Robert Mueller signals to Jared Kushner that he’s toast
Over the past three days we’ve seen Special Counsel Robert Mueller make a dizzying array of moves, some predictable and some surprising, and it wasn’t entirely clear how they fit together. But now Mueller is flat out announcing, via the media, who he’s targeting as he carries out his endgame in taking down Donald Trump. That target is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Mueller never speaks directly to the public, but he does sometimes speak through the media. This is one of those instances. CNN is now reporting that Mueller is targeting Jared Kushner’s attempts at securing foreign financing for his businesses during the transition period, “according to people familiar with the inquiry.” That’s code for Mueller having leaked this to send a message to Kushner. That message: you’re toast. Cut a deal against Trump right now or prepare to have your life dismantled.
It’s long been known that Kushner met with the Russian Ambassador during the transition period, then met with the head of a Russian bank immediately afterward, and then lied about both meetings on his security clearance forms. The question has always been whether Kushner used those two meetings to trade Trump administration political favors to the Russian government in exchange for a financial bailout of his failing real estate properties. Kushner knows what really happened, and now Mueller is signaling to Kushner that he also knows what went down.
So why is Robert Mueller zeroing in on Jared Kushner for his endgame? There are only a small handful of people with intimate knowledge of Donald Trump’s decades of financial crimes, and Kushner is the only one who’s not blood-related to Trump. It looks like Mueller is betting that he can pressure Kushner into cutting a plea deal against Trump. That would destroy Kushner’s family, but it might keep him from spending the rest of his life in prison. In any case, Mueller just signaled that Kushner’s time to make a decision is very short.
