Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that if White House senior adviser Jared Kushner wasn’t President Trump’s son-in-law, he would not have been granted a permanent security clearance.
Lieu claimed on Twitter that the FBI does not grant security clearance and the decision to give Kushner one on Wednesday was made by the White House.
“Kushner omitted his Trump Tower meeting not once, but TWICE on his SF-86s,” Lieu write on twitter. “If he wasn’t the son-in-law of @POTUS, he would not have a clearance.”
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Kushner was granted a permanent security clearance on Wednesday after working more than a year for the Trump administration. He previously held a temporary clearance status.
A source told The New York Times that the clearance was approved by career staffers at the FBI after a background check and did not involve Trump.
Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell said that his client got the clearance after properly submitting an application.
Kushner’s temporary status was made public after questions arose about former staff secretary Rob Porter, who was working at the White House without a full security clearance. Kushner’s clearance was then downgraded from top secret to a lower level of access.