Politics ‘ Nothing to hide’
Trump son- in- law Kushner denies collusion with Russia
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner denied Monday that he colluded with Russians in the course of President Donald Trump’s successful White House bid, declaring in a statement ahead of interviews with congressional committees that he has “nothing to hide.”
The 11- page statement, released hours before Kushner’s closed- door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee, details four contacts with Russians during Trump’s campaign and transition. It aims to explain inconsistencies and omissions in a security clearance form that have invited public scrutiny.
“I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” Kushner said in the prepared remarks in which he also insisted that none of the contacts, which include meetings at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador and a Russian lawyer, was improper.
In speaking to Congress, Kushner — as both the president’s son- in- law and a trusted senior adviser during the campaign and inside the White House — becomes the first member of the president’s inner circle to face questions from congressional investigators as they probe Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. He was to meet with staff on the Senate intelligence committee Monday and lawmakers on the House intelligence committee today.
Kushner’s appearances have been highly anticipated, in part because of a series of headlines in recent months about his interactions
with Russians and because the reticent Kushner had until Monday not personally responded to questions about an incomplete security clearance form and his conversations with foreigners.
“I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to co- operate as I have nothing to hide,” he said in the statement.
The document provides for the first time Kushner’s own recollection of a meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador to the U. S. to talk about secure lines of communications and, months earlier, of a gathering with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information to provide about Hillary Clinton.
In the document, Kushner
calls the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya such a “waste of time” that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.
Emails released this month show that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive information as part of a Russian government effort to help Trump’s campaign. But Kushner says he hadn’t seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.
Kushner said in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting.
He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions, he texted
his assistant to call him out.
“No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there ( or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted,” Kushner’s statement says.
Kushner also denied reports he discussed setting up a “secret back- channel” with the Russian ambassador to the U. S. But he did detail a conversation with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower in which retired U. S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then- incoming national security adviser, also attended.