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		</div><p>Former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson cited an awkward encounter with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law in a Washington restaurant as an example of diplomacy being conducted behind his back when he was in the administration, according to a transcript of a congressional hearing released on Thursday.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson, who was fired by Mr Trump in March 2017, mentioned the story during a day of closed-door evidence before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about his rocky, 13-month tenure as secretary of state.</p>
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<p>He described his surprise to find that he happened to be dining in the same restaurant while Jared Kushner and Mexican secretary of foreign affairs Luis Videgaray had a private meal.</p>
<p>The former top US diplomat and chief executive of ExxonMobil said he “could see the colour go out” of the Mexican official’s face when Mr Tillerson greeted them at their table with a smile.</p>
<p>“And I said: ‘I don’t want to interrupt what y’all are doing,&#8217;” Mr Tillerson recalled for the committee.</p>
<p>“I said ‘Give me a call next time you’re coming to town. And I left it at that.”</p>
<p>The White House declined to comment on Mr Tillerson’s depiction of Mr Kushner’s activities.</p>
<figure id="attachment_134957" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134957" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-full wp-image-134957" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/C118369D-4357-4141-A42D-4AC144D1C149.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="400" data-wp-pid="134957" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134957" class="wp-caption-text">Then foreign secretary Boris Johnson meeting Rex Tillerson</figcaption></figure>
<p>Mr Trump had harsh words for his former top diplomat in December after Mr Tillerson said in rare public remarks that the president was “undisciplined” and did not like to read briefing reports.</p>
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<p>Mr Trump called him “dumb as a rock” in a tweet.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson described the restaurant incident as an example of one of the “challenges” he faced during his 13-month tenure as secretary of state that ended when Mr Trump abruptly fired him over social media.</p>
<p>He said it was a “unique situation” to have the president’s son-in-law as a White House adviser, saying “there was not a real clear understanding” of the diplomatic role.</p>
<figure id="attachment_134961" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134961" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-full wp-image-134961" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/289E9EB8-CA63-4B1C-983D-7D46032700A6.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="611" data-wp-pid="134961" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134961" class="wp-caption-text">Donald Trump</figcaption></figure>
<p>Mr Tillerson said there other examples.</p>
<p>He noted that Mr Kushner “met often” with Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and that the president’s son-in-law requested that the secretary meet with an official from the kingdom to discuss a document they had been developing that was “kind of a roadmap” for the future of the relationship between the two countries.</p>
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<p>The foreign trips raised concerns, the former secretary said, because Mr Kushner would not coordinate with the State Department or the local embassy in the countries he visited.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson said he raised the issue with him but “not much changed”.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson, accompanied by a personal lawyer and a State Department attorney, gave evidence in private last month to the committee.</p>
<p>A transcript was released on Thursday.</p>
<figure id="attachment_134960" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134960" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-full wp-image-134960" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/D1D3B687-47CA-4B4D-AD8E-7B462B7A618D.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="373" data-wp-pid="134960" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-134960" class="wp-caption-text">Rex Tillerson has known Russia’s president Vladimir Putin since the 1990s</figcaption></figure>
<p>There were large sections redacted, including some where he discusses issues related to an Oval Office meeting that involved the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.</p>
<p>He was prohibited from discussing private conversations with Mr Trump and avoided certain highly publicised incidents, including reports he once referred to the president as a “moron”.</p>
<p>He told the committee he had never met Mr Trump before being urged by him to take the job and he was “stunned” by the offer after his long career as an oil industry executive with extensive overseas experience, especially in Russia and the Middle East.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson, who had been acquainted with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the late 1990s, said he told the leader during his first visit as secretary of state that relations with the United States were bad but could be improved if they worked to build trust.</p>
<p>“I said the relationship is the worst it’s been since the Cold War but I looked him in the eye and I said but it can get worse and we can’t let that happen,” he said.</p>
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