How to Understand Kushner’s ‘Back-Channel’ Back-channels might be a regular part of government operations, but not this one.
By CARRIE CORDERO June 06, 2017
Carrie Cordero is an attorney in private practice, adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, and former Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
This article expands and adapts an earlier version that first appeared on Lawfare.
Last month, the Washington Post and New York Times reported that during the presidential transition Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to discuss establishing a direct line of secure communication from the White House to the Kremlin—possibly run out of Russian diplomatic facilities. The Washington Post report left the motivation for the potential back-channel vague, while the New York Times said it intended to allow short-lived National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—who was reportedly present at the meeting with Kislyak as well—a direct line to Russia to discuss Syria policy “and other security issues.”
The revelations raised a host of questions. The White House has neither officially denied nor meaningfully clarified the information reported, although Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs H.R. McMaster have offered some public defense of Kushner’s efforts. Criticisms of the meeting have included questioning why a secure communications channel was ever on the table, as well as whether the meetings were appropriate given that the United States operates with one president at a time. Incoming administration personnel have traditionally exercised care not to send other countries mixed messages about U.S. policy before the official change of administrations. In addition, another Kushner meeting during the transition period is under scrutiny—this one with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Russian bank. Conflicting information about the purpose of that meeting only adds to the speculation (emboldened by the lack of divestitures and financial disclosures from the Trump family) about whether Kushner’s various meetings with Russian and other foreign government officials from November to January took place as part of his role as a future White House official, or, as the head of his family-owned real estate business.
I spent 10 years working on national security operations, law and policy for the Department of Justice and intelligence community, and, as both a practitioner and professor of intelligence and national security law I can tell you that so-called back-channels exist in diplomacy and intelligence. They don’t need to be centralized in the White House. Indeed, in normal times, foreign intelligence services are often the official government entities that operate these lines. At a public conference this past fall, then-CIA Director John Brennan led a discussion with intelligence service leaders from Britain, Afghanistan and Australia. The intelligence chiefs briefly touched on the role that intelligence back-channels play in facilitating dialogue between nations that might have difficulty discussing certain issues through overt diplomatic channels. As Brennan described, “It’s a balancing of openness, which, being here on this stage we are trying to engage with the public about our work. And at the same time, we have a responsibility to make sure we keep certain things secret, and using these very discreet, and secret intelligence channels, allows things to happen and to take place between governments that are out of the spotlight, that maybe the diplomatic realm is not able to have that same type of discretion.”
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Poster Comment:
Did Kushner overstep his bounds? I think so.