Shep Smith: Kushner’s security clearance omission ‘can be a crime’

Fox News host Shepard Smith said Thursday that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s failure to list some contacts with foreigners on personal disclosure forms he filled out as part of the security clearance process “can be a crime, punishable by prison.”

“Jared Kushner submitted his application, his ‘SF-86’ as they call it, and did not include 100 contacts with foreigners,” Smith said. “And then later had to go back and include them … but did not include the meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer and Russian translator. So that was another amendment to this thing.”

{mosads}Smith noted President Trump’s son-in-law appears “good to go” with his security clearance now that the White House announced earlier this week that its decision to clamp down on temporary security clearances would not affect Kushner, who reportedly still holds only a temporary clearance.

“I can tell you that no decision within [chief of staff John Kelly’s] memo will impact anything that Jared Kushner is working on. In terms of specifics on security clearance, I can’t get into that,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. 

Kushner is reportedly resisting giving up his high-level access as Kelly carries out the review.

Kushner has updated his security clearance forms a handful of times since Trump’s inauguration, adding more than 100 foreign contacts that weren’t previously listed, including meetings with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and the head of a prominent Russian bank that has been sanctioned by the U.S.

On his show Thursday, Smith said the omissions “for most people … can be a crime, punishable by prison.”

“Not in this case, apparently, but it can be,” Smith said.

Kushner’s lawyers have characterized the omissions as an oversight. 

CNN reported Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference is holding up Kushner’s approval for a permanent security clearance.

Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) have been calling for Kushner’s clearance to be revoked since last July.