WASHINGTON, May 24: Jarred Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, has finally received security clearance, a media report said today, bringing cheers to his supporters and the White House staffers.
The permanent security clearance for Kushner had been pending since last year.
“Having completed all of these processes, he’s looking forward to continuing to do the work the president has asked him to do,” said Abbe D Lowell, attorney of Kushner, in a statement.
He said the Kushner’s application was “properly” submitted, reviewed by numerous career officials and underwent the normal process.
According to The New York Times, Kushner was issued permanent security clearance by career staffers of the FBI, after the investigative agency completed its background check against the president’s son-in-law.
Married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Kushner is a special advisor to the President and his special envoy on the Middle East Peace Process.
Kushner was among several White House officials who spent the first year of the administration working on provisional clearances, meaning he was allowed to view classified information while his FBI background check was pending, the daily said. Those clearances were stripped in February under a new White House policy, it added.
In another news report, The Washington Post said the FBI’s background check into Kushner’s financial history and foreign contacts took more than a year, and his clearance level was downgraded in February, becoming a source of uncertainty for the West Wing aide and blocking him from approved access to some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
Lowell said Kushner last year became “one of the first to voluntarily cooperate with any investigation into the 2016 campaign and related topics”, the daily reported.
“Since then, he has continued this complete cooperation, providing a large number of documents and sitting for hours of interviews with congressional committees and providing numerous documents and sitting for two interviews with the office of special counsel,” he added. (PTI)
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