Officials Couldn’t Believe How Botched Jared Kushner’s Clearance Forms Were – By Willa Frej (huffingtonpost.com) / Oct 13 2017
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, made so many omissions on the security clearance forms he submitted that the governmental body responsible for reviewing them is incredulous.
“I have never seen that level of mistakes,” Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, told a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
Kushner made over 100 errors and omissions on his disclosure forms, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said.
The initial SF-86 form Kushner submitted left out about 100 contacts with foreigner nationals, including his June 2016 meeting he and Donald Trump Jr. had with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. He had to update it twice.
He also omitted ownership of a real estate tech business, which enabled him to “enrich himself” in the meantime while the company raised millions of dollars, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said in the hearing.
Kushner’s attorney Jamie Gorelick said Thursday in a statement that the omissions were the result of an “administrative error.”
When Kushner realized the mistake, Gorelick said, he “submitted supplemental information stating that he had had ‘numerous contacts with foreign officials’ about which he would be happy to provide additional information.”
Some members of Congress lobbied to revoke Kushner’s security clearance, especially after the meeting with Veselnitskaya came to light. Republicans blocked the effort in July.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece stated that Rep. Ted Lieu was from Hawaii. It’s since been corrected to reflect that he’s from California.
PB/TK – I’m guessing Kushner was given security clearance prior to anyone actually reviewing his forms. So government is run on the “honor system” with people vouching for someone’s “good guy” status
