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'Jared Kushner granted permanent security clearance by FBI'

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Press Trust of India Washington
Last Updated : May 24 2018 | 3:40 PM IST

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has been finally granted permanent security clearance, renewing his access to some of America's most sensitive secrets, media reports said today.

Married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, 37-year-old Kushner is a special advisor to the President and his special envoy on the Middle East Peace Process.

The permanent security clearance for Kushner had been pending since last year.

"Having completed all of these processes, he's looking forward to continuing to do the work the president has asked him to do," Kushner's attorney Abbe D Lowell said in a statement.

Kushner's application was "properly" submitted, reviewed by numerous career officials and underwent the normal process, he said.

According to The New York Times, Kushner was issued permanent security clearance by career staffers of the FBI, after the investigative agency completed its background check against the president's son-in-law.

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Kushner was among several White House officials who spent the first year of the administration working on provisional clearances, meaning he was allowed to view classified information while his FBI background check was pending, the daily said.

Those clearances were stripped in February under a new White House policy, it said.

In another report, The Washington Post said the FBI's background check into Kushner's financial history and foreign contacts took more than a year, and his clearance level was downgraded in February, becoming a source of uncertainty for the West Wing aide, and blocking him from approved access to some of the nation's most sensitive secrets.

Lowell said Kushner last year became "one of the first to voluntarily cooperate with any investigation into the 2016 campaign and related topics", the daily reported.

"Since then, he has continued this complete cooperation, providing a large number of documents and sitting for hours of interviews with congressional committees and providing numerous documents and sitting for two interviews with the office of special counsel," he added.

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First Published: May 24 2018 | 3:40 PM IST

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