In text message, Kushner gives Bannon's war on GOP a thumbs-up. @anniekarni with a delightful get: https://t.co/COBBwf0ADm
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) October 11, 2017
Young Jared glides through his very nice life like an eel through water, boneless and frictionless, buoyed up by an ocean of money. Sometimes he darts out to snatch at something eye-catching — a building development, a newspaper, the well-appointed daughter of another powerful ocean-dweller. If his foray doesn’t work, he glides away, on to the next target, impossible to entrap. Or so it has been, until now. Suddenly the ocean seems smaller, the lights brighter, the predators larger and meaner…
… President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser messaged the former chief White House strategist to say he thought the TV hit was a success, according to multiple people who were dining with Bannon at Del Frisco’s steakhouse across the street from Fox News’ Manhattan studios when the message popped up.
The attaboy from a campaign ally-turned-West Wing nemesis was surprising on multiple fronts. For one, Bannon associates and White House officials said Kushner hasn’t reached out to Bannon since he was ousted from his White House post in August.
But even stranger was that members of the Del Frisco’s dinner crew, which included conservative media personalities, thought Kushner was belatedly endorsing an anti-establishment strategy that has many Republicans concerned about losing control of the Senate altogether — one that undercuts the very members of Congress the White House needs as partners if Trump wants to pass any part of his domestic agenda, including tax reform…
Kushner has recently been hosting bipartisan dinners at his Kalorama mansion, Axios reported, breaking bread with people like conservative Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to identify areas where the White House can score “bipartisan wins” on issues like criminal justice reform.
His thumbs-up to Bannon — which one person said elicited a warm thanks in response — seemed at odds with that patina of dinner party diplomacy. And it could be seen as a sign of the irreparable relationship between the White House and Corker. The outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was once one of the Republican senators closest to Kushner, advising him on Middle East issues and defending him publicly amid reports that he tried to set up a back channel with the Russian ambassador during the transition last year…
No hard feelings, Steve! Nothing personal, Bob! Aren’t we all inhabitants of the same ocean?
Via Dan Drezner’s twitter feed, Newsweek:
Jared Kushner “enriched himself” by not revealing his ownership of a real estate tech business that raised millions of dollars while he served in the government, said a member of the House Judiciary Committee, calling it part of a pattern of unethical behavior that he believes should cause the White House Senior Adviser to be stripped of his security clearance.
Congressman Ted Lieu told Newsweek that Kushner’s failure to list a company called Cadre on his initial financial disclosure forms—an oversight that could mean millions for the president’s son-in-law—is an ethical lapse that should have severe ramifications…
The timeline suggests more than just an inadvertent oversight, but an effort by Kushner to hold onto Cadre rather than be forced to divest his interests in the emerging company, according to ethics experts.
On March 9, Kushner submitted his original financial disclosure form to the Office of Government Ethics. It did not specifically list Cadre as one of Kushner’s assets, though he co-founded the company with his brother, Joshua Kushner and his Harvard classmate Ryan Williams, who remains Cadre CEO.
The company was already attracting attention in New York’s real estate and tech circles because of its promise to disrupt both industries by allowing investors to buy shares in real estate developments much like they would buy shares of companies on the stock market.
Kushner’s lawyer says Cadre was not specifically cited on the March 9 form because his holding company, BFPS Ventures, acquired his interest in Cadre on February 17. That transaction appears to be noted on his financial records as a $100,000 to $250,000 sale.But that amount does not match subsequent disclosures. When Kushner finally amended his financial disclosure form on July 21, he valued his interest in Cadre from $5 million to $25 million…
The disclosure form suggests that Kushner has not fully divested from Cadre. Indeed, a representative for the start-up told Newsweek that Kushner maintains “a small, passive investment,” but has “no operational or advisory role,” describing the cofounder as “an early investor in the company.”…
Cadre operates as an online platform, connecting wealthy investors like Soros, for example, to emerging real estate properties in which they can buy partial ownership. The billionaire was one of Cadre’s initial key investors, opening up a $250 million line of credit between his family offices and Kushner’s start-up.
