Here Is What Jared Kushner Will Tell Congress Today

The president’s son-in-law said he had four contacts with Russian officials, but rejected claims of collusion.

Olivier Douliery/ZUMA

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Ahead of his closed-door interview with the Senate intelligence committee Monday, Jared Kushner released a statement confirming four contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign, but he denied any accusations of collusion or wrongdoing. 

“I had no improper contacts,” the president’s son-in-law wrote in his statement. “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government.” 

One of the contacts was a previously undisclosed April 2016 meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which Kushner claimed lasted “less than a minute.” He also downplayed the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Kremlin-tied Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, arranged by Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., calling it a “waste of time.” 

“I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting,'” Kushner said. “I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently.”

Kushner has come under fire for initially failing to disclose his contacts with Russian officials on his application for a security clearance, with some Democrats calling for Kushner’s clearance to be revoked. And he also failed to provide a complete picture of his assets and liabilities on his financial disclosure forms. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kushner had failed to disclose at least $1 billion in loans to companies and properties he partly owned. 

Read his full statement below:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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