The issue of Mr. Kushner’s clearance has led to a continuing clash with Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kushner has pressed to keep his top-level access to some of the United States’ most sensitive classified material. That access has allowed him to view the presidential daily brief, the summary of intelligence that is given to the president every day.
Armed with that access, Mr. Kushner served as a high-level envoy to leaders around the world, including the leaders of Saudi Arabia, and is the top White House adviser charged with negotiating peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He has also focused on trade issues with Mexico and China.
Mr. Kushner has also led domestic policy initiatives, including technology innovation and prison reform, that typically do not require the kind of access to high-level secret information that a security clearance would provide. As scrutiny surrounding his clearance grew, the sense among White House officials was that Mr. Kushner would be less affected by his work on domestic policy, said one official who was familiar with the situation.
National security veterans in Washington said the loss of high-level clearance will be a hindrance when it comes to Mr. Kushner’s foreign policy role, particularly his ability to understand what the other players are thinking, including the Saudis, Iranians and others who are influential in the region.
“It makes an already difficult situation all the more difficult,” said Aaron David Miller, a former longtime State Department peace negotiator and now a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “Knowing stuff gave us an edge. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and now he cannot find out. That is a real liability when intelligence services are driving a lot of the information.”
The downgrade in Mr. Kushner’s clearance also raises questions about whether he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, might leave the White House to return to their private businesses in New York. Mr. Kushner’s allies have repeatedly said that the couple intends to remain in the White House as advisers to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Kushner is the highest-profile member of the administration to be affected by the new policy, and the White House has for weeks deflected questions about whether steps would be taken to address it. In a news conference last week, Mr. Trump said he would leave the issue of Mr. Kushner’s security clearance up to Mr. Kelly.
One official said that the action taken on Mr. Kushner’s clearance was a high-profile example of Mr. Kelly’s efforts to enforce his new policy surrounding interim clearances, and that he would hold all aides similarly accountable, no matter how senior or close to the president.
It is unclear whether the new policy might affect Ms. Trump, who also serves in the West Wing as a senior adviser, a position which typically has clearance to view sensitive or classified material.
Josh Raffel, his spokesman, referred questions about the clearance issue to the White House press office, which declined to comment.
In a briefing for reporters earlier in the day, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, repeatedly refused to answer questions about the status of Mr. Kushner’s clearance or that of other aides at the White House.
“I’ve been very clear that we don’t discuss security clearances,” she said. “And that’s not changing today, it didn’t change yesterday, it’s not going to change tomorrow, probably not going to change next week.”
Abbe D. Lowell, Mr. Kushner’s personal lawyer, declined to comment specifically on the changes in Mr. Kushner’s security clearance.
“Mr. Kushner has done more than what is expected of him in this process,” Mr. Lowell said in a statement. “Those involved in the process again have confirmed that there are dozens of people at Mr. Kushner’s level whose process is delayed, that it is not uncommon for these clearance reviews to take this long in a new administration, and that the current backlogs are now being addressed. No concerns were raised about Mr. Kushner’s application.”
Mr. Lowell added that “as General Kelly himself said, the new clearance policy will not affect Mr. Kushner’s ability to continue to do the very important work he has been assigned by the President.”
Government ethics groups that had long argued that Mr. Trump’s White House took a cavalier attitude to the handling of top secret information applauded Mr. Kushner’s clearance downgrade.
“We are glad that Kushner and the rest of the White House officials still on interim clearances have now lost access to top secret information,” said Noah Bookbinder, the director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which had sent Mr. Kelly a complaint requesting that Mr. Kushner be stripped of his clearance.
“There continue to be serious questions as to the Trump administration’s handling of secure information; failure to at least downgrade Kushner’s temporary clearance would have set a dangerous precedent by signaling a willingness to tolerate unacceptable national security risks,” Mr. Bookbinder said in a statement.
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