Report: "Jared Is Running Everything," Former White House Official Says

From Vanity Fair (Archive):
“JARED TREATS MICK LIKE THE HELP”: IT’S JARED’S WHITE HOUSE NOW (TRUMP’S JUST LIVING IN IT)

With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy—only Kellyanne Conway is still pushing back.

BY GABRIEL SHERMAN
DECEMBER 17, 2019

As the House Judiciary Committee gaveled a rare prime time impeachment hearing inside the vaulted hall of the Ways and Means Committee Room on the evening of December 11, Donald Trump stood at a lectern in the White House’s East Room, lavishing praise on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “I love Jared,” Trump told casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer, and other high-profile guests attending the White House’s annual Hanukkah reception. A few hours earlier, at Kushner’s urging, Trump had signed a controversial executive order that classified Jews as a nationality for the purposes of enforcing anti-discrimination laws on college campuses. That morning, Kushner defended the policy in a New York Times op-ed. The flurry of activity reflected an emerging truth: As Trump ends the year by becoming only the third president in history to be impeached, Kushner is completing what is, by any measure, an unexpected comeback.

A year ago, it was conventional Washington wisdom that Kushner could be indicted in the Robert Mueller probe. Trump’s previous chief of staff John Kelly effectively marginalized him during pivotal domestic and foreign policy debates. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani even told Fox News that Kushner was “disposable.” Today, Kelly is gone and Giuliani’s fate is uncertain, while Kushner is exerting influence over virtually every significant White House decision, from negotiating trade deals to 2020 campaign strategy to overseeing Trump’s impeachment defense. “Jared is running everything,” a former West Wing official told me.

Trump also put Kushner in charge of building the wall, put Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz in charge of the White House's Middle East peace plan and pardoned Israeli drug smuggler Ronen Nahmani and money-laundering fraudster Sholom Rubashkin (who ran a Kosher slaughterhouse which resembled a house of horrors) on Kushner's advice.

Inside the West Wing, Kushner has both eliminated opponents and installed acquiescent officials. “Jared was very frustrated with [Reince] Priebus and John Kelly,” a Republican close to the White House, said. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney “was Jared’s pick,” the source said, and has allowed Kushner to function as de facto chief of staff. “Mick has decided not to be in control,” a former West Wing official said. “Jared treats Mick like the help. There’s no pushback,” a prominent Republican said. John Bolton, who recently mocked Kushner in a private speech, has been replaced by Robert O’Brien, a Kushner ally. Sources say that Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers don’t challenge Kushner after a string of leaks that Kushner wanted to replace Pence on the ticket with Nikki Haley. “Pence people look at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer,” said former Trump aide Sam Nunberg. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)