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babylonsister

(171,036 posts) Sat May 27, 2017, 02:38 PM May 2017

How Worried Should Jared Kushner Be?

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-worried-should-jared-kushner-be?mbid=nl_170527_Daily&CNDID=49221241&spMailingID=11121412&spUserID=MTg0OTkxNzg0Nzg3S0&spJobID=1162314654&spReportId=MTE2MjMxNDY1NAS2

How Worried Should Jared Kushner Be?
By Ryan Lizza May 26, 2017

The F.B.I.’s interest in Kushner appears to be related to the two known meetings that he had with Russian officials.

One of the overlooked aspects of yesterday’s news that the F.B.I. is interested in Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, is that Kushner played a role in the firing of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director. Kushner is not formally a target of the F.B.I.’s sprawling investigation, but I was reminded of his role in Comey’s removal while discussing Kushner with a person close to Comey. The former F.B.I. director is known to have drafted a series of memos about his interactions with Trump, and—importantly—with other White House and Administration officials. Whether Kushner is mentioned in the Comey memos is not known. The source close to Comey offered a terse “no comment” when I asked about additional details, but the point is that Comey was aware of and carefully documenting how the White House reacted to him and his Russia investigation. “That’s a memo-driven place,” the source said.

Some of the commentary about these Comey memos has suggested that they were simply personal notes that weren’t shared widely at the F.B.I. That is not the case.

“The Bureau has them all,” the source close to Comey said. “They’ve always had them all. That’s another thing that people sort of missed the point of. These memos weren’t just some personal little effort on the part of Jim. He was the tip of the operation, and knew it, and really felt accountable to the rest of the people around him to tell them what is going on and help them be a part of the decision-making on what he should say and do.”

The F.B.I.’s interest in Kushner appears to be related to the two known meetings that he had with Russian officials. The first, which was originally reported by The New Yorker, occurred in early December, at Trump Tower, when Kushner and Michael Flynn, then the incoming national-security adviser, met with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States. On Friday evening, the Washington Post added dramatic new details about what occurred at this meeting, which it said took place on December 1st or 2nd. Kushner and Kislyak, according to the Post’s sources, “discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring.”

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The main takeaway from the Kushner news is similar to the takeaway from Trump and Flynn’s handling of the Russia probes. In each case, we have a series of actions by people who seem to be concealing specific contacts with Russians connected to the Kremlin’s intelligence services and then acting to thwart an investigation. Flynn lied about his contacts with Kislyak. Trump tried to kill the F.B.I. investigation of Flynn and eventually fired his F.B.I. director. Kushner hid his contacts with Russian officials and then pressed his father-in-law to sack Comey, who was looking into the matter. “Anytime someone on the Trump campaign conceals or misleads about a contact they had with Russia at the time of Russia’s interference campaign, that’s a big red flag,” Eric Swalwell, the Democratic congressman, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said.

We still don’t have a crime in this case, but there is an awful lot of coverup.