Politics|Donald Trump's Son-in-Law, Jared Kushner, Tests Legal Path to White House Job - New York Times
Mr. Kushner has already figured prominently in the tumultuous start to the transition. He was involved in the effort to oust Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who as a federal prosecutor jailed Mr. Kushner’s father, Charles B. Kushner, more than a decade ago. Trump officials have systematically fired those Mr. Christie had selected for the effort. Transition officials have rejected claims that Mr. Kushner was involved in a payback effort and pointed to Mr. Christie’s troubles after two aides were convicted in the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal in New Jersey. They also suggested that the preliminary transition work had been subpar.
Mr. Trump’s desire to add Mr. Kushner to his administration gives weight to speculation that he intends to run the White House the way he runs his businesses, relying heavily on his children and delegating essential duties to them.
And it adds another element of unpredictability to an unconventional handover of power, although there were signs on Thursday that Mr. Trump’s transition operation was edging toward normalcy after its chaotic first week.
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Mr. Trump sat down with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, his first in-person session with a world leader since winning the White House. A clearer picture also emerged of the figures who have Mr. Trump's ear. Among them is Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a retired intelligence officer who a top transition team official said was Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, and Senator Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who is under consideration to be attorney general or secretary of state.
On Capitol Hill, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told House Republicans to “buckle up” in anticipation of a packed legislative session.
Mr. Trump’s aides held their first scheduled daily conference call with reporters while transition officials whose work had been stalled by shake-ups in Trump Tower began work with their Obama administration counterparts on a handover.
But the prospect that Mr. Kushner might end up in the West Wing remained a concern to some people close to the president-elect, who said he would instantly become a target for media and legal attacks if he took the unorthodox step.
Mr. Kushner has consulted with at least one lawyer and believes that by forgoing a salary and putting his investment fund, his real estate holdings and The New York Observer into a blind trust, he would not be bound by federal nepotism rules, according to one of the people briefed.
Ethics lawyers in both parties said that such an arrangement would violate a federal statute designed to prevent family ties from influencing the functioning of the United States government. Under a 1967 law enacted after John F. Kennedy installed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, no public official can hire a family member — including one related by marriage — to an agency or office over which he has authority. A separate statute also makes it a crime, punishable by a fine and up to two years of prison time, for government employees to accept voluntary services that are not authorized by law, except in emergency situations.
The anti-nepotism law “would seem to block out Kushner flatly,” said Norman L. Eisen, who served as Mr. Obama’s ethics counsel during his transition and at the White House. If Mr. Trump were to try to skirt it by having Mr. Kushner advise him in a volunteer capacity, he added, he “would be treading upon very serious statutory and constitutional grounds.”
“When push comes to shove, on the very hardest calls that confront a president, you want the president’s adviser to remember that their oath or affirmation to the Constitution comes first, before family ties,” Mr. Eisen said. “You need to be able to say no. You need to be able to hold the line. You need to be able to threaten to resign, and you need to be able to actually resign. You can’t resign from being somebody’s son-in-law.”
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Richard W. Painter, an ethics counsel to George W. Bush, said he remembered having to inform a senior official serving Mr. Bush that he was legally barred from granting a White House internship to his son. Mr. Painter based his decision on a reading of the anti-nepotism law by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during Jimmy Carter’s administration, which barred the president from doing so for his own child.
“I told him: ‘Jimmy Carter couldn’t do it. If the president of the United States couldn’t do it, I can’t do it for your kid,’” Mr. Painter recalled. “I got cussed out.”
Mr. Trump could try to circumvent the law, the lawyers said, by arguing that he has broad executive authority as president to choose his advisers. But that move would probably invite a legal challenge, forcing a court to decide whether the president’s executive authority to choose his advisers takes precedent over a law passed by Congress that bans nepotism in the government.
Mr. Trump could also try to invoke the example of Hillary Clinton. A 1993 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Mrs. Clinton, whom President Bill Clinton had appointed to lead his health care task force, was acting as a full-time government employee and therefore the panel could shield its meetings and records from the public. The decision hinted that the anti-nepotism statute might not have been meant to apply to the White House or to unpaid positions.
But the ruling also said the first lady had a unique and widely recognized role in helping the president to carry out his duties — she had an office in the White House and a staff — a distinction that would not apply to Mr. Kushner. The Clintons paid a steep political price for insisting that Mrs. Clinton had a right to serve on the task force, ultimately losing both the Senate and the House in 1994 as Republicans assailed what they portrayed as a White House run amok.
“You can try to wiggle your way around the law, but you’ve got to realize the political reality that this is prohibited under the statute,” Mr. Painter said. “It’s a power grab. It’s an overreach.”
The question of Mr. Kushner’s role also highlights a broader challenge facing Mr. Trump and his children as he assumes the presidency: how to separate his role as leader of the country from his vast real estate and business empire and avoid conflicts of interest.
Even if Mr. Kushner placed his own holdings in a blind trust, his marriage to Ms. Trump poses an inherent conflict, according to ethics experts, because he would have access through his wife to information about Mr. Trump’s businesses that the president-elect should be barred from knowing.
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