increased scrutiny, and new reporting that a white house official who worked closely with the president s son-in-law plans to leave the administration. axios was first to report that josh raffel has decided to step down and return to the private sector. he joined the white house to work for the office of american innovation and ultimately took on communications for both jared kushner and ivanka trump. according to the white house, raffel todd both jared and ivanka about his plans to leave. and the associated press reported that tuesday s news set off ram pabpant speculation tha kushner s days in the white house might be numbered, a contention that the white house disputes. we do not comment on individual security clearances. we actually haven t commented on jared s issue indicated, but we have commented on his ability to do his job. which he is a valued member of the team and he will continue to do the important work that he has been doing since he started in the administration.
we asked josh raffel if him leaving tonight had something to do with the security clearance issue having to do with him. no answer from him on that either. there is this fraught question looming over this security clearance controversy because the most high profile people in the white house who we know haven t been able to get full security clearances are these two. the president s daughter, ivanka, and her husband, jared kushner, are each titled as senior white house advisers. jared is in charge of middle east peace and china and mexico and all trade policy. ivanka just got back from briefing the president of south korea on the new north korea sanctions. how on earth can they do these senior jobs if this policy from chief of staff john kelly means that the two of them will no longer be allowed to see classified materials? tough question. politico.com reporting tonight the new john kelly policy about
anyone who covers this white house knows josh, senior communications aide leaving the white house for a combination of personal reasons and geographic reasons. he was the mouthpiece of the press aide that dealt specifically with the outsize number of press inquiries for jared and ivanka. talk about the significance of his departure and what it intersects with both in the mueller probe and in the arc of jared and ivanka s political fate there. sure. so the person who left is josh raffel and he is not known to the outside world. he is a very well-known to any reporter who s written a jared or ivanka story. he he sort of aggressively argues for every word and he left today basically as you said for a combination of family reasons that are real, and also he s sort of been here a year. i will say as we wrote in our story before this jared news that his departure was certain to launch sort of palace intrigue and conspiracy theories as to why he was leaving, what
sit back in the chair and share it us first. thank you. jonathan, i have to say, i cover this white house like you cover this white house. what ashley describes is exactly how josh does his job. that s part of the job that s normal. you re supposed to fight about every single word. he s one of the straight shooters in this white house. he s accessible. he does fight about every story, but when it s over, he goes on to fight another day. he returns your phone calls in the news cycle. i think he ll be missed. yeah. i ve been on the receiving end of those angry phone calls that ashley described. no question josh raffel is a pro. there have been times when there haven t been that many of them working in the trying to get people to return your phone calls in a timely manner. he was not on the campaign. he has ties to the trump family. he has ties to hope hicks, when he came into the white house about a year ago. he s someone it was sort of an unusual arrangement that to have for jar
induced other federal employees to lie. agrieved unyielding and threatening president dominated the discussion, pushing into line his daughter and her husband hicks and raffel insisting the meeting at trump tower purely and simply about russia adoption policy. that s what was discussed, period. it was a realtime example of denial and cover-up. the persistent trump idea is it is not a crime to lie to the media was regarded by the legal team as at best reckless and in itself potentially actionable. explicit attempt to throw sand in the investigation s gears, the spokesperson for the trump legal team was instructed not to speak to the press, indeed, not to even answer his phone. later that week, he seen no good outcome and privately confided