Doug Mills/The New York Times



Jared Kushner's charmed life is about to come to a screeching halt.


WASHINGTON POST

President Trump arrived back in Washington after his first overseas trip to find that the Russia tangle has made its way into the White House -- in the form of one of the president's closest aides: son-in-law Jared Kushner. Post reporters Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous and Greg Miller dropped a Friday afternoon bombshell when they reported that Kushner and the seemingly omnipresent Sergey Kislyak -- Moscow's ambassador to the United States -- had talked about setting up a secret back-channel communication system with the Kremlin. According to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports, Kushner and Kislyak discussed using Russian diplomatic facilities to shield their conversations from our own country's intelligence apparatus. The move was unusual to say the least -- and it happened several weeks before Trump was inaugurated, so Kushner was acting as a private citizen.

The meeting was picked up by U.S. intelligence and is said to have occurred between Dec. 1 and 2 at Trump Tower. Another controversial figure was also there -- ousted Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is refusing to comply with a Senate subpoena demanding a list of his contacts with Russian officials between June 16, 2015, and Jan. 20, 2017. The Senate Intelligence Committee is deciding whether to hold him in contempt.

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...The report that Kushner is now a focus of the FBI probe into Russian interference in the election, brings the Justice Department investigation and recently appointed special counsel Robert Mueller into the inner sanctum of the White House. 

That is dangerous territory for the president, who could more easily attribute any problems related to Russia to rogue aides like Flynn and Manafort who are no longer advising him. But severing the tie between himself and Jared -- whose broad portfolio includes Middle East peace and "innovation" -- will not be so easy.

There was a wealth of reporting on the first son-in-law over the weekend. Most of it suggested that Kushner was readying to fight the idea that he has done anything improper when it comes to Russia. John Wagner, Robert Costa and Ashley Parker reported the president was considering setting up a war room to more quickly combat the endless drip of Russia-related stories: "Kushner has played an active role in the effort to rethink and rearrange the communications team, improve the White House’s surrogate operation, and develop an internal group to respond to the influx of negative stories and revelations over the FBI’s Russia inquiry, said a person with knowledge of the coming changes.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

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 The New York Times's Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman and Sharon LaFreniere reported that Kushner spent the last three days "in fretful seclusion" at his father-in-law's estate in Bedminister, N.J..: "But he emerged defiant and eager to defend his reputation in congressional hearings, according to two of his associates ... In recent weeks, the Trump-Kushner relationship, the most stable partnership in an often unstable West Wing, is showing unmistakable signs of strain ... It has been duly noted in the White House that Mr. Trump, who feels that he has been ill served by his staff, has increasingly included Mr. Kushner when he dresses down aides and officials, a rarity earlier in his administration and during the campaign."

The NYT reports that the "most serious point of contention" was the pitch by Kushner's sister, Nicole Meyer, to Beijing investors regarding a Kushner Companies condo project in New Jersey. Meyer "dangled the availability of EB-5 visas to the United States as an enticement for Chinese financiers willing to spend $500,000 or more." 

For Mr. Trump, Ms. Meyer’s performance violated two major rules: Politically, it undercut his immigration crackdown, and in a personal sense, it smacked of profiteering off Mr. Trump — one of the sins that warrants expulsion from his orbit.

In the following days during routine West Wing meetings, the president made several snarky, disparaging comments about Mr. Kushner’s family and the visas that were clearly intended to express his annoyance, two aides said. Mr. Kushner did not respond, at least not in earshot.

His preppy aesthetic, sotto voce style and preference for backstage maneuvering seemingly set him apart from his father-in-law — but the similarities outweigh the differences. Both men were reared in the freewheeling, ruthless world of real estate, and both possess an unshakable self-assurance that is both their greatest attribute and their direst vulnerability.

