New light shed on Kushner, Russia ties

WASHINGTON - The expanding federal investigation into Russian interference in last year's election is shining new light on the central role played by one member of Donald Trump's inner circle - his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner - in reaching out to Moscow.

The latest disclosure - that even before Trump took office Kushner directed campaign foreign policy adviser Michael Flynn to try to persuade Russia to quash a United Nations resolution - is one example of numerous Kushner contacts with Moscow and meetings with Russian intermediaries now under scrutiny by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller.

Kushner, a former Manhattan real estate developer and Washington neophyte, might be key as Mueller pursues the mystery of whether Trump's campaign had improper dealings with Russia, a charge Kushner denies.

Revelations about Kushner's Russia contacts have been dribbling out for months, forcing Kushner and other Trump aides who denied or downplayed them to repeatedly backtrack.

But with Flynn now cooperating with Mueller's investigators, Kushner's role handling outreach to foreign governments for Trump is likely to draw even more scrutiny from investigators. Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts.

Publicly Trump insists he is not worried, telling reporters Saturday there had been 'absolutely no collusion” with Moscow, but adding, 'We'll see what happens.”

In the wake of Flynn's plea deal, Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees said they wanted Kushner, who appeared in private before both panels last July, to return to answer new questions about his dealings with Russian officials and intermediaries from Moscow.

California congressman: Flynn was no rogue agent

'Mike Flynn wasn't acting as a free agent. He was acting at the behest of very senior people close to the president or the president himself,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. 'If Mr. Kushner was involved in that, he'd have a lot to tell us that he hasn't told us so far.”

Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, declined to comment on Kushner's Russia contacts.

Kushner has described himself as an overworked and inexperienced campaign aide who was 'forced to make changes on the fly” when it came to Russia.

'I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so,” Kushner said last July after a closed-door meeting with investigators from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Trump cycled through a cadre of high-level aides during the presidential campaign, but Kushner remained a trusted adviser with one particularly favorable credential - he is family through his marriage to Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka.

After running his real estate company like a family business, Trump saw no reason to change course while campaigning or after winning the White House. Kushner joined the administration and received a vast portfolio of responsibilities, including overhauling the federal government with the newly created Office of American Innovation and pursuing a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Kushner blamed aide for failure to report contacts

He has insisted that his initial failure to report his meetings with the Russians or any other foreigners on forms required for a government security clearance was not deliberate. He blamed an aide who he said had mistakenly submitted the form, known as a SF-86, before it was complete, and that he later updated it.

As a trusted adviser, Kushner was the intermediary with foreign officials, a role that led to several contacts with Russian officials, either directly or through intermediaries.

According to court papers disclosed Friday, Flynn was directed by a 'very senior member” of Trump's transition team - identified by a former official as Kushner - to lobby Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and officials from other foreign governments in an attempt to delay or defeat a U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel in December 2016.

Trump had publicly opposed the resolution, saying it 'puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”

But the Trump team's attempts to block the resolution was at odds with the position taken by the Obama administration, which still occupied the White House and planned to let the resolution pass.

The attempts to influence the vote, which a person familiar with the transition described as a collaborative endeavor by multiple high-ranking members of Trump's team, did not succeed.