Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Monday bragged that no details of the White House’s negotiations in the Middle East have been leaked, in a talk to congressional interns which itself was immediately leaked to the press.
“Nothing’s leaked out, right?” Kushner told congressional interns, according to audio of his talk that Wired obtained. “Nothing has leaked out, which I think gives the parties more trust and more ability to really express and share their viewpoints.”
Before his remarks, deputy staff director of member services, outreach and communications Katie Patru told interns that recording Kushner’s off-the-record remarks would be a “breach of trust,” according to Wired.
“This town is full of leakers and everyone knows who they are, and no one trusts them. In this business your reputation is everything,” Patru said, per the report.
Kushner told interns that the lack of leaks has “been a big advantage.”
“I think you need to be able to probe people in private for them to have confidence that it’s not going to be used against them and that it’s not going to leak out in the press, which would be very, very hurtful,” he said. “But I think we were able to keep things quiet.”
Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been tasked with a broad portfolio of responsibilities, including what the President called “the ultimate deal” of establishing peace in the Middle East. Kushner told interns that the White House is “thinking about what the right end state is” and trying to work “logically” on the knotty decades-old problem.
“I’m sure everyone that’s tried this has been unique in some ways,” Kushner said. “So, what do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know.”
Wired was not the only news outlet to pick up Kushner’s leaked remarks. On Monday afternoon, hours after he finished speaking, Foreign Policy reported that Kushner told interns his father-in-law’s campaign was too disorganized to collude with itself, let alone Russia’s campaign to interfere in the 2016 election.
Gee, I didn’t know Kushner owned slum properties in the Middle East.
Nobody in the know universe does.
But hey, we tried expertise, and everything else, so why not give complete ignorance a go.
You see. Firing Scaramucci emboldened the leakers.
Helluva job stopping those leaks, General Kelly.
OTOH, maybe there are no leaks because there’s nothing to leak about that particular project. Jared’s probably spending all his time talking to lawyers, and not on the middle east, reinventing government, the opiod crisis and all his other odd jobs.