Kushner is clear: No Russia deal
Trump adviser/son-in-law says meetings with foreign representatives not improper
After speaking with Senate Intelligence Committee staff members investigating Russia’s alleged interference in the presidential election, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner insisted Monday he did nothing wrong and wants to get on with his White House duties.
“Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so,” Kushner said in a brief statement outside the White House.
After meeting for more than two hours with staff from one of the congressional panels investigating possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians who sought to influence the election in favor of his father-in-law, Kushner said he has been “fully transparent” and is “eager to share any information I have with the investigating bodies.”
Kushner will face investigators in another private session Tuesday, when members of the House Intelligence Committee will interview him as part of its inquiry into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians who sought to influence the election by hacking Democrats close to candidate Hillary Clinton.
Congressional and federal investigators seek more details about a meeting in Trump Tower, in which the president’s son-in-law, oldest son and campaign chairman met with a Russian lawyer. Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort will appear behind closed doors before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
In an 11-page written statement issued hours before the meeting with the Senate panel, Kushner said he had four contacts with Russians during the campaign and transition, and none of them was improper.
He said he attended a meeting in June 2016 with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya arranged by Trump Jr., but he said he did not read emails that showed the president’s eldest son accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Clinton from the Russian government.
Kushner denied that Russians financed some of his business interests in the private sector.
“I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so.” Jared Kushner
Some senators were not pleased with Kushner’s appearance before committee staff Monday and want him to come back for formal and public testimony before the full committee.
Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden, D- Ore., called on Kushner to testify in public under oath and said his written statement raised more questions about his relationships with Russians.
The White House senior adviser “has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials,” Wyden said. “There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement.”
At the very least, said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the transcript from Kushner’s meeting with staff members should be made public. “Make everything as transparent as possible,” he said.
Shortly after Kushner left the hearing room, a protester tried to hand him a Russian flag and asked him to sign it. Kushner chuckled at the request.
Kushner, 36, is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka. During last year’s presidential campaign, he was in charge of Trump’s digital strategy, but he has evolved into one of the president’s closest senior aides, handling projects that range from Middle East peace talks to veteran affairs.
Kushner questioned the need for all the Russia investigations and echoed his father-in-law’s claim that Democrats hype the matter to explain away their loss of the presidential election.
“Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won,” Kushner said. “Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him.”
Kushner has distanced himself from emails Trump Jr. released this month. The emails from entertainment publicist Rob Goldstone promised Trump Jr. potentially incriminating information about the Clinton campaign from the Russian government — and Kushner said he didn’t read that part.
“That email was on top of a long back-and-forth that I did not read at the time,” Kushner said in the statement. “As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office.”
Kushner said that during the meeting, he emailed his assistant to call him as an excuse to get out of the meeting because it was such a “waste of time.”
Kushner acknowledged that he met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak briefly at a reception in Washington in April 2016, then at Trump Tower in December.
Kislyak has been at the center of the controversy surrounding the Trump team and Russia. Conversations and meetings with him led to the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions from the Russian investigation.
Kushner denied that his meeting in December was to set up a secret back channel between the White House and Moscow. He also said he did not recall calls with Kislyak during the campaign that were reported by Reuters.