We begin today’s roundup with an editorial from The Los Angeles Times calling on President Trump to fire his son-in-law, Jared Kushner:
Yet it's important not to fixate on the security-clearance issue. Kushner's presence in the highest councils of the administration would be objectionable even if he passed his background check with flying colors.
To be brutally frank about it, Kushner isn't qualified for his lofty position. His appointment as a senior advisor in the White House is an obvious and offensive exercise in nepotism. [...]
Whatever the explanation [for not having the proper security clearance], Kushner has been hobbled in performing duties for which he had no compelling qualification in the first place — other than having married the boss' daughter. He should pack up and return to New York.So one year in, what has Mr. Kushner accomplished? The answers point to why, from the nation’s founding to the present day, the architects of American democracy have tried so mightily to restrict the hiring of presidential relatives. Mr. Kushner’s achievements have not only been paltry, but he is directly implicated in some of the president’s most destructive — and self-destructive — decisions, as well as in some of the most serious accusations of self-dealing that have been made against the administration. [...]
What a liability Mr. Kushner has proved to be. American officials have intercepted conversations in which at least four countries, including China and the United Arab Emirates, discussed ways to take advantage of Mr. Kushner’s indebtedness, naïveté and ignorance of foreign policy to further their interests, according to The Washington Post. This week, The Times reported that Kushner Companies received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans through American companies, including Citigroup and the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, after their top executives met with Mr. Kushner in the White House. The Qatari government’s investment fund was a major investor in Apollo’s real estate trust.
This was all occurring while Mr. Kushner had access to top-secret intelligence, despite having failed to secure a permanent security clearance.