Kushner is central part of Trump-Russia puzzle

Investigators in Congress have been waiting a long time to talk to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser.

According to his prepared statement for this week, Kushner said he did not do anything wrong.

“I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” the testimony, as obtained by The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker, reads.

Whether he did anything wrong — or believes he did anything wrong — Kushner remains a central figure in the broader Trump-Russia investigation. Here’s why: 1. He’s close to the president I know, this is obvious. But it’s worth pointing out given that this White House is particularly indiscriminate about who’s in and who’s out. (See: sudden hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director and sudden resignation of Sean Spicer as press secretary). Kushner is family and has been one of the president’s closest advisers for the past two years.

Kushner’s daily proximity to the president is valuable for investigators as they try to gauge just how deep Trump and Russia relationships went. 2. He was high up in the campaign One of Kushner’s many campaign jobs was outreach to foreign governments for his father-in-law. He was in that job when, in June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting with a Russian lawyer and a series of other connected Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.

According to emails Trump Jr. released, he was also given a heads up that this meeting was part of a Russian government effort to help his father win. And guess whom he invited to this meeting? Then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and Kushner.

The fact that Kushner and Manafort were there suggests the Trump campaign was taking this meeting with connected Russians seriously, said Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a white-collar lawyer who represented officials in the Clinton White House. And it also suggests that, far from raising red flags about potential Russian intervention, the Trump campaign may have embraced their help.

3. He’s a focus of the FBI’s broad investigation

Kushner is the only member of Trump’s inner circle we know of that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team are zeroing in on as they investigate Russia meddling and whether Trump’s campaign helped, as well as potential financial crimes.

We don’t know exactly what the FBI is looking into with regard to Kushner. We do know that right around the time Kushner held a meeting with the Russian ambassador to the United States last spring, the CIA director started to notice that Russians were talking about actively, aggressively trying to influence the U.S. presidential election against Hillary Clinton.

“I was worried by a number of contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons,” former CIA director John Brennan testified to Congress in May.

4. He’s had meetings with Russians he didn’t disclose

According to his prepared testimony, Kushner was to tell Congress about four meetings he had with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, including several with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Kushner’s testimony says these were standard interactions between a campaign official and foreign contacts. But none of those meetings were disclosed on his security clearance form, which is an extensive, intrusive, 127-page document designed to test whether the applicant has any compromising relationships with foreign governments and, perhaps most importantly, to test the applicant’s honesty. Kushner’s lawyer has said — and Kushner will testify — that it was a miscommunication on his staff ’s part. He has since revised his security clearance form multiple times to clarify whom he met with and when.

During the transition, Kushner proposed that the Russians help him set up a secret line of communication in one of the most spied-upon buildings in the world, the Russian Embassy in Washington. That’s according to Russian intelligence picked up by U.S. officials and reported on in May by The Washington Post.

5. He’s repeatedly said he’s willing to co-operate

Congress is still trying to get other top Trump campaign officials to testify. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has refused a subpoena to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights.

Manafort, who has business dealings with Russian and pro-Russian interests, has handed over hundreds of pages of documents to Congress. Manafort, along with Trump Jr., will testify behind closed doors to Congress this week.