Jared Kushner is in deep trouble—and his White House enemies are feeling pretty good about that

The Friday news that Trump son-in-law in charge of All The Things, Jared Kushner, sought a secret line of communications with Russian officials that would bypass American intelligence services is four large Goodyears tossed onto the White House tire fire. There is no "legitimate" reason why Trump's transition team should have sought out a secret line of communication with a foreign nation that the American government wouldn't know about. Sunday shows be damned; there is no spin that makes that "better." That's colluding with a foreign government in defiance of your own no matter how you look at it, and is prima facie evidence that there was something going on between the top members of Team Trump and Russian officials that they didn't want American officials getting wind of—and that's even without considering the breaking news that Kushner had still more conversations with Russian officials that he did not previously bother to mention.

This news now puts Jared Kushner in the center ring of the Russia investigation, the one now being handled by a special counsel after Trump fired the FBI director running it. And certain other people in the always-tumultuous White House, people who do not like Golden Boy and find his presence irritating, might be a wee bit happy about that.

“No one knows what to make of it because he’s there every day, making decisions, in the Oval,” [a senior administration official] said. “So everyone just tries to act normal.” [...]

But outside of Kushner’s small circle of trust – a group that includes Kushner’s wife Ivanka Trump, and advisers Hope Hicks, Josh Raffel, Dina Powell, Gary Cohn, Chris Liddell and Reed Cordish – many West Wing advisers are simultaneously rattled by the backchannel revelations, and feeling a sense of schadenfreude. [...]

Internally at the White House, according to multiple sources, there is a feeling of resentment among people about Kushner’s special status as a family member, and a feeling that it’s about time for him to have a turn under the gun.

I don't think we have to worry about the members of this White House colluding with each other to sweep their worst scandals under the rug. The members of this White House would feed each other to passing bears, if the opportunity arose.

from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2rav8Qo