Donald Trump reveals how scared he is of Jared Kushner’s testimony to Robert Mueller
After months out of the headlines, Jared Kushner’s name came racing back to the forefront today due to two different storylines. Donald Trump restored Kushner’s top level security clearance today. We also learned today that Kushner gave several hours of testimony to Robert Mueller last month. It’s not a coincidence, of course, that these two stories are emerging on the same day. One must have triggered the other – and it tells us a lot about Trump’s state of mind.
Trump would likely have learned about Kushner’s testimony to Mueller a few days ago, as the major news outlets reporting the story would have asked him to provide comment for the story shortly before running it. That helps explain Trump’s increasingly aggressive, frantic, and unstable behavior over the past few days. It also explains why Trump suddenly gave Kushner his security clearance back today: he’s panicked at the idea that Kushner might continue cooperating with Mueller.
Of course, as per usual, Trump is reacting too late. He sat on his hands at the end of February when John Kelly revoked Kushner’s top level clearance. It’s not surprising to learn that, not long after this, Kushner decided to give a lengthy interview to Mueller. CNN is reporting it as having lasted seven hours, while other news outlets are saying six hours. At that length, it’s fair to conclude that Kushner was cooperative, or mostly cooperative.
In other words, Trump screwed up and drove Kushner into the arms of Mueller, and now that he’s learning he screwed up, he’s trying to belatedly fix it by giving Kushner his security clearance back. How does this help Trump? It probably doesn’t. Mueller already has the testimony he needs from Kushner. But when it comes to spitefully alienating the potential witnesses against him, Trump has displayed a consistent habit of trying to put the genie back in the bottle after the fact.
Donald Trump’s White House wants us to believe that Donald Trump reinstated Jared Kushner’s security clearance today because Kushner met with Robert Mueller and was fully cleared. But that’s not what happened at all. There is no indication that Mueller has cleared Kushner on anything. In addition, Kushner’s security clearance was revoked for a number of reasons, including lying on his security forms, and not just for his suspected involvement in the Trump-Russia plot. This is just spin. Trump hit the panic button today. He’s been doing that a lot this week.
