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Family Business




Jared and Ivanka should both be booted from the White House.  No President in modern history has involved his children and in-laws to this extent in his administration.  Throughout 2017, Jared Kushner essentially acted as Secretary of State, supposedly trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine that never materialized.  It was also reported that any foreign diplomat wanting access to the President had to go through Jared first.  Pretty amazing for a young real estate developer known for his busted deals than any great negotiating skills.

Ivanka similarly gets unprecedented access to classified information and meetings going on in the White House.  She has been used principally to try to defuse tensions, but Trump only knows what else she is doing.  Like her husband, she has full security clearance and is not afraid to use this access to her advantage, especially when it comes to gaining lucrative trademarks with countries like China, a serious conflict of interest.

Donnie Jr. and Eric are used mainly as surrogates in the conservative media, along with Eric's wife, Lara, who produces a Trump propaganda arm called Real News Update that was started in 2017.  All are frequent guests on Fox News and other conservative news outlets.

To put this in perspective.  Ronald Reagan had four grown children when he came into office and none served in his administration.  His oldest son and daughter, Michael and Maureen, actively promoted his agenda any chance they got, but neither had security clearance nor played a role in his policy decisions.  The same was true for George H.W. Bush, who had three grown sons.  Jeb and George W. played active roles in their father's campaign, but neither were actively involved in their father's administration.  While there are no explicit laws prohibiting children from playing roles in their parent's administration, it has been considered unseemly to do so.

Donald Trump has no such scruples.  He built a family business and now he has a family White House.  Key members of his administration have all complained of the prominent roles Jared and Ivanka play in his White House but they all were powerless to do anything about it.  John Kelly tried his best to freeze them out but to no avail.  Former Secretary of State Tillerson was notably disgruntled by the role Jared Kushner was playing the Middle East, but accepted it.  We were all told how great a job Jared was doing in negotiating the peace deal of the century but in the end neither Israel nor Palestine have been impressed with his efforts.  If we are patient enough his plan might be finally unveiled after the Israel elections this April, or so we are told by Jared.

It doesn't matter that Kushner has absolutely no qualifications to undertake such an ambitious effort.  He was never more than a third-rate real estate developer in New York trying to pick up where his jailed father left off, but along the way he made friends with the notorious MBS and other dubious figures in the Middle East and now tries to use this as leverage to broker peace deals for his father-in-law.  Mostly, he is being used as access to Donald, which Mohammed bin Salman put bluntly.

Just this week, Jared tried to go incognito to Riyadh to meet with the crown prince, ignoring the US Embassy, which is supposed to handle such meetings.  This is apparently the norm with Kushner in Saudi Arabia as he likes to keep his dealing with the House of Saud confidential.  As with much of this "family business," Trump often keeps government officials in the dark, so that we can only speculate on their activities.  It seems that one of the perks for Saudi Arabia backing Jared's Middle East Peace Plan is to get nuclear weapon technology.

Trump seems to only trust his children to do his bidding, largely because independent officials wouldn't go along with such half-baked schemes.  He goes through White House staff the way he went through contestants on The Apprentice.  His administration is hardly recognizable today from what it was when he first took office in January, 2017.  The constants are Jared and Ivanka and his adoptive Hitler Youth, Stephen Miller.  All others have either left or been shuffled about to fill the many vacancies in his administration.

How is he allowed to get away with it?  In large part it is because there is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly forbids it.  The Founding Fathers were very much against nepotism but for whatever reason were vague when it came to setting it down as constitutional law.  Security clearances are a relatively modern instrument and are subject to the President's discretion.  Jared and Ivanka were both initially denied security clearances, but Trump overruled these decisions, which he has the power to do.  Similarly, he can revoke security clearances like he did with John Brennan when the former CIA director lambasted Trump's policies in the media.

Basically, Congress doesn't know what to do with Trump or his family.  The Democrats have vowed to investigate the matter of security clearances, especially in regard to Jared and Ivanka, but it won't stop Trump from allowing them access to his inner circle.  The President has wide-ranging authority on such matters, which is a serious concern when you have a man who appears to be suffering through the later stages of dementia and needs the flag and his kids to fall back on, as well as adoring conservative audiences.

It is doubtful anything will come of these investigations because Trump refuses to cooperate and Republicans in Congress plan to stonewall them.  For whatever reason, the GOP has aligned itself with the President and feels it can weather the scrutiny of overreaching Democrats.  It doesn't matter that they brought far greater scrutiny to bear on the Obama administration, notably the Benghazi attack, and went out of their way to bring his administration to a screeching halt when the Republicans commanded both houses of Congress.  What is good for the goose is obviously not good for the gander.

The investigations will happen anyway and they are sure to uncover some unfavorable stories, as we have already had with the Cohen testimony, which the Republicans tried so hard to drown out with their CPAC convention, Trump's aborted summit in Hanoi, and the attempt to displace Maduro in Venezuela.  Cohen's salacious accounts still dominated the airwaves, and with the Mueller report due any day, it is likely we will hear even more damning stories, possibly even major indictments of one or more of his children.  Jared and Donnie Jr. have been directly linked to the infamous meeting in Trump Tower with Russian operatives.

Little wonder John Kelly didn't want to grant Jared or Ivanka security clearances, knowing their unsavory connections.  This is a family that has extensive business ties with Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheikhs and Israeli businessmen, which have heavily influenced Trump's foreign policy.

It is pretty safe to say we have never had anything like this before, but the Republican-controlled House and Senate turned a blind eye to it for two years in return for Trump signing off on their legislation, notably the huge tax cuts they pushing through on a budget reconciliation vote at the end of 2017.  Tax cuts that heavily favored the Trumps.

You might remember we warned repeatedly of the nepotism that would pervade a Clinton White House had Hillary been elected.  Her husband being a former president and Chelsea being a very active global health active were both seen as having a very instrumental role in her potential administration.  At least Bill and Chelsea had qualifications.  Jared and Ivanka, like their father, had none.  So her we are with the Trump family trying to run the company as they would Trump enterprises.

Enough is enough.  We have two years to see this awful experiment play out and nothing has come of it.  All this talk of peace in the Middle East, a denuclearized North Korea and an end to our foreign wars has gone for naught.  Jared is no closer to a Nobel Peace Prize than is Donald.  Ivanka, who enjoyed a fairly strong favorable rating at one time now finds herself universally mocked.   The Emperor's New Clothes turned out to be an illusion as anyone in his right mind knew back in 2016.  There is no magic to the Trump family name.  These are con artists who managed to play the Republican Party for all it's worth, which right now is absolutely nothing.

2020 can't come fast enough because barring a major revelation in the Mueller investigation that the Trump administration can't sequester, we are stuck with this pudgy emperor for the remainder of his term.  We can only hope it will be a peaceful transition, although to hear Michael Cohen we have no reason to believe it will be.  Now that he has a taste of absolute power, he won't want to let go of it, especially with potential indictments hanging over his head.  We shall see.


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