Kushner Talked to Russian Envoy About Creating Secret Channel With Kremlin
By
MAGGIE HABERMAN,
MARK MAZZETTI and
MATT APUZZOMAY 26, 2017
President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, at the White House last week. Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, spoke last December with Russia’s ambassador to the United States about establishing a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow to discuss strategy in Syria and other policy issues, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.
The conversation between Mr. Kushner and the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, took place during a meeting at Trump Tower that Mr. Trump’s presidential transition team did not acknowledge at the time. Also present at the meeting was Michael T. Flynn, the retired general who would become Mr. Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, the three people said.
It is unclear who first proposed the communications channel, but the people familiar with the meeting said that the idea was to have Mr. Flynn speak directly with a senior military official in Moscow to discuss Syria and other security issues. The communications channel was never set up, the people said.
The three people were not authorized to discuss the December meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
News of the discussion was first reported by
The Washington Post. The revelation has stoked new questions about Mr. Kushner’s connections to Russian officials at a time when the
F.B.I. is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s presidential election and whether any of Mr. Trump’s advisers assisted in the Russian campaign.
Current and former American officials said that Mr. Kushner’s activities, like those of many others around Mr. Trump, are under scrutiny as part of the investigation. But Mr. Kushner is not currently the subject of a criminal investigation.
In the days after the meeting with Mr. Kislyak, Mr. Kushner had a separate meeting with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker with close links to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
American intelligence agencies first learned about the discussion several months ago, according to a senior American official who had been briefed on intelligence reports. It is unclear whether they learned from intercepted Russian communications or other means.
Mr. Trump came into office promising improved relations with Russia on numerous issues, including greater cooperation to try to end the civil war in Syria. During the presidential campaign, he frequently criticized the Obama administration’s Syria policy as unnecessarily antagonistic toward Russia.
The idea behind the secret communications channel, the three people said, was for Russian military officials to brief Mr. Flynn about the Syrian war and to discuss ways to cooperate there. Less than two weeks later, Mr. Kushner backed off the idea of the communications channel when Mr. Trump announced Rex W. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil who had worked closely with Russian officials on energy deals, as his choice to become secretary of state.
Two congressional intelligence committees are conducting parallel investigations into Russian interference during the presidential campaign, and in recent weeks the committees have accelerated their efforts to obtain documents from Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers, sometimes using subpoenas to demand the records.
This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the Trump campaign’s treasurer to preserve and produce all documents — including phone records and emails — dating back to its official start in June 2015, according to one person associated with the campaign. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, said former staff members have been instructed to cooperate with the committee’s inquiry.
The person said the request came from Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia — the committee’s two senior members.