Kushnergate Update: Was It Really All About Syria?

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Here’s an interesting new tidbit on the Jared Kushner front. The New York Times account of Kushnergate says that the reason Kushner wanted to set up backchannel comms to Russia was so that Michael Flynn could hold private conversations about Syria. The Times didn’t characterize their sources for this information, but it turns out it was people providing Kushner’s side of the story. So why didn’t this detail make it into the Washington Post story?

We talked to these “people” too. We would not publish their account unless we could signal they were speaking for Kushner. They refused. https://t.co/UpNrh7UHDV

— Scott Wilson (@PostScottWilson) May 27, 2017

So these sources said Kushner was setting up a channel to talk about Syria, which sounds fairly benign. But they refused to allow themselves to be quoted even as “sources close Kushner” or somesuch. So the Post passed.

Obviously this makes a difference. If the Syria story is Kushner’s alibi, it means a lot less than it would if it came from some relatively neutral source who happened to know what was going on. Discount it accordingly.