Senators Tell Kushner To Search His Email Again For These Keywords
(November 23, 2017) the Senate Judiciary committee sent a letter to Jared Kushner’s lawyers requesting more documents from Donald Trump’s son-in-law. “We appreciate your voluntary cooperation with the Committee’s investigation, but the production appears to have been incomplete,” the letter said. Due to Kushner’s inability to produce the information requested–and given evidence of emails that Kushner has not turned over–the senators decided to present him with very specific search terms for what they need.
“It appears that your search may have overlooked several documents,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein wrote in their letter. While the committee had sought all emails that mentioned certain individuals, Kushner had limited his search of emails to those that simply mentioned those individuals in the to, from, or copy to lines of the email.
The senators cautioned Kushner that “there are several documents that are known to exist but were not included in your production.” In one case, other individuals have turned over “September 2016 email communications to Mr. Kushner concerning WikiLeaks, which ?r. Kushner then forwarded to another campaign official.”
Others have produced documents “concerning ? ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,’ which Mr. Kushner also forwarded. And still others have produced communications with [Belarusan American businessman] Sergei Millian, copied to Mr. Kushner…” The senators also reiterated their request for certain phone records that he has yet to turn over.
Missing Flynn Emails
In an earlier request, the Committee also asked for Kushner’s communications with Lt. Michael General Flynn, who served as National Security Advisor to President Trump until it became known that he had communications with Russian officials. Kushner’s lawyers had asked for ways to further filter their searches regarding his Flynn communications. In their letter, the senators enumerated exactly what they are looking for:
You have asked for further limiting terms in order to search for communications involving your client and Lt. General Michael Flynn. Without waiving the right to request additional documents as needed, please search for:
?) all communications concerning Lt. General Flynn’s termination; FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act); email hacking; Russia; or the Magnitsky Act;
b:) all communications to, from, or copied to Lt. General Flynn from November 8, 2016 to present;
and ?) all communications to, from, or copied to Lt. General Flynn and containing any of the following terms: Clinton, Peter Smith, WikiLeaks, Guccifer, DC Leaks, Alfa, hacking, Putin, Lavrov, Russian Federation, RF, Kislyak, Gorkov, Vnesheconombank, VEB, Vneshtorgbank, VTB, Sberbank, lgor Sechin, Rosneft, Gazprom, sanctions, Ukraine, Turkey, Erik Prince, or Seychelles.
The search terms say it all: The Committee is looking for any correspondence Kushner had with Flynn about Russian dealings and collusion to hurt the Clinton campaign.
Kushner said during testimony to lawmakers that he nor anyone else on the campaign had contact with Wikileaks or Assange, a source told Foreign Policy. But as the Atlantic reported this week, Donald Trump Jr. and Assange exchanged direct messages on Twitter during the campaign. The CEO of Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign’s controversial data firm, also contacted Assange during the summer of 2016.
In their letter, the senators also requested documents related to Kushner’s temporary security clearance, and gave him until November 27 to produce all the documents. Kushner’s attorney said in a statement to CNN that Kushner has been “responsive” to all requests.
The Senate letter about Kushner’s failure to produce documents comes amid a report that special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal investigation is also seeking more information from the Trump campaign. In mid-October Mueller issued a subpoena to over a dozen campaign officials requesting documents and emails that also reference certain Russia-related keywords, the Wall Street Journal reports. The subpoena was the Dept. of Justice’s first official order for information from the campaign, which has already turned over some 20,000 documents voluntarily, according to the Journal.
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