'He said he would try to do better,' the former Secretary of State said of Kushner's quiet dealings with foreign officials. 'Not much changed.'
President Donald Trump's former top diplomat expressed frustration at reportedly being left out of a top-level meeting involving senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner and Middle Eastern heads of state.
Lawmakers asked Tillerson if he was aware of an alleged meeting around May 20, 2017, involving Kushner, former White House strategist Steve Bannon and the heads of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, during which a plan to blockade Qatar was discussed. The former Exxon Mobil CEO said he had never heard about it. He was then questioned about his reaction to learning of the meeting.
challenges I think that everyone had" in the administration, because having the president's family as part of the advisory team as a"unique situation" and"unusual." Tillerson said he"began to get an inkling that something was going on involving the Qataris" the day after Kushner and Bannon were reportedly informed of the Saudi-UAE plan to boycott the fellow Arabian Peninsula monarchy while he was attending a session of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The official Qatar News Agency was then hacked on June 3, bearing false statements attributed to Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Two days later, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. — backed also by Bahrain and Egypt — announced a total blockade of the tiny peninsular monarchy. Tillerson, who found out via news reports while attending a security conference in Australia alongside then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, said he"was surprised.
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