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Meetings with Russians
Trump adviser tells panel he met with Russians 4 times
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner says he did not “collude” with Moscow.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s sonin-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, told a Senate committee Monday that he held four separate meetings with Russians during the presidential campaign last year but he insisted he did not “collude” with Moscow in an effort to get Trump elected or to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.
“I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know know of anyone else in the campaign who did so,” Kushner told reporters at the White House after a closed-door meeting with investigators from the Senate intelligence committee.
Kushner nonetheless confirmed several details, including that he sought to set up a communications line at the Russian Embassy last December to speak directly with Kremlin authorities outside normal U.S. channels. The Russian ambassador refused.
He insisted that his initial failure to report his meetings with Russians or any other foreigners on forms required for a government security clearance was not deliberate. He blamed an aide who he said had mistakenly submitted the form, known as a SF-86, before it was complete and that he later updated it.
He also has repeatedly amended financial-disclosure forms required for his White House post. Last week he filed paperwork indicating he had “inadvertently omitted” more than 70 assets worth at least $10.6 million. He and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, have reported assets worth at least $206 million.
On Monday, however, Kushner portrayed himself as an overworked and inexperienced campaign aide.
His comments, and his release of an 11-page statement before he met with the Senate panel, marks a notable shift by the White House toward more detailed disclosure in an effort to put to rest questions about the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia.
It comes as the House appears set to approve bipartisan legislation Tuesday intended to impose new sanctions on Moscow, partly for its meddling in the 2016 election, and to sharply curtail Trump’s ability to lift or ease related sanctions on Russia.
The measure reflects deep skepticism in Congress over Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his efforts to improve U.S. relations with Moscow. The Senate passed its version last month and is expected to pass the revised bill, and the White House has given mixed signals if Trump will sign it given the restrictions it places on his foreign policy.
Kushner’s appearance on Capitol Hill marks the first questioning of a senior White House official by one of the four congressional committees investigating Russia’s role in the U.S. presidential race.
He will reprise his testimony Tuesday before members of the House intelligence committee in a closed session, and is expected to soon return to the Senate panel for questioning by its members, a congressional aide said.
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, have agreed to provide documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is conducting its own Russia probe, and are expected to testify at some point.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin approved an intelligence operation to influence American voters and help tilt the election toward Trump. A former FBI director, Robert Mueller, was appointed special counsel in May to determine if Trump’s campaign aides, including Kushner, illegally cooperated with Moscow.
In his statement, Kushner for the first time confirmed a report first published in The Washington Post that he had inquired at a December meeting with Sergey Kislyak, then Moscow’s envoy in Washington, about using a secure communications line at the Russian Embassy to conduct talks with Putin’s aides about Syria.
Kislyak, who returned to Moscow this month, turned him down.
The account raised new questions about Kushner’s motives in asking a senior Russian diplomat to conceal his communications from U.S. officials, and then not disclose the contact until it was revealed in the press.
Democrats said Kushner’s statement was troubling, and they called on him to publicly testify under oath about what they called inconsistencies and omissions about his meetings and his security clearance forms. “Kushner has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said in a statement. “There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement.”