‘OUT OF CONTROL’

Report: Kushner Added to Classified Intel List With No Security Clearance

As some intelligence officials fear he discussed business interests in private meetings with the Chinese ambassador.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was granted access to classified intelligence reports despite not having a security clearance, The New Yorker reports. Kushner was reportedly added to a list of recipients for the President’s Daily Brief, or P.D.B., which contains some of the U.S. government’s most highly classified intelligence reports. The Trump administration’s expansion of the P.D.B. list was described as “out of control” by one former senior official cited by The New Yorker. And Kushner’s access to the reports while lacking a security clearance has been described as unprecedented. Current and former U.S. officials cited in the report say Kushner’s private meetings with Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai early in the Trump presidency set off alarm bells in the intelligence community. During one meeting in particular last April, Kushner and Cui are thought to have discussed Kushner’s personal business interests along with policy—a move that only intensified fears Cui might be attempting to use Kushner to gain sway over the White House, according to the report.