A Russian mole in the White House?

Kaleidoscope
By Perry Diaz

On January 24, 2019, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s star talk show host, mentioned Carl Kline as a former career Pentagon employee who was appointed by President Donald Trump as Director of Personnel Security at the White House in May 2017. He’s in charge of reviewing applications for security clearances of people appointed to high administration positions. The reasons for denying a clearance can include debts, a criminal past or questions about foreign entanglements, and anything in a person’s background that could make them vulnerable to blackmail.

According to Maddow, an adjudicator reviewed Kushner’s application for security clearance. It was deemed “unfavorable” and handed it to a supervisor. The supervisor agreed that it was “unfavorable” and sent it to Kline who then overruled the “unfavorable” determination and approved a “Top Secret” security clearance for Kushner.

As it turned out, in the short time that Kline was on the job, he had ignored national security risks more than 30 times to approve clearances for White House personnel. “Thirty times, at least, this one supervisor whom Trump put in there … handed out a clearance to an incoming Trump White House person who was otherwise flagged as too risky to get a clearance approved,” Maddow said. “Thirty of them. At minimum. Christ.” Sources said the number of rejections that Kline overturned had happened only once in the three years preceding Kline’s appointment, which makes one wonder: Was there someone higher up who directed Kline to overrule his subordinates?

During the FBI background investigation of White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner, there were “questions about his family’s business, his foreign contacts, his foreign travel, and meetings he had during the campaign.”

Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. He holds the role of Special Adviser to the President in the White House with responsibility over the Middle East, Mexico, criminal justice reform, and innovation in government. He was one of those whom Kline overruled two career security experts who determine Kushner as too risky, and approved Kushner’s “top-secret clearance.” The two security clearance specialists are concerned that Kushner was potentially susceptible to foreign influence.

Security breach
The scandal surfaced as Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, had characterized approval of Kushner’s clearance as “unprecedented.”

“My request letter to the White House explicitly covers Mr. Kushner, and we expect the White House to produce all of the documents and interviews we requested to determine if tonight’s breaking story is accurate,” Cummings (D-Md.) said. “The system is supposed to be a nonpartisan determination of an individual’s fitness to hold a clearance, not an ad hoc approach that overrules career experts to give the President’s family members access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets.”

Not content with his White House “top-secret clearance,” Kushner sought to get higher security clearance so he would have access to the government’s most highly guarded information, known as “Sensitive Compartmented Information” (SCI). But only the CIA can approve SCI clearances. The agency rejected the request and returned the application to the White House, questioning how Kushner even obtained a “top-secret clearance” to begin with. Had the CIA granted Kushner an SCI clearance, he would have access to information that could cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security if it were leaked out.

The problem is: Trump can override CIA’s determination and make any information available to his son-in-law at any time. Reportedly, Kushner had regular access to Trump’s highly classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) during Trump’s first year in office. Presumably, Kushner still have access to it simply by reading the PDB, which he can get at will. Call it part of “family privileges.”

It is now up to Cummings who wields the power of the Oversight Committee to investigate how Kushner and other Trump officials managed to get their security clearance, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia during the transition; Rob Porter, a former White House staff secretary who resigned after multiple allegations of domestic abuse; and former deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka.

Red flags
Those who previously operated on Top Secret or SCI interim clearances saw their access changed to “Secret,” a classification for less sensitive material. A Secret clearance only allows access to fewer and lesser government secrets. It prevented Kushner from accessing the PDB. But because of Kushner’s affinity to Trump by marriage, it’s doubtful if Trump didn’t share the PDB with Kushner. However, Kushner accepted the decision about his security clearance and “will not ask for special permission” from Trump. But it makes one wonder: How can Kushner perform his function without access to Top Secret or SCI clearances?It’s interesting to note that this is not the first time that Kushner have a problem with his security clearance. A year ago, he was stripped of his access to the nation’s top secrets after his security clearance was downgraded. Along with several White House officials who had been operating on interim clearances, their access was altered after chief of staff John Kelly stipulated new changes to the security clearance system.

Kushner’s use of security clearance is now the subject of the Democrats’ inquiry. After Trump won the presidential election Kushner had private discussions with the Russian ambassador about opening a secret “back channel” with Moscow to discuss policy. This was a red flag that immediately put Kushner under the FBI’s scrutiny.

Wthin a short time after Trump was inaugurated as president, the Washington Post reported that Kushner had been the subject of at least four countries – United Arab Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico – as possible target of manipulation. Concerns were raised about Kushner’s “irregular” way of accessing very sensitive intelligence. Indeed, the powerful Democrat-led House Oversight Committee had opened an in-depth investigation into what it said were “grave breaches of national security at the highest levels of the Trump administration.”

Trump-Putin Chabad connection
When Kushner was a student at Harvard, he was affiliated with the Chabad house. Since settling in Washington DC, Jared and Ivanka (who converted to Judaism prior to marrying Jared) have been attending services at a Chabad synagogue. Meanwhile, Ivanka was very close friends with Abramovich’s wife, Dasha Zhukova, who attended the Trump inauguration as Ivanka’s personal guest. [Ibid]In 1999, Putin enlisted two of his closest confidants, the oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich — who would go on to become the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s biggest patrons worldwide — to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as “Putin’s rabbi.” [Source: The Odd Chabad Connection Between Putin and Trump]

In May 2015, a month before Trump officially entered the Republican presidential primary, Kushner bought a majority stake in the old New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Leviev for $295 million. The transaction first came up due to the $285 million Kushner borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction. Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments, and Prevezon have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon led by then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara abruptly ended in May 2017, two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6-million settlement that raised eyebrows. [Ibid]

Could it be that the financial transactions involving Kushner and the Russian oligarchs close to Putin one of the reasons why Kushner’s application for security clearance was red flagged? Was this just the tip of the iceberg, which begs the question: Would the Mueller investigation into the Trump-Putin Chabad connection lead to indictments?

At the end of the day, with more than 30 security clearances, including Kushner’s, that were approved over the rejection by career security clearance experts, what is the likelihood that there is a Russian mole in the White House?

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)