Thread by @sam_vinograd

1) The @WHNSC serves a lot of functions. One is helping senior officials prepare for meetings w/ foreign counterparts. This includes @WHNSC Directors - who are experts in their fields - working with members of the interagency to get intelligence + updated information on outreach

2) + current and longer term policy goals. This way every meeting a senior official has is well prepared and the official has the benefit of the best analysis and expertise so that he/ she can represent the USG in the manner that best advances US #natsec interests

3) Meetings with foreign officials are opportunities to advance US policy and to also gather intelligence on what other countries are doing/ thinking. If you (Kushner) aren't well prepared for a meeting it is at best a missed opportunity to advance US #natsec and at worst a risk

4) If you don't prepare with @WHNSC in advance you aren't just unprepared, you're giving another country the upper hand

5) If you don't disclose those meetings to @WHNSC you're actively providing another country with more information than the US government that you are supposed to represent - the foreign country knows something the USG doesn't.

6) This makes you a knowing or unknowing foreign asset because the foreign government knows something that you haven't disclosed (this is a big issue for security clearances)

7) It also makes the USG look disorganized. If for example a @WHNSC director doesn't know that Kushner met with a foreign official and is speaking with the country that he met with and is caught off guard, that sends a clear message that we aren't even talking to each other.

8) Remember @PutinRF_Eng is running an ongoing attack to send the message that we are divided and that our institutions aren't credible. This scenario adds fuel to the fire.

9) So this Kushner @washingtonpost reporting is either a case study in hubris -- Kushner thought he knows better than the combined expertise of the USG or he is working on a very unamerican #natsec policy. Why would he want a foreign government to know something the USG doesn't?

I worked @WhiteHouse @WHNSC for years and cannot think of a single time any senior official @WhiteHouse met with a foreign contact and didn't coordinate in advance with appropriately cleared @WHNSC staff and/or didn't disclose to that same group.

11) Counterintelligence is a tricky business. Without proper training or preparation assets don't know that they're being manipulated and/ or what to watch out for. Case in point in the @shaneharris @washingtonpost story: washingtonpost.com/world/national…

cc @MichaelJMorell @GenMhayden @JohnBrennan to weigh in.

sorry one more 12) to be clear often a very small group of @WHNSC staff may know about a foreign meeting or contact because of sensitivity, but McMaster certainly should know and others w/ appropriate clearances (and if appropriately cleared the right expertise)