Government

Jared Kushner Laments Loss Of Civility Caused By Mueller Investigation. If Only We Could Be More Like His Friend MBS!

Kushner is more than willing to share his #THOUGHTS on the Mueller probe.

By Liz Dye on April 25, 2019 9:57 am

Jared Kushner (Photo by Michael Reynolds – Pool/Getty Images)

He speaks! Jared Kushner, Boy Wonder, was interviewed at the inaugural Time 100 summit and, indeed, his voice does sound like someone begging to be let out of a locker in time for his squash lesson.

What’s that Jared? You say we better open up right now so you can fix the opioid crisis, MBA-splain immigration to Congress, convince Mexico to pay for the wall, and tell the Palestinians that you have a special surprise for them that’s, like, way cooler than a two-state solution?

Sadly, we’ll have to wait until after JV debate practice to hear Jared’s one weird trick to end all war and solve Fermat’s last theorem. But don’t worry, because he’s more than willing to share his #THOUGHTS on the Mueller probe.

You look at what Russia did, you know, buying some Facebook ads to try and sow dissent and do it, it’s a terrible thing. But I think the investigations and all of the speculation that’s happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple Facebook ads.

A couple Facebook ads.

A COUPLE FACEBOOK ADS?

The Senate Intelligence Committee commissioned a report from cybersecurity firm New Knowledge calculating Russian troll activity at 10.4 million tweets, 1,100 YouTube videos, 116,000 Instagram photos, and 61,500 Facebook posts. Here’s a table compiled by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Research Project documenting engagement of the most popular posts by topic.

Kremlin-backed trolls systematically tried to suppress African-American turnout by flooding social media with memes calling Hillary Clinton a racist oppressor.

Not to mention hacking the DNC and DCCC, then laundering the stolen emails through Wikileaks, all while claiming that the real source was Seth Rich and implying that Hillary Clinton had him murdered as revenge.

Safe to say, that’s more than “a couple Facebook ads.”

But perhaps we digress. As did Jared, since the claim that the Mueller probe did more damage than Russian hacking was in response to this question.

[W]ere you concerned about the image that you were setting? That Russia was clearly trying to run people at the Trump campaign, and do you think that, in retrospect, you were a little naive to take some of those meetings, especially during the transition?

Let the record reflect that the witness is non-responsive. He mumbled some nonsense about running a “non-traditional campaign” and went on to downplay the investigation, which has so far resulted in 34 people charged, seven guilty pleas, and the aforementioned 448-page non-exoneration from the special counsel.

But at least someone was telling the truth at Time’s “If You Build It They Will Come” celebration of its own continued relevance.

We have a lot of incredible rights here in America and safeties that we take for granted oftentimes. And there are people on the front lines that cannot be here, like Loujain Al-Hathloul, who is a Saudi activist who helped fight to lift the women’s driving ban, and she is currently in prison. She cannot be with us here tonight. She has been tortured. And a lot of times as comedians we get a lot of credit. People come up to us and they go, “Thank you so much for pointing a light on that issue,” but that’s all we’re doing, we’re pointing. And I just want to say thank you to Loujain for being the light.

This is a very — this is a very powerful room, and you know, I know there’s a lot of very powerful people here. It would be crazy if — I don’t know, if there was just like a — I don’t know, like, if there was a high-ranking official in the White House that could WhatsApp MBS and say, “Hey, maybe you could help that person get out of prison because they don’t deserve it,” but that would be crazy. That would be — that person would have to be in the room, but that’s just a good comedy premise.

Yes, that would be a hilarious premise! If only the person who has secret WhatsApp chats with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman and helped him weather the storm after a team of Saudi assassins dismembered a Washington Post reporter in the Turkish consulate were there at the gala to get called out by “Patriot Act” star Hasan Minhaj. Ha ha.

This week alone, Saudi Arabia executed 37 people including one who was literally crucified. Most were Shia men, convicted after confessions extracted under torture. At least two were minors at the time of their “offenses.”

Which was all very awkward for the son-in-law in chief. And what with one thing and another, Kushner could hardly turn to his friend David Pecker at The National Enquirer for some good coverage. Luckily, Page Six was there to publish Jared’s thoughtful, nuanced response.

Kushner told us that he was primarily focused on “advancing America’s interests in the region” but said he has spoken to MBS about Saudi accountability for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder and the treatment of al-Hathloul. He said, “I will continue to put pressure on privately.” When asked whether MBS will take action, he added, “We’ll see.”

Yeah, sorry about that whole crucifixion thing. But we do have arms to sell, so … we’ll see.

The Disinformation Report [New Knowledge]
The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018 [University of Oxford]
Jared Kushner responds after Hasan Minhaj calls out his ties to Saudi prince [Page Six]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.