Laura Ingraham all but apologized for asking Jared Kushner about the White House security clearance scandal that has erupted, ignored his misleading statements about his own disclosure process and never asked about reporting that Donald Trump overrode objections to grant Kushner’s own security clearance.
Instead of Kushner’s softballs, Fox would have frothed at the mouth had Obama over-ridden security clearances for family
I can just imagine the Fox News poutrage had a whistle blower come forward to Congress with claims that 25 denials of security clearance had been overruled by the Obama White House, including those for Obama relatives serving in his administration. But that was the news yesterday about the Kushners and the “Lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server” Trump administration.
Furthermore, that poutrage would have been dialed up a few notches at the “liberal media” if a cable news host had failed to question an Obama son-in-law about reports his and his wife’s security clearance had been obtained only after Dad intervened, despite his and wifey’s claims to the contrary, even after said son-in-law misled about his own security clearance process during said interview.
On Fox News, dishonesty and corruption in national security procedures are OK if you’re a Trumper
Ingraham tiptoed up to the security clearance scandal by blaming the left for making an issue out of it. That was also a neat way of minimizing accusations from a White House security adviser that the Trump administration has recklessly jeopardized national security by overriding "dozens" of national security denials. Ingraham avoided any pesky substantive questions on the matter with a softball asking Kushner for his “reaction." Kushner's response was deceptive.
INGRAHAM: So you have a big event that we’re going to get to, the First Step Act, a big celebration, a bipartisan celebration, in the White House, which is great because I don’t think we have enough of those. We’re going to get to that, because it’s a historic day in many ways, but we have to get to some of the news of the day first. And the left is going crazy about the security clearance issue.
And a whistleblower from the White House has now given a private interview on Capitol Hill with Democrats, and she says that 25 individuals were able to leapfrog over the career people’s concerns about security clearances, and they received security clearances, in her view, improperly. What’s your reaction to that?
KUSHNER: Well, I can’t comment for the White House’s process, but what I can say is that over the last few years that I’ve been here, I’ve been accused of all different types of things, and all of those things have turned out to be false. We’ve had a lot of crazy accusations, like, that we colluded with Russia. I complied with all the different investigations, whether it be the Senate, the House, the special counsel. I’ve sat for nearly 20 hours of interviews with them.
When I came to Washington, I had a very successful business career. I had extensive holdings. I disclosed all of my holdings to the Office of Government Ethics, and what I did with them is they told me what to divest, what to keep, what rules to follow.
FACT CHECK: As Vanity Fair noted in 2017, when Kushner got to the White House, “his only two professional achievements of note have been buying and running a newspaper into the ground and running his family’s real-estate business while his father was in prison, striking a deal that a decade later is still haunting his family. That deal, of course, was to buy 666 5th Avenue for $1.8 billion on the eve of the financial crisis, which has become an ongoing albatross around Kushner Cos’ neck." A later Vanity Fair report pointed out that Kushner was suspiciously rescued from that albatross by the Qataris.
Also, Kushner repeatedly revised and amended his disclosure forms after a long series of errors and omissions.
Ingraham did not challenge or correct any of those misrepresentations.
Ingraham weaponized national security matters instead of asking Kushner about his own security clearance
Kushner’s deceit should have raised red flags for Ingraham to pursue further, especially with questions about his own security clearance. But Ingraham used the next moment to make a sarcastic and dismissive reference to the Trump White House whistleblower’s serious allegations and to set up another opportunity for Kushner to spin.
INGRAHAM: She said there were grave concerns. She has grave concerns about potential national security implications. Do you pose a grave national security concern to the country, Jared Kushner?
KUSHNER: Look, I can say that in the White House, I worked with some phenomenal people and I think over the last few years, the president’s done a phenomenal job of identifying what are our national security priorities. He’s had a great team in place that are helping implement it. And I hope I’ve played a good part in pushing those objectives forward. And I think, because of the president’s leadership, the world is safer today.
After that non-answer, Ingraham again passed up an opportunity to question Kushner about the facts of his own security clearance, this time to suggest he should amplify the talking point hinted at in his first response, that the whole security clearance issue is nothing more than an offshoot of the Russia investigation “witch hunt."
INGRAHAM: Do you get the sense that the Democrats keep moving the goal post on this? It strikes me as interesting that this comes out today after Mueller fizzles.
KUSHNER: Yes. Well, what I learned during the campaign is that there’s a big difference between what people in America care about and what people in Washington or in the media care about.
Watch Ingraham help Kushner and the White House avoid national security scrutiny below, from the April 1, 2019 The Ingraham Angle.
(Transcript excerpts via RealClear Politics)