For a 36-year-old, White House senior adviser jared kushner is a forgetful man at such a relatively young age. Last week, he amended his financial report because he forgot to disclose 77 assets worth $10.6 million.
On Monday, he issued a statement of his closed-door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had four undisclosed russian contacts during the 2016 election. He failed to name the four Russians when he submitted his SF-86 form. There are two versions of the story.
In one version, Kushner forgot to include the names of the four Russians when he submitted the questionnaire for him to obtain a security clearance.
Another version said his assistant submitted the SF-86 form prematurely and in error because the aide allegedly thought the forms were complete, even if the names of the four Russians were not listed yet.
Rough draft
Kushner said that the staff at the Trump campaign office in New York helped him find information, organize, review it, and place it in electronic form. When the form was sent to his assistant in Washington, the aide was told that changes to one section were complete, which the staff allegedly misinterpreted as the whole form was complete, and the draft was submitted on Jan. 18, 2017, CNN reported.
When they realized the same night of the aide’s error in submitting the form prematurely, the next day, Kushner allegedly provided an update by noting the senior adviser had several contacts with foreign officials.
Kushner promised to provide more details of his foreign contacts, resulting in two more updates to SF-86. He listed over 100 contacts with foreign officials, but he excluded the four who attended the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower.
Meetings with Kislyak
Kushner had two meetings with Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak.
The first was during the campaign, and the second one was during the transition period. They did not discuss the lifting of the U.S. economic sanctions or the establishment of a back communications channel, Kushner insisted.
The president’s son-in-law admitted that he met with Sergei Gorkov, head of the VneshEconomBank, at the request of the ambassador and because the banker is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Gorkin, however, said the meeting was because of Kushner’s role as a prominent realtor in New York, while the son-in-law claimed he met with the banker as a transition official.
If Kushner was allowed to testify in a closed-door session, Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken said on Sunday that the Wednesday testimonies of Donald Jr. and Paul Manafort should not be behind closed doors. The testimonies would be a private session and not under oath, which Franken said were not good enough.
