Jared Kushner

Kushner Raises Money for Meadows

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Playbook: “Jared Kushner quietly escaped to North Carolina last night to raise money at a private fundraiser for Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, according to multiple sources familiar with the event. Meadows and Kushner have discussed Israel — part of Kushner’s portfolio, and a key issue for Meadows — and paid leave, which faces long odds in the Republican Congress. Kushner went in a private capacity.”

“Why does this matter? Easy. Meadows has been a thorn in the side of Republican leaders for years, and is now one of the most powerful men in the Capitol. He has been a key ally of President Donald Trump’s — and an intermediary between conservatives in the House and the White House. Kushner traveling to North Carolina ahead of the long weekend shows the nature of the relationship between Meadows and members of the Trump administration.”

Kushner Faces Cash Crunch

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Bloomberg: “Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood.”

“As a result, the tower poses a significant challenge to the company. Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.”

Kushner Says Trump Team Too Disorganized to Collude

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Jared Kushner told a group of interns that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign “could not have colluded with Russia because they were barely talking to each other,” Foreign Policy reports.

Said Kushner: “They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices.”

“For investigators attempting to determine whether Trump’s associates knowingly worked with Russia to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a defense claiming chaos and confusion might be the key difference between criminal behavior and incompetence.”

How Kushner Helped Russians Gain Access to Trump

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Ryan Lizza: “If you read Jared Kushner’s statement to congressional committees looking for evidence of a crime, there isn’t much there. But if you read it from the perspective of the Russians trying to gain a toehold—or more—inside the Trump campaign, you realize how easy he made it for them. As the evidence mounted last year that the Russian government launched an unprecedented hacking and influence campaign to affect the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor, the Trump team, including Kushner, became increasingly more solicitous to high-level Russians offering information and requesting meetings.”

“As with his accounts of all the other interactions with Russians, Kushner claims he was simply a naïve staffer exchanging benign pleasantries. His professed innocence about the nature of these contacts may be the most troubling part of his testimony. The Russians were running a complex—and seemingly successful—campaign to gain access to Trump’s orbit and the President-elect’s most trusted adviser claims he was clueless about what was actually going on. Kushner’s testimony does not reveal evidence of any crimes, but it does reveal a campaign and Presidential transition that was a remarkably easy target for Russian-intelligence efforts.”

Kushner Insists He ‘Did Not Collude’

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“President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said on Monday that he had been unaware that a June 2016 meeting he attended at Trump Tower was set up in the hope that a Russian lawyer would provide the Trump campaign with damaging information about Hillary Clinton,” the New York Times reports.

“In prepared remarks to congressional investigators released by Mr. Kushner’s representatives, Mr. Kushner said he arrived at the meeting late and had been so uninterested in the discussion that he emailed his assistant to ask for her help escaping.”

In the remarks, Mr. Kushner flatly denied any collusion: “I had no improper contacts. I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government.”

Kushner’s Status Being Used to Lure Chinese Investors

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“Jared Kushner’s status as a top aide to President Donald Trump was used to lure Chinese investors to his family’s New Jersey development, even after his family’s company apologized for mentioning his name during a sales pitch in May,” CNN has found.

“References to Kushner are part of online promotions by two businesses that are working with Kushner Companies to find Chinese investors willing to invest in the 1 Journal Square development in exchange for a US visa. The promotions are posted in Chinese and refer to Kushner Companies as ‘real estate heavyweights,’ going on to mention ‘the celebrity of the family is 30-something ‘Mr. Perfect’ Jared Kushner, who once served as CEO of Kushner Companies.'”

Kushner to Testify Before Senate Intelligence

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“White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has agreed to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian election meddling on Monday, July 24,” ABC News has learned.

“The closed-door session sets up what could be one of the most highly anticipated interviews for lawmakers to date.”

Politico reports that on Wednesday, July 26, the Senate Judiciary Committee intends to call Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to testify on a panel about foreign influence in elections.

Axios: “Expect wall-to-wall coverage for the open Trump Jr./Manafort hearing.”

Why Kushner Won’t Lose His Security Clearance

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“The decision over whether Jared Kushner will be stripped of his security clearance could ultimately be made by one man — his father-in-law, President Trump,” Politico reports.

“Kushner’s actions — including initially failing to disclose meetings with Russian officials — would be more than enough to cost most federal employees their security clearances… But Kushner isn’t your average federal government employee.”

All Roads Now Lead to Kushner

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Nicholas Kristof: “Look, this is a murky, complicated issue. But this much we know: Kushner attended a secret meeting whose stated purpose was to advance a Kremlin effort to interfere in the U.S. election, he then failed to report it, and finally he sought a secret channel to communicate with the Kremlin.”

“One next step is clear: Take away Jared Kushner’s security clearance immediately.”

Trump’s Lawyers Want to ‘Wall Off’ Kushner

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President Trump’s outside legal team “wants to wall off Jared Kushner from discussing the Russia investigation with his father-in-law, according to sources with direct knowledge of the discussions,” according to Jonathan Swan.

“The team contends that it isn’t out to get Kushner, but just wants to protect the president because his son-in-law is so wrapped up in the investigation. He had three meetings with Russians that special counsel Bob Mueller is sure to investigate.”

“Members of Trump’s legal team are frustrated that Kushner has been discussing the investigation with the president… The mechanics of the wall are unclear, but it apparently would constitute an agreement by Kushner not to discuss anything about the Russia probes with the president.”

Investigators Probe Kushner-Run Digital Operation

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“Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016,” McClatchy reports.

“Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton.”

Kushner Lawyers Discovered Trump Jr. Emails

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New York Times: “While Donald Trump Jr. has been the main focus of the controversy because he set up the meeting, Mr. Kushner faces potential trouble because he currently works in the White House and neglected to mention the encounter on forms he filled out for a background check to obtain a security clearance. The emails were discovered in recent weeks by Mr. Kushner’s legal team as it reviewed documents, and they amended his clearance forms to disclose it, according to people briefed on the developments, who like others declined to be identified because of the sensitive political and legal issues involved.”

“Similarly, Mr. Manafort recently mentioned the meeting to congressional investigators looking into possible collusion, according to the people briefed on the matter.”

Kushner, Manafort Implicated in Trump Jr. Email

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Politico: “Two of Trump’s most senior campaign advisers — Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort — are also included in the ‘private and confidential’ email exchange, which the lawyers interviewed by Politico say exposes them to the same potential federal criminal statutes as Trump Jr., including prohibitions on the solicitation or acceptance of anything of value from a foreign national, as well as a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

“A source close to Manafort said that the campaign manager hadn’t read all the way to the bottom of the email exchanges on his phone and that he didn’t even know who he was meeting with when he attended the 20 to 30-minute session. Kushner’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.”

Kushner Tried and Failed to Get a Bailout from Qatar

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The Intercept: “Not long before a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion dollar investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation.”

“The revelation of the half-billion dollar deal raises thorny and unprecedented ethical questions. If the deal is not entirely dead, that means Jared Kushner is on the one hand pushing to use the power of American diplomacy to pummel a small nation while on the other his firm is hoping to extract an extraordinary amount of capital from there for a failing investment. If, however, the deal is entirely dead, the pummeling may be seen as intimidating to other investors on the end of a Kushner Companies pitch.”