I still really wonder why people, including Congress, give Jared Kushner a pass. Even now, I notice that there’s little outrage in the media about his testimony to Congress, aired on Thursday night, that he thought White House counsel Pat Cipollone was “whining” when he threatened to resign in light of Trump’s continued claims of a rigged election and plans for a rally on January 6. Oh, and yes—it seems likely that Kushner knew all about the serious issues at stake (after all, Cipollone was “whining” about something), but Kushner says he was too bogged down working on pardons to pay much attention. Because pardons, particularly when they include one for your father, are so much more important than bloodshed involved in storming the Capitol.
Understandably, Trump is the focus of the Jan. 6 hearings, not Kushner. But Trump is—well, Trump. Pretty much everything he does happens in plain sight. There’s not much been said so far in the hearings about his behavior that we don’t already know. But Kushner? Think about the callousness and the self-interest that was revealed by what Kushner said in his interview. A pardon for Dad, among others, was so much more important than rioting, murder, and breaking the Constitution. I have done extensive research on Kushner, and the evidence has always pointed to the very likely possibility that Kushner did not go into the government for public service but for self-service—and, almost daily, this notion gets reinforced, even after the fact.
Many people on both side of the political aisle I’ve spoken to agree with this assessment—and yet, people just shrug. They just don’t care.
And that’s a problem, partly because it’s really, really unfair.