Jared Kushner Probably Won’t Be Able To Continue With His Current Job After Losing Security Clearance

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Despite the White House claiming that Jared Kushner will still be able to perform his job as a top foreign policy adviser after being stripped of his security clearance on Tuesday, numerous experts have have since said it’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to do much without access to sensitive, top secret information.

“I can tell you that no decision within the memo will impact anything that Jared Kushner is working on,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a press conference shortly after the news broke.

When specifically asked if Kushner will no longer have access to classified information vital to his position, she responded, “I cannot answer whether someone has security clearance or not, as we’ve addressed many times before. But I can tell you: nothing that has taken place will affect the valuable work that Jared is doing and he continues and will continue to be a valued member of the team. He will continue to do the important work that he has been focused on with the last year.”

Given that Kushner is in charge of overseeing the Middle East peace process, where the relationships between powers are incredibly complex and keeping information from unwanted eyes is a top concern, Sanders’ answers seem far-fetched.

“He can’t see intercepted communications — that’s top secret, he’s now downgraded to secret … he can’t see the most secret CIA information about their informants,” said CNN national security analyst Phil Mudd, who previously worked for the FBI and CIA. “He can’t see some of the stuff our Western allies see.”

After The Washington Post reported that officials from the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico have had private discussions on how to manipulate his lack of expertise, business relationships, and financial issues for their own benefit, it’s unlikely that other foreign officials will even less trusting of Kushner than they might have been before.

Speaking to MSNBC, former CIA official John Cipher said he “can’t imagine that he can continue that job,” not just because of Kushner’s lack of access to vital information, but also because of his failure to report all the financial entanglements with foreign powers that slowed down the approval process for his permanent security clearance, his total inexperience, his naiveté, and reports of numerous countries finding him easy to influence for their own agendas.

Whether Kushner will be given a different job or leave the White House remains to be seen, but it’s difficult to imagine how he’ll last much longer as a foreign policy adviser.