The Washington Post revealed late yesterday that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is a “focus” of the F.B.I’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether or not there was collusion between people close to Trump and Russian officials:
Investigators are focusing on a series of meetings held by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and an influential White House adviser, as part of their probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and related matters, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Kushner, who held meetings in December with the Russian ambassador and a banker from Moscow, is being investigated because of the extent and nature of his interactions with the Russians, the people said.
The Washington Post reported last week that a senior White House official close to the president was a significant focus of the high-stakes investigation, though it did not name Kushner.
FBI agents also remain keenly interested in former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but Kushner is the only current White House official known to be considered a key person in the probe.
The Post has not been told that Kushner is a target — or the central focus — of the investigation, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing. “Target” is a word that generally refers to someone who is the main suspect of investigators’ attention, though prosecutors can and do bring charges against people who are not marked with that distinction.
“Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry,” said Jamie Gorelick, one of his attorneys.
In addition to possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election, investigators are also looking broadly into possible financial crimes — but the people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly, did not specify who or what was being examined.
Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said, “I can’t confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of investigations or subjects of investigations.” The FBI declined to comment.
At the time of the December meetings, Trump already had won the election. Contacts between people on the transition team and foreign governments can be routine, but the meetings and phone calls with the Russians were not made public at the time.
In early December, Kushner met in New York with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, and he later sent a deputy to meet with Kislyak. Flynn was also present at the early-December meeting, and later that month, Flynn held a call with Kislyak to discuss U.S.-imposed sanctions against Russia. Flynn initially mischaracterized the conversation, even to Vice President Pence — ultimately prompting his ouster from the White House.
Kushner also met in December with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank, which has been the subject of U.S. sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support of separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In addition to the December meetings, a former senior intelligence official said FBI agents had been looking closely at earlier exchanges between Trump associates and the Russians dating to the spring of 2016, including one at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Kushner and Kislyak — along with close Trump adviser and current attorney general Jeff Sessions — were present at an April 2016 event at the Mayflower where then-candidate Trump promised in a speech to seek better relations with Russia. It is unclear whether Kushner and Kislyak interacted there.
CNN came out with a similar report around the same time yesterday and, as noted above, this report comes just a week after it had been reported that a “Senior White House Official” was a “person of interest” in connection with the investigations. Based on the reporting at the time, as well as rumors circulating about the ongoing investigation, made it rather obvious that Kushner was the most likely person that to be that “person of interest.” At the same time, though, it’s important to note that the fact that Kushner is a “focus” of the investigation doesn’t mean that he may have done anything legally culpable, or that he is destined to become a suspect or a target of the investigation. For now at least it likely simply means that the Bureau is interested in Kushner, most likely because of his contacts with Russian officials. These contacts apparently occurred both before the election and during the transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day and Kushner didn’t initially disclose those contacts on his security clearance application, although he has apparently since amended that paperwork. The point is that the fact that Kushner is a “focus” of the investigation should not be taken as a presumption of any kind, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t serious. This is, after all, the F.B.I. we’re talking about and given the fact that it’s a Federal crime to lie to an F.B.I. agent, as Martha Stewart and Scooter Libbey learned all too well. Anyone they’re interested in ought to be concerned.
The fact that Kushner’s meetings with Russian officials took place after Election Day suggests strongly that the reason for the Bureau’s interest is not directly related to the election investigation. However, as the Post’s Amber Phillips explains, Kushner’s contacts with Russian officials, which aren’t necessarily unusual when a candidate for President becomes their party’s nominee, came at the same time that intelligence officials first started to became aware of Russian efforts to interfere in the upcoming Presidential campaign. One of the ways they might do that is by developing close relationships between people close to a candidate and officials who they may not be sophisticated enough to realize that they are being used as sources of information or manipulated by a foreign intelligence agent, or even that the person they’re in contact with is a foreign intelligence agent. Since Kushner, along with people such as Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Carter Page, was among those who had contact with Russian officials during the relevant time period it seems obvious that the Bureau would at least want to talk to him.
As Callum Borchers at the Post notes, the fact that Kushner is of interest to the Bureau for any reason puts the President in an awkward position:
Plan A for Team Trump will be to argue that there was nothing inappropriate about the contact Kushner had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States and executives from a Russian bank that was hit with sanctions by the Obama administration. But what is Plan B, in the event that the probe shows otherwise?
Under normal circumstances, the backup strategy would be to look for the closest speeding bus. We’ve already witnessed Trump’s willingness to turn on people who appear to be liabilities.
(…)
The fact that it is Kushner, rather than another top aide such as Stephen K. Bannon, Reince Priebus or Kellyanne Conway, is significant for the president — by which I mean worse. Kushner is family; he is the husband of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and the father of Trump’s grandchildren. If the investigation were to reveal anything incriminating, it would be far more difficult to scapegoat Kushner than almost anyone else.
[Jared Kushner now a focus in Russia investigation]
I should emphasize, as Matt Zapotosky, Sari Horwitz, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous did in Thursday’s report, that “The Post has not been told that Kushner is a target — or the central focus — of the investigation, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.”
Plan A for Team Trump will be to argue that there was nothing inappropriate about the contact Kushner had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States and executives from a Russian bank that was hit with sanctions by the Obama administration. But what is Plan B, in the event that the probe shows otherwise?
Under normal circumstances, the backup strategy would be to look for the closest speeding bus. We’ve already witnessed Trump’s willingness to turn on people who appear to be liabilities.
As Borchers points out, this ‘Plan A’ followed by “Plan B’ strategy has been one that Trump has employed in the past when people close to hm in the campaign have been subject to reports of wrongdoing. Those names have ranged from the likes of Roger Stone and Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn and Corey Lewandowski. In each of those cases, both Trump specifically and the campaign generally were supportive of the individual in question but quickly moved to distance themselves when the extent of what they did becomes public. That’s not exactly easy to do when you’re talking about someone who is not just a top aide but also the husband of your eldest daughter and father of your grandchildren. If all these reports mean is that the Bureau wants to talk to Kushner as a potential witness in their investigation, then that doesn’t necessarily mean much for the President or the Administration. If it goes very far beyond that, though, then things will become very, very complicated.
