This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/tillerson-mattis-kushner-bannon-foreign-policy.html

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
Rex Tillerson Says He Was Cut Out of Decisions by Kushner and Bannon Tillerson Says Kushner Bypassed Him and Mattis to Make Foreign Policy
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Saudi and Emirati leaders bypassed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017 when they told Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, close advisers to President Trump, about secret plans to impose a blockade on Qatar, a critical American ally in the Middle East. Mr. Tillerson was taken by surprise when the blockade was announced, according to a transcript of an interview with Mr. Tillerson last month by a congressional committee. WASHINGTON — Over a dinner in Riyadh in 2017, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, talked with Saudi and Emirati leaders about their secret plans to impose a blockade on a critical American ally, Qatar. On another night, in a quiet corner of a Washington restaurant, Mr. Kushner huddled with the foreign minister of Mexico.
Mr. Tillerson, who left the State Department in 2018, said he had no knowledge that the Saudis had told Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon about the blockade until a committee member asked him about it in the interview. “It makes me angry,” Mr. Tillerson said. Left out of the loop in both cases was Rex W. Tillerson, then secretary of state. When he stumbled into Mr. Kushner and the Mexican foreign minister at the restaurant in Washington, Mr. Tillerson said he saw “the color go out” of the minister’s face.
“I didn’t have a say,” he added. “The State Department’s views were never expressed.” Not until last month, in a closed-door interview before Congress, did Mr. Tillerson learn of Mr. Kushner’s discussions on the blockade with Arab leaders.
The account highlights the extent to which Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, and Mr. Bannon were running foreign policy during the administration’s first year in the world’s most sensitive regions without telling Mr. Trump’s top foreign policy officials and their agencies. The interview especially sheds light on the power wielded behind the scenes by Mr. Kushner.
At one point, Mr. Tillerson told the congressional committee about a meeting that Mr. Kushner had with the foreign minister of Mexico at a restaurant in Washington without Mr. Tillerson’s knowledge. The restaurant owner told Mr. Tillerson about the other two men in the venue, and Mr. Tillerson walked up to their table.
“You said that you raised concerns about this phenomenon with Mr. Kushner and he said he would try to do better,” a committee staff aide said, referring to Mr. Kushner working with foreign officials independently of Mr. Tillerson. “Did you raise it with others, other key players in the administration or the president himself?” Mr. Tillerson said he did.
Mr. Kushner has close ties with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, two powerful rulers whose policies have roiled the Middle East and resulted in human rights atrocities, critics say. The blockade of Qatar overturned delicate relationships the United States had long maintained in the region — though Qatar is at odds with the other Gulf nations, it hosts the main American military base in the Middle East.
The New York Times and several other news organizations obtained a copy of the 143-page transcript of the interview between members of House Foreign Affairs Committee and Mr. Tillerson before the committee released it early Thursday afternoon. Parts of the transcript had been redacted at the request of Mr. Tillerson and the State Department.
[Read the transcript of the full interview with Mr. Tillerson.][Read the transcript of the full interview with Mr. Tillerson.]
Mr. Tillerson said in the congressional interview that he and Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, were both taken by surprise when they first heard about the blockade of Qatar, launched by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on June 5, while on a diplomatic trip to Australia. Mr. Tillerson said he and Mr. Mattis scrambled to make calls to the Middle East. “It makes me angry,” he told lawmakers and their aides. “I didn’t have a say. The State Department’s views were never expressed.”
“At that point the most productive thing that I felt I could do given where I was at the time was to just ask all the parties to not escalate this further,” Mr. Tillerson said. “I didn’t have enough information to know if something had really set this off or an event that hadn’t been reported.” Those accounts highlight the extent to which Mr. Kushner was quietly seeking to manage some of the nation’s most sensitive foreign policy issues, leaving Mr. Tillerson and other senior national security officials — including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary — in the dark.
“So at that point I just urged all the parties to be calm, let’s de-escalate this thing, don’t escalate, because that’s obviously the most dangerous situation at the moment is somebody decides they’re going to dial this thing up,” he added. In some cases, as in the blockade of Qatar, where the United States has its main Middle East military air base, Mr. Kushner’s moves forced Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Mattis to scramble to contain the damage to American diplomacy.
Mr. Tillerson was also asked why no note-taker was present for a July 2017 meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Hamburg, Germany. The lack of any formal record of some of Mr. Trump’s discussions with Mr. Putin has been a continuing controversy during his presidency. The details emerged in a seven-hour interview conducted on May 21 by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which had asked Mr. Tillerson to talk about the inner workings of the Trump administration.
Mr. Tillerson said “the Russians preferred” no note-taker be present at the session, which he attended along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The American side agreed, he said, because the meeting was expected to be simply a short, introductory exchange of pleasantries. Mr. Tillerson described the challenges of briefing the president, saying he had to be “very concise.” He covered topics that have generated great controversy since Mr. Trump took office in January 2017: Mr. Trump’s meetings with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the administration’s hard-line immigration policy and Mr. Kushner’s dealings with leaders of Persian Gulf nations.
