House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that President Trump should oust his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, from any senior advisory role in White House, citing Kushner’s business dealings abroad.
“I don’t think he should have been [in the White House] to begin with, especially with the portfolio that he had,” Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol, referring to the Kushner family’s real estate empire.
Kushner has come under intense scrutiny in recent days after reports emerged that his top-secret security clearance was downgraded last week as part of a policy overhaul instigated by White House chief of staff John Kelly.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that at least four foreign governments had sought “ways they could manipulate” Kushner, hoping to exploit his family’s financial struggles and his inexperience on issues of foreign policy.
And on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the Kushner family business had received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from financial institutions in 2017 after the leaders of those firms had met privately with Kushner at the White House.
Pelosi suggested Kushner, who played a leading role in Trump’s foreign policy agenda, particularly the administration’s push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, was in over his head from the start.
“The president doesn’t place a high value on experience, knowledge and judgment. He just, I guess it’s people he knows and trusts, and he places the value on that,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi suggested Trump’s White House aides, even more than others, are entering into public service merely for the résumé boost — and financial advantages — the experience lends them when they leave.
“What I’m worried about right now in the White House is the revolving door. It’s spinning like a top,” she said. “These drop-bys then get enhanced jobs elsewhere — something’s wrong with this picture. What is the purpose of coming into public service — what is their knowledge, what is their judgment, what is the vision that they have that makes them important [enough] to be appointed by the president of the United States?”
Pelosi noted that the revolving-door dynamics are inherent in every administration, as aides are constantly bouncing back and forth between the public and private sectors. But under the Trump administration, she charged, the motivations of the staff — including Kushner — appear to be more self-serving.
“Given security clearance, which is a very high-level anointment, and use that position — while they’re in the job — to get another job, or to get investments into their family’s companies?” Pelosi said. “This is corrosion of integrity in government, and I think the Trump family has engaged in that.
“We’ll see what else there is.”