But ethics experts think the real estate investing platform may allow foreign investors to hide their identities to the public, though not to Cadre insiders…
A hundred thousand or twenty-five million — who can value the depth of the ocean? It’s all just a the medium through which he glides, to Young Jared. And the seductive flash of “disruption” is a lure that no ocean-dweller could resist!
Piling on, CNN:
The head of a government bureau responsible for clearing background checks told lawmakers Wednesday he has “never seen that level of mistakes” when asked about numerous omissions in Jared Kushner’s security clearance application.
Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, a newly created division within the Office of Personnel Management, made the comment in response to a question during a House subcommittee oversight hearing.
Democrats have called on the White House to revoke security clearances granted to Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Ivanka Trump over reports of their use of personal email accounts and Kushner’s multiple updates to his security clearance questionnaire, known as SF-86, for failing initially to include meeting with foreign officials…
Kushner’s initial SF-86 form did not mention any foreign contacts, though he quickly supplemented it to indicate that he would provide that information. He updated the form in the spring, listing about 100 contacts, but did not mention the June 2016 meeting he attended with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump Jr., and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He updated the SF-86 forms once more in June to include that meeting…
In July, Kushner released a statement saying it was an inadvertent mistake. “I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86,” Kushner said…
Young Jared is but a simple ocean-dwelling scavenger! Your forms and processes confuse him! He wishes to writhe out of these nasty nets, to slide back into his beloved money-waters. None of this can possibly be his fault, after all; he acts only by instinct, as would any other simple ageless marine lifeform. Surely he cannot be held responsible for acting as his nature made him!
One begins to wonder: Given a choice, will Ivanka stick by her father or her husband? Because it’s looking like “loyalty” may have its limits for early Trump supporter Young Jared.
Major Major Major Major
Minor quibble, eels have bones.
khead
SF-86. Lol. Government forms? Dude don’t need no stinking forms.
Aleta
There’s a gorgeous picture of jk dressed as a princeling (by illustrator Tim O’Brian) in a CJR article. It’s by Kyle Pope, who was the editor of the NY Observer under jk as publisher-owner. He says things like
NotMax
@khead
“SF-86? I thought that’s what you use when you go to the beach.”
encephalopath
So a bunch of lawyers are running around claiming that Kushner’s security clearance omissions are administrative errors; somebody sent in the wrong form.
Meanwhile, Jared is claiming that he didn’t remember any of these meetings with foreign governments so that’s why they aren’t on the forms.
Both of these things can’t be true though they can both certainly be false. Lies, lies. Jared is lying the lawyers are lying. They all thought they could get away with never owning up to what they did during the election. Just lie. No one will ever catch us.
Aleta
(from CJR)
Villago Delenda Est
Little shit should move on into a supermax cell for the rest of his worthless life.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
Decree that he should build it to codified standards before moving in.
Major Major Major Major
I mean, I just can’t believe, like, god, they aren’t even trying, I’m so tired of this.
Aleta
@NotMax: “SF-86? Is that a lube? Dad always had a man who greased the wheels; don’t recall his name.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@Major Major Major Major:
They also experience friction. I think Anne Laurie was waxing rhetorical.
Aleta
@encephalopath: It’s how sleazy developers operate. Ignore the laws, go ahead and do what you want untill you get stopped. Then lie and lawyer and challlenge for as long as you can stretch it out. Hide the profit, dissolve your front and slip away.
NotMax
Half paying attention to the series Offseason playing in the background.
Sort of a “What if the Coen brothers had a shoestring budget?” effort. trailer
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
I have suspected since the beginning that Ivanka married a man who was Just Like Daddy. And I think that she’s more like her daddy than the MSM is currently willing to admit.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Mnemosyne: She’s the Marine Le Pen to her old man: she puts a kinder, gentler face on fascism, but when you scratch beneath the veneer, there’s the same rotten core underneath.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack (phone): Frictionless I get as a piece of rhetoric, but boneless sticks in my dang craw, much like eel bones.
bemused senior
Every time I read about the Trumpsters I am reminded of the Travis McGee mystery series. The bad guys in every book are like Trump or his alt right followers.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Especially what with the word vertebrates being in the title and all.
