance cases for years, said they are often prioritized for senior White House staff. “The goal has always been 90 days,” she said. “Some of them get resolved in 90 days, but many of them don’t. It can take months. It can occasionally take years. You just have to work the system.”
McAdoo Gordon said the president could eventually approve Kushner’s clearance. She also said there are waivers to expedite the process, and that those who the president needs immediately are often put to the front of the line.
“From everything you read, it’s apparent there are issues there,” she said. “It’s a labyrinthine process, but it’s usually pretty fair and transparent.”
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Corruption Case Against Senator Menendez Ends in Mistrial
November 17, 2017 by admin
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Throughout the trial, poll after poll found that his approval numbers were plummeting, and a Quinnipiac poll released in September showed that 50 percent of likely New Jersey voters said that Mr. Menendez did not deserve to be re-elected.
Mr. Menendez and his friend Dr. Salomon Melgen, the ophthalmologist, were charged in an 18-count indictment. Dr. Melgen faced 11 charges, including conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud. Mr. Menendez faced similar charges plus an additional charge of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Mr. Menendez was accused of helping Dr. Melgen on certain issues in exchange for lavish gifts and political contributions.
Though vindicated for now, Mr. Menendez could still be retried by federal prosecutors with a new trial unfolding next year in the midst of a possible re-election campaign, but prosecutors would still have to contend with a landmark Supreme Court decision that makes it harder to prove an elected official engaged in bribery.
Still, a retrial would place Democrats in an uncomfortable position of supporting a colleague accused of bribery. But with the party already facing the prospect of having to defend 10 seats in states that were won by President Trump as they try to win back the Senate, Democrats would seem unlikely to abandon Mr. Menendez.
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Though he has yet to officially declare his candidacy, Mr. Menendez has given no sign that he plans to step down, and on Thursday he vowed to confront those who sought to take advantage of the political damage caused by the trial.
“To those who were digging my political grave so that they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you,” Mr. Menendez said.
Officials with the United States Department of Justice said they will wait to decide whether to retry Mr. Menendez and his co-defendant, Dr. Melgen, 63, though they will likely take into account that most of the jurors favored an acquittal. “The department will carefully consider next steps in this important matter,” said Nicole Navas Oxman, a spokesman for the agency.
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One juror told reporters that the jury was never close to a consensus on the charges.
“It was very tense. We were deadlocked right out of the gate,” said the juror, Ed Norris, 49, an equipment operator from Roxbury Township, who said he believed the men were not guilty.
“I just wish there was stronger evidence,” he said. “I just didn’t see a smoking gun. They just didn’t prove it to us.”
Still, Republicans will undoubtedly seek to make any re-election effort for Mr. Menendez difficult, forcing Democrats to invest resources in a blue state. After the mistrial, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, said in a statement that he was “calling on the Senate Ethics committee to immediately investigate Senator Menendez’s actions, which led to his indictment.’’
“His trial shed light on serious accusations of violating the public’s trust as an elected official,’’ the statement said, “as well as potential violations of the Senate’s Code of Conduct.”
The jurors’ inability to reach a verdict also underscores the high bar for corruption that was set by the Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican.
The indictment against Mr. Menendez and Dr. Melgen was handed down in 2015, a year before the Supreme Court decision significantly limited the official acts a politician could be convicted of in a bribery case.
The McDonnell decision loomed throughout the trial with Judge Walls at one point referring to it as “you know what,” and hinting that he may have granted a motion to dismiss the case based on the high court’s definition of bribery.
Judge Walls’ decision came on the fourth day of deliberations here in Federal District Court for New Jersey. In an unusual move, the jury had to restart deliberations on Monday after a juror was excused for a long-planned vacation.
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The mistrial comes more than four years after news media reports on the relationship between the two men led to an investigation that led to the charges.
Throughout the case, lawyers for the men never strayed from a simple theme: They were friends, nothing more, with a friendship that stretched decades. So close were the two that they referred to each other as “hermano,” Spanish for brother. Any gifts that Mr. Menendez received were just an example of Dr. Melgen’s generosity, defense lawyers said. And any actions Mr. Menendez took on behalf of Dr. Melgen, including a Medicare dispute and a port security contract in the Dominican Republic, were part of his interest in broader policy issues.
But prosecutors argued that a friendship between people with power and means could be corrupted and that the many private flights, stays at seaside resorts in the Dominican Republic and a luxury hotel in Paris and hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from Dr. Melgen to Mr. Menendez were evidence of illicit behavior.
Throughout the two-month trial, Mr. Menendez, arrived at the courthouse every day with his Senate staff in tow, running his Washington office from Newark. He rarely spoke with reporters about the trial, but was often seen hugging the many supporters who came to court each day. He would occasionally pray, gathering with clergy outside the courthouse and sometimes was heard singing “Amazing Grace” in an elevator.
Having started his career in New Jersey politics at age 20 on the Union City school board, Mr. Menendez climbed nearly every rung of state politics — mayor, assemblyman, state senator and congressman — before reaching the United States Senate in 2005, when the governor-elect, Jon S. Corzine, picked Mr. Menendez to replace him.
In Washington, longtime Democratic colleagues of Mr. Menendez in the Senate cheered the court’s decision and said it was time to move on.
“He has gone through our system of justice and the government didn’t prove its case,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second ranking Senate Democrat. As for welcoming Mr. Menendez back, Mr. Durbin said, “Why wouldn’t we?”
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said she did not believe that the case merited being retried.
“I think he went through hell with this and that’s enough,” she said. “The charges were not proven, therefore he should be able to come back and carry on.”
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