Dangerous nepotism

HABERMAN: Can I switch gears for a second? There’s been a story in the news the last two weeks about your son-in-law’s security clearance.

TRUMP: Yeah.

HABERMAN: Did you tell General Kelly or anyone else in the White House to overrule security officials? The career veterans —

TRUMP: No. I don’t think I have the authority to do that. I’m not sure I do.

Haberman: You do have the authority to do it.

Trump: But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do it.

HABERMAN: O.K.

TRUMP: Um, Jared is a good —

HABERMAN: You never —

TRUMP: I was never involved with the security. I know that he — you know, just from reading — I know that there was issues back and forth about security for numerous people, actually. But I don’t want to get involved in that stuff.

HABERMAN: O.K. Why would you want to — why stay out? You do have the authority to —

TRUMP: I don’t know. I just don’t — I just, I never thought it was necessary. I also know him. He’s a very solid person, and I just can’t imagine he would have — I guess even, Ivanka, they, they, I heard that, uh, something with Jared and Ivanka —

HABERMAN: Mhm.

TRUMP: But, uh, I don’t believe I’ve ever met any of the national security — of the people that would do clearances. Um, and there’d be nothing wrong, I don’t think, with me calling them up to the Oval Office and say, “Hey give these people, you know, clearances” —

HABERMAN: You just told me — [inaudible]

TRUMP: Yeah, yeah, so there, I, I mean, I take back the other — I didn’t, I was answering a little bit different question. Uh, I have the right to do it, but I never thought it was necessary, Maggie. I never thought it was necessary.

HABERMAN: And you didn’t direct General Kelly or anyone like that to do it?

TRUMP: No. And, and frankly, I never thought it was necessary to do so.

President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

The disclosure of the memos contradicts statements made by the president, who told The New York Times in January in an Oval Office interview that he had no role in his son-in-law receiving his clearance.

In an interview with The Times in January, President Trump said he “was never involved” with the security clearance of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, which was reinstated last year despite concerns from intelligence officials.CreditCreditTom Brenner for The New York Times

Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, also said that at the time the clearance was granted last year that his client went through a standard process. Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and Mr. Kushner’s wife, said the same thing three weeks ago.

Asked on Thursday about the memos contradicting the president’s account, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said, “We don’t comment on security clearances.”

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Mr. Lowell, said on Thursday: “In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.”

The decision last year to grant Mr. Kushner a top-secret clearance upgraded him from earlier temporary and interim status. He never received a higher-level designation that would have given him access to need-to-know intelligence known as sensitive compartmented information.

It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner’s security clearance. Officials had raised questions about his own and his family’s real estate business’s ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners. The issue also generated criticism of Mr. Trump for having two family members serve in official capacities in the West Wing.

Mr. Kushner has spent this week abroad working on a Middle East peace plan. Among his meetings was one with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.