According to The Washington Post, U.S. intelligence has yielded information that Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, a presidential adviser with numerous portfolios, including Middle Eastern adviser, was manipulated by several foreign governments, including, primarily, Israel, to seek favors with the Trump administration. Other nations named by U.S. intelligence sources as influencing Kushner are the United Arab Emirates—a present Israeli ally, China, and Mexico.
Although China and Mexico do not appear to have won much in the way of any favors, the UAE saw Trump back a Saudi-led economic embargo against Qatar, a move supported by Israel. Kushner’s real estate dealings with China over a joint Kushner-Trump building complex in Jersey City also heightened suspicions among U.S. intelligence agencies that China was buying influence with the White House via Kushner and Chinese investors in the One Journal Square property in New Jersey.
Kushner’s private business dealings, which included an attempted shakedown of the Qatar Investment Authority to purchase a $500 million stake in the practically-bankrupt Kushner building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, led to the placement of Qatar on a list of nations the Trump administration considers to be supporting terrorism. Only the intervention of the Pentagon, which maintains a major military base at Al-Udeid in Qatar, saved Qatar from being subjected to crippling U.S. sanctions.
Kushner also sought investors for his white elephant in Manhattan from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, South Korea, Israel, and France, all to no avail. However, Kushner may have recently found someone willing to invest in 666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner Companies recently announced they were negotiating to buy the 49.5 percent stake in the building from Vornado Realty Trust. Vornado owns 70 percent of 555 California Street in San Francisco, with the other 30 percent owned by Donald Trump. Washington area residents and office workers may not know Vornado, but they are very aware of the company it purchased in 2001, Charles E. Smith Commercial Realty, which owns many of the office buildings and residential apartments in the Washington area, including many in Arlington County, Virginia. Smith, a Russian Jewish immigrant, supported many Israeli causes. His son, Robert Smith, continues in his father’s footsteps and he continues to serve on the board of Vornado.
Kushner’s selling of influence in the White House to the highest bidder led White House chief of staff John Kelly to downgrade Trump’s son-in-law’s security clearance from an interim Top Secret with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) to an interim Secret with access to only general service classified information. The latter category does not involve access to sensitive sources and methods involved in intelligence collection.
WMR has learned that the U.S. ambassador to Israel, former Trump bankruptcy attorney David Friedman, and Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, the Trump Organization’s former chief legal officer, continue to share sensitive classified intelligence with Kushner.
It was Israeli influence over Kushner that helped lead to Trump’s ill-advised decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. U.S. intelligence sources also believe that Kushner, Friedman, and Greenblatt are funneling U.S. intelligence to Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, a chief financier of Trump’s political campaign coffers and a close ally of Israel’s scandal-plagued Netanyahu. Friedman represents another leaky-sieve ambassador to Israel for sensitive U.S. intelligence being illegally handed over to the Israelis. Martin Indyk, Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Israel, lost his security clearance after it was discovered he was transmitting classified information, including cryptographic material, to the Israeli government. It was the first and only time a U.S. ambassador ever lost a security clearance.
As a result of Kushner’s clearance being downgraded, there is pressure from Trump’s family to fire Kelly as chief of staff. In fact, the pressure is being exerted by Israeli moles in the White House who want Kushner’s pipeline to the most sensitive U.S. intelligence secrets restored. These moles include Ivanka Trump, a convert to the Orthodox Judaism practiced by her husband.
Kushner has been a dream-come-true for Israel. Trump has carried out numerous Israeli wishes, including de-certification of the P5+1 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran over its nuclear power program, supporting Saudi actions against Qatar and Yemen, cutting off direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), which assists Palestinian refugees, continuation of support to Israeli-backed jihadist rebel groups battling Syrian President Bashar al Assad, support for pro-Israeli Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s economic blockade of the Hamas government of Gaza, and freezing security assistance to Pakistan.
For Israel, Kushner, the Trumps, Friedman, and Greenblatt are like Hanukkah gifts coming not for eight successive days, but for 365 days a year.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2018 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
Back in the Summer of 2001, Vornado Realty Trust had won the bid to take over the WTC complex, bidding higher than ‘Lucky’ Larry. A few weeks later, Vornado dropped out of the bidding and Lucky Larry saw his $$$$ dreams come true on 9/11…