DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Kushner Omitted Meeting With Russians on Security Clearance Forms

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/jared-kushner-russians-security-clearance.html?_r=0

When Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, sought the top-secret security clearance that would give him access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets, he was required to disclose all encounters with foreign government officials over the last seven years.

But Mr. Kushner did not mention dozens of contacts with foreign leaders or officials in recent months. They include a December meeting with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, and one with the head of a Russian state-owned bank, Vnesheconombank, arranged at Mr. Kislyak’s behest.

The omissions, which Mr. Kushner’s lawyer called an error, are particularly sensitive given the congressional and F.B.I. investigations into contacts between Russian officials and Trump associates. The Senate Intelligence Committee informed the White House weeks ago that, as part of its inquiry, it planned to question Mr. Kushner about the meetings he arranged with Mr. Kislyak, including the one with Sergey N. Gorkov, a graduate of Russia’s spy school who now heads Vnesheconombank.

Mr. Kushner’s omissions were described by people with direct knowledge of them who asked for anonymity because the questionnaire is not a public document.

While officials can lose access to intelligence, or worse, for failing to disclose foreign contacts, the forms are often amended to address lapses. Jamie Gorelick, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, said that the questionnaire was submitted prematurely on Jan. 18, and that the next day, Mr. Kushner’s office told the F.B.I. that he would provide supplemental information.

At this point I think trump could fax Putin our nuke launch codes and get away with it.
trump's followers would spin it as "it wasn't HIS fax machine, Obama actually purchased it during his administration."

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the article... but referencing the last paragraph... the form for the clearance was submitted on Jan 18, but t he next day, Jan 19th, they went to the FBI and said there was more they had to add...

I don't see where there was any wrongdoing, in fact the opposite. The lawyers responsible for turning in the info left some info out, caught the mistake on their own, and submitted what should have been the next day.

You guys realize that if one day an actual link of impropriety or illegal activity is established between Trump and the Russians, you guys have cried wolf so long and so often that no one is going to care?

Kushner turning in his incomplete homework assignment a day late as evidence of Russian influence is weak sauce.

Kushner never divulged details of the meetings he had with Russian officials.

Guess what? It's Felony to omit info or lie on the questionnaire for national security positions. It states it right on the bottom of the form. And he never divulged details of the meetings. So until he does he's a security risk and should lose his clearance and stand trial for the felony. But whatever, he's above the law now.

I'll leave the "stand trial for the felony" part to someone else, but on the rest of it I absolutely agree.

Anyone reviewing him for his final clearance looks at this, they should immediately Red Flag his ass. I don't care who he is related to - if you aren't to be trusted the first time, you don't get those top clearances. PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS.

.

I read the last paragraph of the article as if he knew the application wasn't complete and volunteered to offer up the rest of the information the very next day.. maybe there is more to it, maybe not.

I have no doubt he is a Russian spy.
He is a Democrat.

Well so far two of the people involved in his campaign have had to admit to being and had to file as foreign agents. So there is that.

Yes we know, Obama has it all on tape.

With Trump and his team, it's always something.

As for Kushner, let the FBI do it's thing. It it's found that he lied, at the very least, don't give him a security clearance. If there is a jail sentence involved so be it.

If it turns out to be an unintentional thing, then get to work checking it out. If it's something to worry about, Don't give him a clearance. If it's much ado about nothing, move along.

Who cares? The angle was Trunp was in with the Russians.

I think events show that isn't the case.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/16/key-...ssia-collusion/

It's from a month ago but still relevant, unless you are one of those people who think that because Trump's son-in-law did not properly disclose some contacts he had that Trump must be in bed with the Russians... or something

Hasn't this Russia thing been going on for like ten months now? Where is the actual proof of wrongdoing?

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Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion

FROM MSNBC POLITICS shows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.

Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence.

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clinton’s most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to “cast doubt” on “allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.” “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all,” he said, adding, “There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”

Obama’s former CIA chief also cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive “dossier” originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it. The dossier, he said, “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”

Morell’s comments echo the categorical remarks by Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obama’s DNI, he saw no evidence to support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. “We had no evidence of such collusion,” Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obama’s DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee — charged with investigating these matters — who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. “There’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation,” BuzzFeed’s Ali Watkins wrote.

Moreover, “several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives.” One member told Watkins: “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”

What makes all of this most significant is that officials like Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents; Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it exists. As even the law recognizes, statements that otherwise lack credibility become more believable when they are ones made “against interest.”

Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, which published the Steele dossier, published an article yesterday warning that the Democratic base’s expectation of a smoking gun “is so strong that Twitter and cable news are full of the theories of what my colleague Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives — the left’s new version of Glenn Beck, digital blackboards full of lines and arrows.” Smith added: “It is also a simple fact that while news of Russian actions on Trump’s behalf is clear, hard details of coordination between his aides and Putin’s haven’t emerged.” And Smith’s core warning is this:

Trump’s critics last year were horrified at the rise of “fake news” and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

And those of us covering the story and the stew of real information, fantasy, and — now — forgery around it need to continue to report and think clearly about what we know and what we don’t, and to resist the sugar high that comes with telling people exactly what they want to hear.

For so long, Democrats demonized and smeared anyone trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all Kremlin agents and Putin lovers. Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report using the language of treason to announce the existence of a “Fifth Column” in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew Sullivan’s notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the war on terror composed an anti-American “Fifth Column”), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly announced: “Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.”

But with serious doubts — and fears — now emerging about what the Democratic base has been led to believe by self-interested carnival barkers and partisan hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the excesses of this story. With so many people now doing this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little, too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been deliberately cultivated around these issues for months. Many Democrats have reached the classic stage of deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions, where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently needed. That’s true primarily so that conspiracies no longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

It’s certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the Trump presidency, it’s vital that everything be done now to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged stable of media, online, and party leaders has decisively fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials are now desperately trying to warn.

I know you don't think proof is required for any claims made by the Left.

I don't think there's a single Dawg here that could actually articulate just what the alleged connection between Trump and the Russians is.

Conversely, so far to this point virtually every allegation Trump has made albeit exaggerated, has had some kernel of truth to it.

What I don't understand is people say the hacking of Podesta's emails was a dishonest attempt to influence the election. We'll ignore the fact that those emails revealed systemic wrongdoing and cheating, but whatevs.

They are against that, but seem to have zero problem with nearly 10 women getting paid to make claims (recanted or proven false shortly after) of sexual impropriety by Trump just weeks before the election?

Can anyone explain that to me? How exposing corruption in a major political party is wrong, but paying people to make false allegations of a serious nature is right?

FYI... It is a felony to not properly disclose these contacts, the reason for the contacts, and what was discussed at the meetings with the contacts. It says so right on the form that wasn't initially completed correctly Kushner still hasn't disclosed it all. That alone is a felony. But whatever he's above the law now.

I hope Kushner stays right where he is... A democrat in Trump's ear. Ivanka is a Democrat as well. We may be on our way to the New New Deal with president "I do what the last person to talk to me thinks I should do".