Mr. Kushner’s reported feeler to the Russians even as President Barack Obama remained in charge of American foreign policy was a trademark move by someone with a deep confidence in his abilities that critics say borders on conceit, people close to him said. And it echoes his history of sailing forth into unknown territory, including buying a newspaper at age 25 and developing a data-analytics program that he has said helped deliver the presidency to his father-in-law.

He is intensely proud of his accomplishments in the private sector and has repeatedly suggested his tenure in Washington will hurt, not help, his brand and bottom line.

That unfailing self-regard has not endeared him to the rest of the staff. Resentful Trump staff members have long talked about “Jared Island” to describe the special status occupied by Mr. Kushner, who, in their view, is given license to exercise power and take on a vague portfolio — “Middle East peace” and “innovation” are its central components — without suffering the consequences of failure visited by the president on mere hirelings.

Adding to the animus is Mr. Kushner’s aloof demeanor and his propensity for avoiding messy aspects of his job that he would simply rather not do — he has told associates he wants nothing to do with the legislative process, for instance. He also has a habit, they say, of disappearing during crises, such as his absence on a family ski trip when Mr. Trump’s first health care bill was crashing in March.

Mr. Bannon, a onetime Kushner ally turned adversary known for working himself into ill health, has taken to comparing the former real estate executive to “the air,” because he blows in and out of meetings leaving little trace, according to one senior Trump aide. Just as Mr. Trump does, Mr. Kushner quickly forms fixed opinions about people, sometimes based on scant evidence. But Mr. Kushner is quicker to admit when he has misjudged a situation, and to change course.

Despite the perception that he is the one untouchable adviser in the president’s inner circle, Mr. Kushner was not especially close to his father-in-law before the 2016 campaign. The two bonded when Mr. Kushner helped to take over the campaign’s faltering digital operation and to sell a reluctant Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox News’s parent company, on the viability of his father-in-law’s candidacy by showing him videos of Mr. Trump’s rally during a lunch at Fox headquarters in mid-2015.

Al Drago/The New York Times

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Mr. Kushner’s war with Mr. Bannon has been a damaging distraction. Several upper-level staff members said Mr. Kushner has made it plain to them that they needed to choose sides or be iced out from an increasingly influential team that includes Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, and a handful of other Kushner-allied power brokers like Dina Powell, a national security official.

Mr. Kushner remains infuriated by what he believes to be leaks about his team by Mr. Bannon, who has privately cautioned Mr. Trump against being “captured” by liberal, New York “globalists” associated with his son-in-law, according to three people close to the president.

Mr. Trump, however, has had enough. He recently chided Mr. Kushner for continuing to call for Mr. Bannon’s ouster, saying he would not fire his conservative populist adviser — who has deep connections with Mr. Trump’s white, working-class base — simply because Mr. Kushner wanted him out, according an administration official.

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, spoke last week to coal miners in Sycamore, Pa. He has emerged as a leading voice for withdrawal from the Paris accord.Credit  Justin Merriman/Getty Images

Mr. Kushner appears to be modifying his centrist stances. Instead of urging the president to keep the United States in the Paris climate accord, as he sought to months ago, he has come to believe the standards in the agreement need to be changed, a person close to him said.

Mr. Trump admires Mr. Kushner’s tough streak, and shares his taste for payback, especially in defense of his family. Over the years, former employees said, Mr. Kushner has quietly sought revenge on enemies whom he sees as hostile to another scandal-buffeted man in his life — his father, Charles Kushner, a New Jersey-based real estate tycoon who was imprisoned for, among other crimes, efforts to retaliate against his sister for cooperating with a federal inquiry targeting him.

