Senate panel to question Trump son-in-law about Russian ties.
He met with head of a Russian bank during the transition
Senate investigators plan to question Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-inlaw and a close adviser, as part of their broad inquiry into ties between Trump associates and Russian officials or others linked to the Kremlin, according to administration and congressional officials.
The White House Counsel’s Office was informed this month that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, wanted to question Kushner about meetings he arranged with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, according to the government officials. The meetings, which took place during the transition, included a previously unreported sit-down with the head of Russia’s state-owned development bank.
Until now, the White House had acknowledged only an early December meeting between Kislyak and Kushner, which occurred at Trump Tower and was also attended by Michael Flynn, who would briefly serve as the national security adviser.
Later that month, though, Kislyak requested a second meeting, which Kushner asked a deputy to attend in his stead, officials said. At Kislyak’s request, Kushner later met with Sergey Gorkov, the chief of Vnesheconombank, which the U.S. placed on its sanctions list after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and began meddling in Ukraine.
A White House spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, confirmed those meetings, saying in an interview that nothing of consequence was discussed and that they went nowhere. Gorkov, who previously served as deputy chairman of the board at Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, could not be reached for comment.
‘Wants to be transparent’
Members of presidential transition teams routinely meet with foreign officials, and there is nothing inherently improper about sitting down with the Russian ambassador. Part of Kushner’s role during the campaign and the transition was to serve as a chief conduit to foreign governments and officials, and Hicks said he met with dozens of officials from a wide range of countries.
She added that Kushner was willing to talk to Senate investigators about the meetings with Kislyak and the banker, saying, “He isn’t trying to hide anything and wants to be transparent.”
Still, meetings between Trump associates and Russian officials or others linked to Putin are now of heightened interest as several congressional committees and FBI investigators try to determine the scope of the Russian intervention in the election and links between Russians and anyone around Trump.
The Senate panel’s decision to question Kushner would make him the closest person to the president to be called upon in any of the investigations, and the only one currently serving in the White House. The officials who initially described that Senate inquiry to the New York Times did so on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about Trump’s son-in-law. The FBI declined to comment. Kislyak’s contacts with Trump administration officials have proved problematic: Flynn was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of the conversations he had with the Russian envoy.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from any Russian inquiries led by the Justice Department after he failed to disclose that he had met with Kislyak during the campaign.
Sought to ‘deliver a message’
The meetings that Kushner arranged with Kislyak all took place in December, during the transition, Hicks said. Kushner attended the initial meeting with Kislyak to explore whether a channel could be set up between the Russian government and the incoming administration to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, Hicks said. They also discussed how the U.S. and Russia could cooperate on issues in the Middle East, an area that Kushner has been deputized to take the lead on, she said.
Kislyak asked for a second meeting to “deliver a message,” Hicks said. Kushner sent Avrahm Berkowitz, a White House aide and longtime associate. At that session, Kislyak told Berkowitz that he wanted Kushner to meet Gorkov, the Russian banker, Hicks said.
As the head of Vnesheconombank, Gorkov presides over a bank whose supervisory board is controlled by members of Putin’s government.
Around the time the Russian ambassador asked that Kushner meet with Gorkov, U.S. intelligence agencies were concluding that Russian spies, acting on the orders of Putin, had sought to sway the election by hacking political targets, like the Democratic National Committee, and passing stolen emails to WikiLeaks.