29 May, 2017
Late Friday night, a report came out that Jared Kushner - Donald Trump's son-in-law and closest White House adviser - had at least three undisclosed contacts with a Russian ambassador during and after the 2016 Presidential campaign.
Reuters reported last week that a proposal for a back channel was discussed between McMaster's predecessor Mike Flynn and the Russian ambassador as Trump prepared to take office. Kushner spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about facilitating sensitive discussions to explore the incoming administration's options with Russia as it developed its Syria policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his senior advisor Jared Kushner arrive for a meeting with manufacturing CEOs at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. February 23, 2017. It says the U.S. is "in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics".
That investigation, and those in both the House of Representatives and the Senate into the election and potential ties between Mr Trump's team and Moscow, have dogged Mr Trump and his team for months and have led to a number of negative headlines. Of interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation is likely Mr Kushner's several meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Being outside of Washington among his supporters energizes Trump and provides a way for him to communicate without the filter of the media, his advisers say.
In another development, The New York Times reported Friday that Oleg Deripaska, a Russian once close to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, has offered to cooperate with congressional bodies probing alleged Russian election meddling. More attorneys with deep experience in Washington investigations are expected to be added, along with crisis communication experts, to help the White House in the weeks ahead.
"Mr. Kushner participated in thousands of calls in this time period".
Former CIA director John Brennan revealed this week that intelligence chiefs had been looking into suspicious contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials since mid-2016.
While the FBI is investigating Kushner's contacts with Russian Federation, he is not now a target of that investigation, one current law enforcement official told Reuters.
Aides are also considering creating a White House "war room" to more aggressively push back against the Russian Federation controversy as well as the fallout of Trump's abrupt firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey earlier this month.
White House officials are also trying to find ways to revive Trump's stalled policy agenda in Congress and to more broadly overhaul the way the White House communicates with the public.
Generally speaking, McMaster said he wouldn't be concerned if administration officials had back-channel communications with the Kremlin.
Before departing Italy for the U.S., White House officials refused to address the reports about Kushner.
Kushner has acknowledged meeting during the transition with the Russian ambassador to Washington, but Reuters, citing seven current and former United States officials, reported Friday that Kushner had several previously undisclosed contacts with Russia's ambassador - including two phone calls between April and November of 2016. There was no immediate White House reaction.
And it's fair to say that USA investigators would have been very intrigued to see then-candidate Trump's son-in-law, one of his closest advisers, meeting with Russians.
Investigators are also interested in a meeting Kushner had with the Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, according to reports from The Post and NBC News.
