| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019975)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019975" |
| ocrPages: 1 |
| ocrChars: 3043 |
| ocrElapsed: 0.0 |
| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| of the three men, she would be countermanded by one or another of them. |
| "I take a conversation at face value and move forward with it," she defended herself. "I |
| put what was decided on the schedule and bring in comms and build a press plan around it |
| and bring in political affairs and office of public liaison. And then Jared says, Why did |
| you do that. And I say, 'Because we had a meeting three days ago with you and Reince |
| and Steve where you agreed to do this.' And he says, 'But that didn't mean I wanted it on |
| the schedule. That's not why I had that conversation.' It almost doesn't matter what |
| anyone says: Jared will agree, and then it will get sabotaged, and then Jared goes to the |
| president and says, See, that was Reince's idea or Steve's idea." |
| Bannon concentrated on a succession of EOs that would move the new administration |
| forward without having to wade through Congress. That focus was countermanded by |
| Priebus, who was cultivating the Trump-Ryan romance and the Republican agenda, which |
| in turn was countermanded by Kushner, who was concentrating on presidential bonhomie |
| and CEO roundtables, not least because he knew how much the president liked them (and, |
| as Bannon pointed out, because Kushner himself liked them). And instead of facing the |
| inherent conflicts in each strategy, the three men recognized that the conflicts were largely |
| irresolvable and avoided facing that fact by avoiding each other. |
| Each man had, in his own astute fashion, found his own way to appeal to the president |
| and to communicate with him. Bannon offered a rousing fuck-you show of force; Priebus |
| offered flattery from the congressional leadership; Kushner offered the approval of blue- |
| chip businessmen. So strong were these particular appeals that the president typically |
| preferred not to distinguish among them. They were all exactly what he wanted from the |
| presidency, and he didn't understand why he couldn't have them all. He wanted to break |
| things, he wanted a Republican Congress to give him bills to sign, and he wanted the love |
| and respect of New York machers and socialites. Some inside the White House perceived |
| that Bannon's EOs were meant to be a workaround in response to Priebus's courtship of |
| the party, and that Kushner's CEOs were appalled by Bannon's EOs and resistant to much |
| of the Republican agenda. But if the president understood this, it did not particularly |
| trouble him. |
| * * * |
| Having achieved something like executive paralysis within the first month of the new |
| administration each of the three gentlemen was as powerful in his allure to the president |
| as the others and each, at times, was equally annoying to the president-Bannon, Priebus, |
| and Kushner all built their own mechanisms to influence the president and undermine the |
| others. |
| Analysis or argument or PowerPoint did not work. But who said what to Trump and |
| when often did. If, at Bannon's prodding, Rebekah Mercer called him, that had an effect. |
| Priebus could count on Paul Ryan's clout with him. If Kushner set up Murdoch to call, that |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019975 |
|
|
