The Washington Post initially claimed Breitbart News had “snarkily dubbed” White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner “Mr. Perfect” in a Saturday report, neglecting to mention the term came from Kushner’s own family’s promotional efforts in China.
An update to the piece shortly after publication explained the origin of the term but neither issued a correction nor removed the “snarkily dubbed” language.
Kushner, before his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, brought him in tow to Washington, was CEO of the Kushner Companies, the real estate empire built by his father and grandfather. Since Jared’s assension to the White House, his family’s business has repeatedly tried to play up the connection to the administration as they seek investors in China.
It was in the promotional materials for one of these presentations to Chinese businessmen in which the term “Mr. Perfect” was first used. The term was then adopted by conservative media figures in ironic jest when reporting on Kushner’s foibles.
Several firms tied to the Kushner companies, soliciting investment in their 1 Journal Square project in New Jersey, cited Mr. Perfect as the one who “got Trump elected” and strongly implied the project would be treated favorably by the government based on Jared Kushner’s role in the White House.
At the same time, the Kushner Companies surrogates strongly implied that these Chinese businessmen and their families could secure legal residency in the United States under the notoriously corrupt EB-5 visa program for investment in their project, leading Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to write a letter to the Department of Homeland Security demanding that agency publicly disavow the suggestion of any special treatment. The Kushner Companies presentations were, like many immigration fixers, referring to the $500,000 EB-5s as “golden visas.”
The Washington Post piece, by White House reporter Ashley Parker, suggests a shrinking role for Kushner – who was once seemingly charged with an extraordinarily wide purview – in the White House. As Breitbart News’s Adam Shaw wrote, Kushner’s relegation appears to be related to his involvement “in a series of questionable decisions made by the Trump White House, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the call to back Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) in the Republican Alabama Senate primary.”
Since the euphoric early days of his tenure, when he was reported to be handling an impossibly large range of policy topics, Kushner has had an increasingly unhappy role in his father-in-law’s White House. Parker’s piece in the Washington Post was not the first to note his rapidly diminishing responsibilities. Kushner and his wife, first daughter Ivanka Trump, reportedly bear the blame for some of the Trump campaign’s and early administration’s worst blunders, including the series of events leading to FBI Director James Comey’s dismissal and “Russia investigation” Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment.
Mr. Perfect and his wife Ivanka, two life-long Democrats who made ostensible conversions to the GOP after President Trump became more involved with the party, have come to be known as “Javanka.” Together, they continue to be blamed for a multitude of missteps at the White House.