California representative Ted Lieu introduced an amendment Monday to the Make America Safe Appropriations Act, aimed at reducing the involvement of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, Jared Kushner, in classified matters. The effort comes in the wake of Democrats’ mounting, months-long criticisms of Kushner’s failure to disclose nearly 100 foreign contacts on his security clearance forms.
The amendment, while not singling Kushner out specifically, would make it illegal for government employees who have resubmitted their SF-86 security forms more than two times to include additional Russian contacts—which Kushner has done—to receive a salary or be reimbursed for expenses. It would also prevent those employees from receiving classified information.
Given the political make-up of Congress, the measure (which seemingly encourages government employees to keep quiet if they failed to disclose certain foreign contacts) is certain to fail.
Lieu is a longtime critic of Kushner’s. The congressman has repeatedly asked the president to revoke Kushner’s security clearance, and is one of a handful of Democratic representatives who asked the Federal Bureau of Information’s acting director, Andrew McCabe, to investigate the veracity of Ivanka Trump’s SF-86 forms.
