Jared Kushner’s attorney Jamie Gorelick quits after she realizes she can’t keep him out of prison
Earlier today, after the news broke that a Russian spy had also been in the meeting with the Donald Trump campaign, I wrote that Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort may no longer be able to keep themselves out of prison (link). Sure enough, hours later, it was announced that Kushner’s attorney Jamie Gorelick will no longer be representing him in the Russia scandal (source: Politico). And that tells us a lot.
Jared Kushner is on the hook for a felony for lying on the security clearance forms, while Paul Manafort is on the hook for a felony for having taken money from a foreign government intermediary without registering as a foreign agent. They each appear to have confessed to the Feds at some point about the Donald Trump Jr. meeting (and their participation in it) as a last ditch effort at staying out of prison. But it’s increasingly looking like they weren’t fully honest about the nature of the meeting, or who attended. If they lied during their respective attempts at getting themselves off the legal hook, they’re sunk.
And sure enough, right after it came out in the media that the Donald Trump Jr. meeting had indeed been attended by a notorious Kremlin spy and not merely by a Kremlin lawyer, Jared Kushner’s attorney promptly quit. She’s supposedly going to continue representing Kushner in other matters (whatever that’s supposed to mean), but she’s done representing him in the Russia scandal. The timing of this sudden move can’t be ignored.
The only reason for Jamie Gorelick to have bailed on Jared Kushner a few hours after the Russian spy news went public is that she no longer believes she can represent him. Either she doesn’t want to waste her time continuing to represent someone whom she knows she can’t prevent from going to prison, or she’s decided she doesn’t want to go down in history as the attorney who represented a traitor who went to prison. Either way, this tells us how quickly this scandal is growing out of control for the entire Trump clan.
