National security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters on Saturday that he was not bothered by news of President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner's reported attempt to set up a secret backchannel between the US and Russia.
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McMaster: 'I would not be concerned about a Russia backchannel' between Trump and the Kremlin
McMaster said that the US has back-channel communications with a number of countries.
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These latest revelations came as Trump rounded out his first foreign trip since taking office. Trump's senior economic adviser Gary Cohn also took questions from reporters, but he refused to comment on the Kushner news.
As the Trump administration continues to be rocked by controversy, McMaster has come under fire in recent days for his defense of the administration's actions, and some believe his role may be too politicized, potentially at the cost of national security.
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In that case, McMaster's "going before the press didn't do anything to limit" fallout from revelations that Trump disclosed code-word information to the Russians, said Jon Michaels, a professor and expert on national security at UCLA Law.
"At the end of the day, are we now all saying, 'Oh, OK, everything's all hunky-dory because McMaster stood up there'? Did it assuage concerns our allies may have had about sharing intelligence? Probably not."
It's likely McMaster's latest claim that he would not be concerned over news of Kushner's attempt to set up a line of communication between the US and Russia will diminish his credibility as national security adviser.
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