Instead, the meeting lasted well over two hours. Mr. Tillerson said that Mr. Putin came “very prepared” to discuss a substantive issue that Mr. Tillerson did not describe. Mr. Trump was not as prepared “because we didn’t expect that’s the way it was going to go,” he said. “You said that you raised concerns about this phenomenon with Mr. Kushner and he said he would try to do better,” a committee aide said, referring to Mr. Kushner working with foreign officials independently of Mr. Tillerson. “Did you raise it with others, other key players in the administration or the president himself?”
Mr. Trump has said that the two men also discussed the ongoing furor in the United States over Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Putin twice denied to him that he was involved. He has also said that he told Mr. Putin that he believed him. Mr. Tillerson said he did.
Mr. Tillerson said that he did not recall the president saying that, nor did he see the president take the translator’s notes of the meeting, as some media outlets reported. A spokesman for Mr. Kushner said that Mr. Tillerson was trying to disguise his own failures. “Jared and the White House were coordinating with the State Department,” said the spokesman, who declined to be named. “The problem is that Rex Tillerson couldn’t figure out how to coordinate with the State Department.”
At dinner that evening, the two leaders again talked for about an hour without an official note-taker present. Mr. Tillerson was not present for that event. The committee released the transcript of the interview on Thursday afternoon. Parts had been redacted at the request of Mr. Tillerson and the State Department.
Mr. Tillerson became secretary of state in February 2017, after being asked to meet with Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner and two other aides, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, in Trump Tower. But Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Trump subsequently clashed over policy, the president’s management style and his intellectual capacity — Mr. Tillerson is said to have once called Mr. Trump a “moron” to other officials — before Mr. Tillerson was fired in March 2018.
Mr. Tillerson also alienated State Department officials and career employees because he tried to cut the budget, left important posts open and, in their eyes, remained aloof — all of which he was asked about in the committee interview.
The most telling anecdotes show Mr. Kushner and, to a degree, Mr. Bannon, making foreign policy in the shadows.
Mr. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said that in the weeks leading up to a presidential summit in Riyadh in May 2017, Saudi officials did not give him any indication of their deepening political disputes with Qatar and their aim to join with the Emiratis and other Arab nations to impose a blockade.
One night around May 20, Saudi and Emirati leaders met with Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon over dinner and told the Americans of their plans. Mr. Tillerson said he had not heard of the dinner until the committee interview.
Mr. Kushner has close ties with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, two powerful rulers whose policies have roiled the Middle East and resulted in widespread human rights abuses, particularly in the Yemen war, critics say. The blockade of Qatar complicated the ability of the United States to manage delicate relationships in the Middle East.
Mr. Tillerson told the committee that he and Mr. Mattis were both taken by surprise when they first heard about the blockade, begun on June 5, while on a diplomatic trip to Australia. Mr. Tillerson said he and Mr. Mattis scrambled to make calls to the Middle East.
“At that point, the most productive thing that I felt I could do, given where I was at the time, was to just ask all the parties to not escalate this further,” Mr. Tillerson said. “I didn’t have enough information to know if something had really set this off or an event that hadn’t been reported.”
Mr. Tillerson was asked whether he had any suspicions that Mr. Kusher’s support of the blockade was tied to failed business negotiations between the Qataris and the Kushner family, which develops property. Mr. Tillerson said he could not “opine” on it.
Mr. Tillerson also told the committee in detail about a meeting that Mr. Kushner had with the foreign minister of Mexico, Luis Videgaray, at a Washington restaurant without Mr. Tillerson’s knowledge. The restaurant owner told Mr. Tillerson, who happened to be dining there the same night, about the presence of the other two men. Mr. Tillerson said he walked up to their table and watched the blood drain from Mr. Videgaray’s face.
“I don’t want to interrupt what y’all are doing,” he said he told Mr. Videgaray while smiling broadly. “Give me a call next time you’re coming to town.”
Mr. Kushner would make frequent work trips overseas without telling the State Department and was “in charge of his own agenda,” Mr. Tillerson said.
The committee pressed Mr. Tillerson on Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Putin. Lawmakers asked why no note-taker was present for a July 2017 meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin in Hamburg, Germany. The lack of any formal record of some of Mr. Trump’s discussions with Mr. Putin has been a continuing controversy during his presidency.
M”. Tillerson said “the Russians preferred” no note-taker be present at the session, which he attended along with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. The American side agreed, he said, because the meeting was expected to be a short, introductory exchange of pleasantries.
Instead, the meeting lasted well over two hours. Mr. Tillerson said that Mr. Putin came “very prepared” to discuss an issue that Mr. Tillerson did not describe. Mr. Trump was not as prepared “because we didn’t expect that’s the way it was going to go,” he said.
Mr. Trump has said that in that conversation, Mr. Putin twice denied that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Asked about the president’s style, Mr. Tillerson said that he disliked briefing reports and detailed policy discussions, often approached issues with his mind already made up, and routinely veered off into unexpected topics during meetings.
He declined to criticize the president’s undisciplined approach, saying it was up to aides to adapt.
But he did not defend Mr. Trump’s character. Asked if he could describe the president’s value system, he replied, “No, I can’t.”