Besides expanding the Russian investigation to possibly include obstruction of justice charges against President Donald Trump, special counsel Robert Mueller is also probing the business deals and finances of jared kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Three other associates of the president are also being examined for their financial deals.
They are former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, The Washington Post reported. The focus of the Kushner investigation is his meetings with Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak and Vnesheconombank owner Sergei Gorkov.
Personal financial interests colliding with official public role
Gorkov said the meeting with Kushner was business-related. Kushner wanted to finance the purchase of a $1.8 billion office building on Fifth Avenue in New York. His personal financial interest, however, could clash with his then-impending role as adviser to Trump, since Vnesheconombank was included in the Washington-imposed sanctions on Russia following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.
Jamie Gorelick, the lawyer of Kushner, said Kushner would share with Congress what he knows about matters related to Russia. The attorney said the probe into Kushner’s financial deals could be part of standard practice by Mueller to examine financial records related to Russia.
Made-up story
Trump continues to insist that his alleged collusion with Russians to win the election in 2016 is a fabricated story. After reports had come out on Wednesday that Mueller, whom Trump is reportedly planning to remove from the probe, has included him in the obstruction of justice investigation, the president tweeted the next day that the inquiry is the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics in the U.S.
In another tweet, Trump questioned why rival Hillary Clinton, who allegedly destroyed phones with a hammer, bleached emails, and meets, together with Bill Clinton, the attorney general days before she was cleared, did not face a similar charge. He asked why was Hillary not investigated for obstruction of justice?
CNN, in an opinion piece, explained Trump’s tweets to the president treating everything as a tabloid story.
It is a tactic he used as a real estate developer and TV host which he brought with him to the White House and now uses on Mueller. The tactic involves threatening or suing whenever someone writes a story he does not like. At the same time, Trump creates a counter-narrative to discredit the initial report and then turns the story in a more favorable spin on him.
Since the leak about the obstruction of justice investigation, CNN said it would be difficult for Trump to stop it regardless of what he tweets or call names of the people involved in the probe.