And if have ever eaten eel, unless carefully prepared it can certainly get stuck in one’s craw. ;)
Major Major Major Major
Wow, I’ve written 1,376 lines of backend code on my writing app since I started it nine days ago.
It’s getting there!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Major Major Major Major:
Carry on, then.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Do code writers dream of electric pythons?
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: This is written in Go and I can confirm that there have been no dreams of gophers.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
But does Young Jared?
(Dude, it’s Friday night. Well, Saturday morning. Cut me some rhetoric-slack!)
piratedan
I can only hope that the shitstorm that is about to descend on these bastards envelops them all and makes the GOP a cautionary tale for generations. It’s patently obvious that to be in the GOP you need to be a part of one of four groups….
1) those who wish to impose a christian theocratic state
2) those who think that this should be a nation of predominately while people that caters to and acknowledges white superiority
3) those that serve the obscenely wealthy and take their orders from them, like good lackeys do
4) self-serving megalomaniacs who will gladly sell their country, ethics, morals, principles to whoever pays the most
any the beauty of the GOP, you can even be a member of all four, no exclusivity here!
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: sorry it’s just that my novel has a lot of fish biology so it kind of sets me on edge.
Betty Cracker
Bad news-good news text from my kid:
— She got ANOTHER tattoo
— It says “Mom”
Lord. Kids today.
mike in dc
60 million seems like a lot of money to launder. Maybe Paulie can put some of it into 666 5th Avenue?
piratedan
anyone take me out of moderation? buehler, buehler?
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Tell her if she goes to Australia it will spell out “wow.”
;)
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I admire your ability to find silver linings.
Betty Cracker
Well, crud — I got dressed and shuffled outside to watch the Atlas rocket launch, and it was scrubbed. :(
@piratedan: Sorry — nothing there.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: aw, that’s too bad. Back to bed!
Major Major Major Major
Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life
satby
Woke up at 4 instead of 4:30 and decided to just get up anyway. Extra time for a more leisurely coffee before I start loading the car to leave for the market. Nice, instead of the crazy Saturday morning rush!
Manyakitty
@piratedan: I hope the shitstorm actually descends upon them. These sleazy, greedy, worthless pieces of shit have skated their entire lives. Why should now be any different?
I despair.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: is “Mom” in a heart with an arrow through it?
Betty Cracker
@Manyakitty: Yes. Vintage style tat.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: Nice!
Chet Murthy
@Major Major Major Major: Oh lordy. I’m so sorry for your travails. I’d wish Golang on my worst enemy, but nobody else.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Respect for tradition is a good thing in the young. (I sound like I’m 90,)
Tenar Arha
@Aleta: Yep, this.
During the Huckabee/Hannity interview Trump talked about the reports in the news about Puerto Rico using the word publicity instead of news or news stories. He really really doesn’t look at the news as information but as purely PR, & Jared and Ivanka, based on all their self-serving leaks, feel the same.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: At least she didn’t get a Wendy’s logo tat!
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Or a RMN portrait on her back…”)
Citizen_X
@Major Major Major Major: Now, primitive fish were jawless, and that might describe Young Jared too.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: A coworker’s daughter got another tat this summer; it covers an entire thigh. What’s funny about it is she sees the design as a tree with deep roots and the skull in it as an earth mother image. I looked at it and all I see are those crazy hotrod cartoons from the 1960’s with a grinning skull.
J R in WV
At the Beer Fest last weekend there was a great finely detailed pattern tat on a lovely lady’s shoulders and back. No reality pictures, just complex patterns in very fine lines. Of course to allow folks to see it, she had to wear a pretty much backless top. Striking, though.
Must have taken a long time and a real artist, or a good pattern and a great craftsman. I’ve decided I’m good with well done tats.
JGabriel
@encephalopath:
It seems a shame that Al Capone didn’t try that tactic with respect to his taxes.
Duane
@Major Major Major Major: Like everything else in this administration, it’s simply unbelievable. You couldn’t get an ordinary job with mistakes like that; this jerk gets clearance and a white house office. Don’t any of these ommisions reach the level of criminal behavior?