US senate investigators plan to question Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and 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 Mr Kushner about meetings he arranged with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I 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 Mr Kislyak and Mr Kushner, which occurred at Trump Tower and was also attended by Michael T Flynn, who would briefly serve as the national security adviser. Later that month, though, Mr Kislyak requested a second meeting, which Mr Kushner asked a deputy to attend in his stead, officials said. At Mr Kislyak's request, Mr Kushner later met with Sergey N Gorkov, the chief of Vnesheconombank, which the United States placed on its sanctions list after Russian president Vladimir Putin of Russia annexed Crimea and began meddling in Ukraine.
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed those meetings, saying in an interview that nothing of consequence was discussed and that they went nowhere. Mr Gorkov, who previously served as deputy chairman of the board at Sberbank, Russia's largest state-owned bank, could not be reached for comment.
Fired
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 Mr Kushner’s role during the campaign and the transition was to serve as a chief conduit to foreign governments and officials, and Ms Hicks said he met with dozens of officials from a wide range of countries.
She added that Mr Kushner was willing to talk to Senate investigators about the meetings with Mr 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 Mr 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 Mr Trump.
The Senate panel's decision to question Mr 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 Mr Trump's son-in-law.
The FBI declined to comment. There are no indications that Mr Kushner is a focus of its investigation, and Ms Hicks said he had not been questioned by the bureau. Mr Kislyak's contacts with Trump administration officials have proved problematic: Mr Flynn was fired for misleading vice president Mike Pence about the nature of the conversations he had with the Russian envoy, claiming he had not discussed the sanctions against Russia when communications intercepts showed he had.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from any Russian inquiries led by the justice department after he failed to disclose at his senate confirmation hearing that he had met Mr Kislyak during the campaign. The meetings that Mr Kushner arranged with Mr Kislyak all took place in December, during the transition, Ms Hicks said. Mr Kushner attended the initial meeting with Mr Kislyak to explore whether a channel could be set up between the Russian government and the incoming administration to improve relations between the United States and Russia, Ms Hicks said. They also discussed how the United States and Russia could co-operate on issues in the Middle East, an area that Mr Kushner has been deputised to take the lead on, she said.
Bail out oligarchs
Mr Kislyak asked for a second meeting to “deliver a message,” Ms Hicks said. Mr Kushner sent Avrahm Berkowitz, a White House aide and long-time associate. At that session, Mr Kislyak told Mr Berkowitz that he wanted Mr Kushner to meet Mr Gorkov, the Russian banker, Ms Hicks said.
Mr Gorkov is a graduate of the academy of Federal Security Service of Russia, a training ground for Russian intelligence and security forces. And as the head of Vnesheconombank, Mr Gorkov presides over a bank whose supervisory board is controlled by members of Mr Putin's government, including prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. It has been used to bail out oligarchs favoured by Mr Putin, as well as to help fund pet projects such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Around the time the Russian ambassador asked that Mr Kushner meet Mr Gorkov, US intelligence agencies were concluding that Russian spies, acting on the orders of Mr Putin, had sought to sway the election by hacking political targets, such as the Democratic National Committee, and passing stolen emails to WikiLeaks.
Mr Kushner had not yet stepped aside as chief executive of Kushner Companies, his family's real estate empire, which was trying to attract investment for the company's crown jewel, an overleveraged Manhattan office tower on Fifth Avenue. The company was in the midst of negotiations to redevelop the building with Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese company with ties to the Beijing government.
Senate investigators plan to ask Mr Kushner if he discussed ways to secure additional financing for the building during his meeting with the Russian banker, a government official said. Ms Hicks said that no such business was discussed at the half-hour session, during which Mr Gorkov expressed a desire for an open dialogue. Nor did the issue of the US sanctions against Russian entities such as Vnesheconombank arise, she added.
“It really wasn’t much of a conversation,” she said.
– New York Times service