News / Politics

US senators seek more information from Kushner in Russia probe

Saturday, 18 November 2017 9:29 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 18 November 2017 11:09 AM ]

An AFP file photo of US President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner during a meeting at the White House.

The US Senate Judiciary Committee says President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has failed to provide documents about his involvement in a “Russian backdoor overture” as part of the federal investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

In a letter sent on Thursday to Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, Senate Judiciary Committee leaders listed documents and emails Kushner received about a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” among materials Lowell has failed to produce.

The letter by Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman and top Democrat respectively, also specified keywords, including Clinton, WikiLeaks, hacking, and the names of four Russian banks.

The letter also said Lowell must provide emails published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks from September 2016 which Kushner had forwarded to an unidentified Trump election campaign adviser.

US intelligence agencies claim Russia-linked hackers provided WikiLeaks with damaging information -- in the form of thousands of hacked emails -- about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to skew the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump.

PressTV-Top Dem wants more on Kushner private emails

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has requested the White House to provide more information for the panel in regard to Jared Kushner’s use of private email.

Kushner remains a person of interest to the investigations led by the US Justice Department’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees, according to a source with knowledge of the probes.

Among other things, government investigators want to know if Kushner knew during the 2016 campaign that Russia was hacking Democratic emails in an effort to help Trump and whether he tried to create a secret back channel between the Trump administration and Moscow, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

Investigators also want to know if Kushner took part in or knew of any post-election efforts by Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, or others to lift US economic sanctions on Russia in exchange for financial investments or other business deals, said the source.

Trump has repeatedly denied allegations that his campaign colluded with Russians and has condemned the investigations. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also denied the allegations.

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