Kushner met Russians four times, denies collusion
SENIOR White House adviser Jared Kushner said yesterday that he had contacts with Russian officials four times but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump win the presidency, US media reported.
Kushner described contacts made during the 2016 campaign with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russians as routine, in a statement published by the NewYork Times. It came hours before Kushner will testify before the Senate intelligence committee as part of the probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential vote.
The investigation has plagued the White House since the president took office, with many influential members of Trump’s team having failed to report their contacts with Russian officials.
“I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” Kushner wrote. “I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector,” Kushner said in the statement to be submitted for the record.
Kushner, married to Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, was due to testify in closed-door meetings before the Senate intelligence committee yesterday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel today.
The 36-year-old, working in his first political position, was to be asked about meetings with Russia’s ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer – the latter along with Trump’s son Donald Jr. In his statement Kush- ner said the meeting – which Donald Jr had taken hoping to get dirt on his father’s rival Hillary Clinton – was a “waste of time”.
Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading the investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organised separate probes.
Russia warns against sanctions
The White House has recruited an array of attorneys with expertise in constitutional law and criminal defence. They have mounted a media counterattack, accusing Mueller’s team of being biased towards Trump’s election opponent Hillary Clinton and have also assailed the breadth of the probe.
Meanwhile yesterday, the Kremlin warned that new US sanctions on Russia would hit the interests of both sides as Congress gears up to approved fresh punitive measures.
“We consider such a continuation of the rhetoric of sanctions counterproductive and harmful to the interests of both countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
In mid-June, the US Senate overwhelmingly passed tough sanctions, but the text stalled in the House of Representatives, until agreement was reached on Saturday.
The House is now set to vote today on a bill that targets Russia – for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 – as well as Iran and North Korea, for its ballistic missile tests.