White House: New Policy Won’t Affect Trump's Son-In-Law (Security Clearances)

[edpc]

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a week of reckoning for White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and dozens of other officials who have been working without permanent security clearances for the better part of a year.

Those who have been operating with interim access to top secret information since before June are set to see that access halted Friday under a new policy enacted last week by chief of staff John Kelly. Some officials are expected to leave their posts as a result, while others will continue working with reduced — or no — access to classified information.

The White House maintains that Kushner's work will be unaffected by the change, but won't explain why.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-policy-wont-affect-trumps-son-law-060831166--politics.html

[edpc]

"Nothing that has taken place will affect the valuable work that Jared is doing," press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday. "He continues and will continue to be a valued member of the team. He'll continue to do the important work that he's been focused on for the last year."

Kelly, in a statement, said the White House looks forward to Kushner maintaining his role working on the Middle East peace process and U.S.-Mexico relations.


There’s no unique skill set or experience he has that makes him irreplaceable for these tasks.

[Concerned]

I suspect much of Kushner’s value is as a sounding board to the President.  He doesn’t need TS or SCI access for most of that.  Same with much of his work in the Middle East and Mexico.  From the article linked in the OP: 

Kelly's change only applies to clearances for access to the apex of the classification pyramid — top secret and sensitive compartmented information — not to lower-level clearances required to handle secret or confidential information. Much, but not all, of Kushner's work on the two issues singled out by Kelly are handled at those lower levels, an official said.

He probably had access to things (e.g., PDB) that he had no real need-to-know for, and this change just establishes a level of structure, discipline, and security responsibility that should have been there before IMO.  Good.