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There has been lots of buzz about Trump bringing back some of his more controversial old hands. Last night, for instance:

For some insight into how Kushner works, don't miss Michael Kranish's and Jonathan O'Connell's revealing piece on how Trump's son-in-law was playing hardball way before he moved to Washington. Michael and Jonathan explain how Jared bought the New York Observer in 2006 after his father went to prison for federal tax evasion. Some former colleagues allege he aimed to use the paper to settle scores with business rivals. Kushner also took charge -- at the age of 25 -- of his father's real-estate business, paying $1.8 billion in 2007 for the country's most expensive office building. The timing was off -- the Great Recession was underway -- and the property's value plummeted to about half of what it was worth by 2010. Kushner played hardball with the investors -- one of whom was Trump friend Thomas Barrack Jr. Kushner ultimately made a deal to lower his debt and maintain majority ownership in building. Some lenders had hard feelings "but Kushner viewed it as a hardball business deal and showed that he was a tough negotiator, according to an individual familiar with his perspective. Sources familiar with the arrangement said the Kushner family got back most of its $500 million investment."

Roll Call columnist Walter Shapiro had a blistering column in The Guardian: "Even under the benign theory that Kushner thought that a secret back channel was like a small boy’s tin-can telephone, his life in the coming months and maybe years will be a study in misery. He will probably spend more time with his personal lawyer, Clinton Justice Department veteran Jamie Gorelick, than with Ivanka or his children. Whether it is an appearance under oath on Capitol Hill or the inevitable FBI interview, every sentence Kushner utters will bring with it possible legal jeopardy."

To take his White House job, Kushner resigned from the family business but "kept stakes in about 90 percent of his real estate holdings, valued between $132 million and $407 million," which troubles some ethics experts.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Sergey N. Gorkov, the chief of Vnesheconombank, in Moscow in February. The bank drew sanctions from the Obama administration after Russia annexed Crimea.CreditAlexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Office, via Getty Images

The NYT on Tuesday examined why Kushner met in mid-December with Russian banker Sergey N. Gorkov, a close Putin associate whose financial institution is under sanction by the U.S. government. U.S. officials now say the meeting "may have been part of an effort by Mr. Kushner to establish a direct line to Mr. Putin outside of established diplomatic channels," report Matthew Rosenberg, Mark Mazzetti and Maggie Haberman. More from their piece: "It is not clear whether Mr. Kushner saw the Russian banker as someone who could be repeatedly used as a go-between or whether the meeting with Mr. Gorkov was designed to establish a direct, secure communications line to Mr. Putin ... Yet one current and one former American official with knowledge of the continuing congressional and F.B.I. investigations said they were examining whether the channel was meant to remain open, and if there were other items on the meeting’s agenda, including lifting sanctions that the Obama administration had imposed on Russia in response to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its aggression in Ukraine."

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

VOX

• Vnesheconombank, the Russian government owned bank where Gorkov serves as chair, has a history of helping place Russian spies in the United States.   [Italics and underlining by Esco] One, Evgeny Buryakov, pleaded guilty last year to working for Russian intelligence while posing as a Vnesheconombank employee. [Justice Department
• To make matters weirder, Gorkov claims that his meeting with Kushner was not about the Trump administration at all, but Kushner’s real estate business. [NYT / Jo Becker, Matthew Rosenberg, Maggie Haberman] 
• All of these stories specify that Kushner is not a suspect in a criminal investigation. But his activities do appear to be coming under a lot more scrutiny.
• He's not the only one. Apparently Russian intelligence officials were caught on tape discussing compromising financial information they had about Trump and senior aides to him last year, information they thought they could use as leverage. Of course, the information could be fictitious, and the Russian agents could have been trying to exaggerate their intel. But if the intel is real, that's … pretty bad. [CNN / Pamela Brown, Jim Sciutto, Dana Bash] 
• Outside of Kushner, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen appears to be a focus of Congress's Russia investigation. Cohen told reporters he declined to participate with the inquiry, saying, "To date, there has not been a single witness, document or piece of evidence linking me to this fake Russian conspiracy." [ABC News / Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk] 
• If all the above seems super-complicated, don’t despair. Alex Ward has a handy explainer on each part. [Vox / Alex Ward​]