Jared Kushner caves to investigators in Trump-Russia scandal
Over the weekend, Palmer Report pointed to a series of stories planted in the mainstream media which suggested that Jared Kushner was frantically trying to sell the narrative that he’s being squeezed out of the White House, ahead of today’s deadline for him to cooperate with Trump-Russia investigators. Sure enough, now we’re getting word that Kushner has indeed caved to investigators, in what can only be seen as bad news for Donald Trump.
The Senate Judiciary Committee – which has been very public about its anger toward Jared Kushner over what it’s perceived as his lack of cooperation – granted him an extension today, according to a Politico report (link). Let’s be clear here: this kind of thing doesn’t just happen for no reason, particularly not with a committee led by hard-nosed Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and equally hard-nosed Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, both of whom have just about had it with Kushner. Their decision to grant an extension means that he’s now cooperating.
In particular, the committee is trying to get its hands on Kushner’s emails and documents which relate to the Donald Trump campaign’s communications with WikiLeaks and a Russian backdoor communications channel. For reasons known only to him, Kushner has been unwilling to give these documents to the committee, though he says he’s given them to other committees.
Unless he’s being stubborn for no reason, Kushner must believe that turning over these specific documents to this committee would do more legal harm to himself or one of his allies than if he simply refused to cooperate. That says a lot, considering that he’s been risking contempt of Congress. But for whatever reason, he decided to cave today and agree to start giving the committee what it wants. There’s no other possible explanation for why harsh graders like Grassley and Feinstein would hand him an extension for turning over the full batch.
