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Natasha Bertrand
Natasha Bertrand
@NatashaBertrand
NEWS: Senate Judiciary says KUSHNER received & forwarded docs concerning a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" last year, and was copied on campaign officials' communications with Sergei Millian
uk.businessinsider.com/jared-kushner-emails-russia-backdoor-feinstein-grassley-2017-11?r=US&IR=T
President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner forwarded emails concerning a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" to Trump campaign officials and failed to produce those emails to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a letter the senators sent Kushner's lawyer on Thursday.
Kushner also failed to produce emails on which he was copied involving communication with WikiLeaks, and with the Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian, the senators said. Millian most recently headed a group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.
"There are several documents that are known to exist but were not included in your production," Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein wrote to Kushner.
They continued:
"For example, other parties have produced September 2016 email communications to Mr. Kushner concerning WikiLeaks, which Mr. Kushner then forwarded to another campaign official. Such documents should have been produced in response to the third request but were not. Likewise, other parties have produced documents concerning a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" which Mr. Kushner also forwarded. And still others have produced communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Mr. Kushner. Again, these do not appear in Mr. Kushner's production despite being responsive to the second request."
Kushner came under new scrutiny this week after The Atlantic revealed that his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr. told him in an email last September that WikiLeaks had sent him a private message on Twitter. Kushner forwarded that information to Hope Hicks, according to The Atlantic.
The "Russian backdoor overture" could be a reference to Kushner's meeting with the CEO of a sanctioned Russian bank in December that was also attended by former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The senators said Thursday that Kushner had not provided all of the information it requested related to his communications with Flynn.
Kushner told lawmakers earlier this year that he suggested the Trump transition team and Russia establish a back-channel line of communication to discuss Syria using Russian diplomatic facilities in the US. It had not been reported, however, that the matter was discussed again in emails that Kushner "also forwarded."
Simiarly, it has not been previously reported that Millian communicated with members of the Trump campaign in on emails the senators say Kushner was copied.
It is unclear to what the "dinner invite" refers.
The senators also said Kushner had not produced any phone records.