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Kushner Pressed by Grassley, Feinstein for Trump Probe Documents

Kushner Pressed by Grassley, Feinstein for Trump Probe Documents

(Bloomberg) -- The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, to provide additional documents for its Russia investigation. 

Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Democrat Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter Thursday to Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, saying that Kushner didn’t turn over some documents first requested on Oct. 18, nor has he agreed to a transcribed interview. They said the documents include some related to his security clearance and his communications with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The House and Senate intelligence committees already have conducted interviews with Kushner, and according to the letter, Lowell said Kushner would authorize the committee to have access to the transcripts of those meetings. But those committees haven’t given those documents to the Judiciary Committee.

"If you are able to secure for the committee copies of the transcripts from Mr. Kushner’s other interviews, then please provide them and we will consider whether the transcript satisfies the needs of our investigation," they wrote.

Missing Documents

The senators also said the initial set of documents provided by Kushner’s lawyer excluded some communications.

"If, as you suggest, Mr. Kushner was unaware of, for example, any attempts at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, then presumably there would be few communications concerning many of the persons identified in our second request, and the corresponding burden of searching would be small," they wrote.

Grassley and Feinstein also said the committee had September 2016 emails to Kushner about WikiLeaks, which he then forwarded to another campaign official, but those weren’t sent to the committee by Kushner.

"Likewise, other parties have produced documents concerning a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’ which Mr. Kushner also forwarded," they wrote. "And still others have produced communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Mr. Kushner," they said, nor has Kushner produced relevant phone records. The letter doesn’t elaborate on the "overture" or Millian, president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Lowell issued a statement Thursday saying Kushner provided the committee with all “relevant documents that had to do with Mr. Kushner’s calls, contacts or meetings with Russians during the campaign and transition.” Kushner is open to responding to additional requests, he said.

Lowell earlier raised concerns about executive privilege regarding some documents and declined to provide them, the senators said. "We ask that you work with White House counsel to resolve any questions of privilege so that you can produce the documents that have been requested or provide a privilege log that describes the documents over which the President is asserting executive privilege."

Finally, the senators clarified the particular documents they want regarding Flynn, including any communications relating to his firing, foreign lobbying registration, email hacking, Russia, or the Magnitsky Act, as well as all communications with or from Flynn since election day, as well as any communications involving any of a number of figures in the broader Russia probe.

They asked for documents by Nov. 27 and an immediate response regarding a transcribed interview.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.