I have to give a slow-clap to Jared Kushner for managing to get this Peter Baker piece published in New York Times on the eve of the January 6 committee hearings: How Jared Kushner Washed His Hands of Donald Trump Before Jan. 6.

Never mind that this casts Kushner in the role of Pontius Pilate and Donald Trump in the role of Jesus of Nazareth. The point is to create as much separation for Kushner (and his wife, Ivanka) as possible before the country is reminded of the fact that Trump led a deadly, seditious effort to overthrow the government.

And Baker was certainly cooperative. To be fair, Baker does briefly touch on the elephant in the room, which is that Kushner was busy in the post-election period enriching himself to a ludicrous degree by using “his position to secure a $2 billion investment in his new private equity firm from a prominent Saudi Arabian wealth fund.”

While the president’s son-in-law had arguably been the most influential adviser to the president through four years, weighing in at times and carefully cultivating his reputation, he chose at that pivotal moment to focus instead on his personal project of Middle East diplomacy. He returned to the region to meet with figures who would also be helpful to him later in making money after leaving the White House.

I think Baker pretty severely undersold this point, but at least he mentioned it. But it’s easily forgotten while reading through his article, which is nothing less than a major rehabilitation effort for Kushner’s reputation.

The important facts asserted here are that both Jared and Ivanka immediately concluded on election night that Trump was going to lose, and that they also realized that Trump was in some kind of deep denial about it and couldn’t be reasoned with. Supposedly, they believed that the president would slowly come to grips with reality, but in the meantime they weren’t putting their lives on hold. They quickly decided to relocate to South Florida and began looking at schools and real estate. Of course, Kushner secured their financial future, too.

When people called asking them to reason with Trump, they urged patience. And when Rudy Giuliani got deeply involved in fighting the election results, Jared simply walked away and would have nothing to do with the effort, largely because he blamed the disgraced former mayor for getting Trump impeached through his shenanigans in Ukraine.

On January 6, itself, Ivanka supposedly did her best to get her father to call off the coup attempt, while Kushner, who had only arrived home from the Middle East that morning, raced to the White House to do the same.

Now, this may all be a precursor to a much deeper rift in the Trump family. Both Kushner and Ivanka have cooperated with the committee’s investigation, and their testimony is likely to make up a big part of the January 6 committee’s presentation.

They’ve obviously been in an awkward situation, but it has mostly been a bit below the surface. Knowing that it was all going to blow tomorrow, it looks like Kushner succeeded in preparing the ground through this Baker article in the Times.

My best guess is that we all need to stock up on popcorn because this is going to get interesting.