Jared Kushner signals that it’s about to hit the fan
There has been scattered buzz around it for more than a month, and now it’s finally happening: Jared Kushner and the attorneys representing him in the Trump-Russia scandal have hired a publicist to represent them in the scandal. It’s not just any publicist either. It’s a crisis management publicist. This is one of those guys who hire when you know everything is about to hit the fan for you.
Here’s what Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted back when word first surfaced that Kushner was considering hiring a crisis management firm: “The only reason Jared Kushner would hire a crisis public relations firm is because … wait for it … A CRISIS IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO HIM. Also, anyone who needs a crisis firm should not have a security clearance. Oh, and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, you backed the wrong person.” Now the Wall Street Journal (link) says that two crisis management firms turned down Kushner as a client before this one finally took him on. So how bad of a crisis is he facing when even the crisis management firms are afraid to touch him?
That’s what we’re about to find out. Michael Flynn wouldn’t have been given a lenient plea deal unless he turned over compelling evidence against one or more bigger fish in the Trump-Russia scandal. There are some circumstantial reasons to suspect that evidence was about Kushner. For instance, Flynn and Kushner met together with the Russian Ambassador during the transition period, and then Kushner met with the head of a Russian bank just days later. Flynn and Special Counsel Robert Mueller just agreed to delay Flynn’s sentencing by another ninety days, suggesting that something new is afoot.
So what happens next? Jared Kushner clearly thinks it’s all about to hit the fan for him. But is that because he expects to get arrested, or because he’s planning to cut a plea deal? Either way, it’s understandable why he’d need a crisis management firm to handle the resulting fallout. Stay tuned.
