According to The Hill, current and former administration officials told the Washington Post that Kushner is holding biweekly West Wing meetings that cover the progress and location of the wall. Kushner also conveys his father-in-law’s wishes and asks for progress reports.
Insiders are reporting that Kushner is putting pressure on U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get the 400 or so miles of the wall finished before election day, reports the Daily Beast. To that end, officials say that over 800 filings to seize private property need to be made to make that happen.
Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told the Washington Post Kushner has been able to bring people together and “expedite” decisions. “He doesn’t need to know the intricacies of the wall,” Morgan says. “He understands building stuff. He understands timelines.”
Officials have been frustrated over Kushner’s lack of knowledge about government and the timelines that are supposed to be reached. One person involved in the construction aspects of the wall said that Kushner “took a much more hands-on role in figuring out, mile by mile, how to get more wall up. It didn’t help put the wall up faster and cheaper. His interventions actually just created more inefficiency in the process.”
Senior administration officials also said Kushner put the blame for delays on the wall at the feet of former chief of staff John Kelly and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. It needs to be noted that with all the squabbling in Congress over appropriations for the border wall, only 83 miles have been built, and that is all replacement-wall.
