House Republicans stopped an effort to remove White House adviser Jared Kushner's security clearance, The HuffPost reported.
On his application for security clearance, Kushner, also President Donald Trump's son-in-law, did not disclose a meeting he reportedly had with a Russian lawyer who offered incriminating information on his father's then-opponent Hillary Clinton. His lawyers claim the omission was an error and not an attempt to hide the meeting and have updated the form.
In a House Appropriations Committee markup session, former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., attempted to target Kushner in an amendment that would prohibit anyone currently "under a criminal investigation by a Federal law enforcement agency for aiding a foreign government," from having or being given security clearance. The measure was voted down along party lines 22-30.
"This amendment is an important step in protecting the American people from the threat of hostile foreign interference. That is not a controversial or a political goal," Wasserman Schultz said at the hearing, according to the Post.
"Revoking Jared Kushner's security clearance would send a clear signal to anyone who would consider aiding and abetting a foreign enemy state to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election that they will not be entrusted with our nation's most sensitive information."
Republicans opposed the amendment, describing it as an unnecessary political stunt.
"This is already the law," Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, said. "The use of funding prohibitions to deny or remove security clearances is simply a political stunt and utterly unnecessary because security clearances can already be revoked because of criminal conduct."
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