The first time I filled out a security clearance form, it took me probably a week to gather all the necessary information before I could actually put pen to paper and start writing down answers. The idea that being a wealthy person, with all sorts of assistants, schedulers, attorneys, accountants, and so on working for him, relieves Kushner of the burden of accurately providing information under penalty of law, is patently absurd.
ETA: not to mention the obvious factor that one’s financial commitments in other countries is even more important – not less important – in terms of being vulnerable to compromise by foreign intelligence services. If anything, Kushner had an even greater obligation to detail his foreign interests and contacts than, say, someone like me who had just recently graduated from college and had made a few foreign trips.
Trump brags about how big his tax returns are, and how long it takes his people to fill them out. Kushner is under just as much obligation to fill out a security clearance form as accurately as his father in law’s tax returns. The reason why he doesn’t feel the need to is perfectly obvious.
Nope. The value of services provided without compensation by any individual who volunteers on behalf of a candidate or political committee is not a contribution. See:
And:
(Quoting FEC Advisory Opinion 2007-22 (Hurysz); see also A.O. 2004-26 (Weller) (performance of campaign related activities by a foreign national without compensation, including soliciting funds and support for a Federal candidate, would not result in the making or receipt of a prohibited contribution), and 1987-25 (Otaola) (uncompensated volunteer services provided by a foreign national student would not constitute a prohibited contribution)
What criminal misdeeds of his opponent? What is your standard of evidence required to believe that Hillary committed a crime? Does it have to be written on the walls of two restroom stalls or is one sufficient?
Let me try this one: you’re running the campaign of a guy running for dogcatcher. Someone emails you stating that he has evidence of criminal activity of your candidate’s opponent. Is the ethical thing:
Say “Great news! Let’s set up a meeting so we can exploit this!”
Forward the email to your local police department.
Call me crazy, but if someone tells me they have evidence of a crime I tell the police who told me and how to contact them. If they have no evidence, then they look stupid, not me. And if they do have evidence, the police are better equipped than I to handle it.
The police analogy doesn’t work, because in this case we are talking about a foreign country that employs extremely aggressive intelligence operations against Americans. It is colossally fucking stupid to meet with people who are linked to such governments who are offering shady deals.
There is no damn way that Don Jr. and other Trump people should have taken that meeting at all, because even a reasonably smart person shouldn’t deal with such situations alone. And here we are talking about two people - Don Jr. and Kushner - who are utterly naive dilettantes who greatly overestimate their intelligence. And then there is Manafort, who is in the tank already, so he probably has the least to lose with such meetings anyway.
