Jared Kushner and his family hit the panic button as Trump-Russia closes in
Special Counsel Robert Mueller isn’t going to bother making a move on someone like Jared Kushner until he’s built criminal case strong enough to convince Kushner that he has no real option but to cut a plea deal against Donald Trump. It’s why Mueller didn’t simply arrest Kushner a long time ago, even though he has him nailed for the felony of lying on a government security clearance form. Kushner might think he can beat a charge like that at trial. Mueller needs dozens of charges against Kushner, of various types, to raise the stakes to the point that Kushner flips. But now Kushner and his family are signaling that they fear the reckoning is upon them.
In fact, the Kushner family is suddenly going to conspicuous lengths when it comes to hitting the panic button. Jared Kushner’s father Charles Kushner has now conducted a lengthy interview with the New York Times, for the purpose of declaring that his son has done nothing wrong in the political realm, and that his family business has done nothing wrong in the corporate realm. Charles Kushner isn’t quite as media-shy as his son, but this isn’t the kind of thing he does. Instead, it’s a sign that he fears things are about to go very wrong for his family.
This is notable because, while Trump-Russia witness Sam Nunberg recently revealed that he’d been subpoenaed by a Robert Mueller grand jury in relation to ten prominent names in the scandal, Jared Kushner was not among them. Of course this is just one grand jury, and it would be perfectly normal for Mueller to be simultaneously using more than one grand jury as part of an investigation this complex. Yet still, we have no evidence that Mueller has a grand jury going specifically against Kushner. Yet his father is choosing now to sound the alarm.
It raises the question of what Charles Kushner knows that we don’t. Jared Kushner’s secret transition-period meetings with the Russians, and his lies on his security clearance forms, were exposed the better part of a year ago. His meeting with the Russians during the campaign was exposed several months ago. His use of the White House to secure loans for himself was exposed more than a month ago. So why is Jared’s father choosing now to come out swinging? This suggests that things are in play behind the scenes, and that we’ll know about them before much longer.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report