A US Deputy Attorney General has hired former US President George Bush’s FBI Director Robert Mueller, to Investigate White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s finances and business dealings. The investigations are looking at Kushner’s meeting with Russian intelligence-connected banker Sergey Gorkov in mid-December [2016] and Kushner’s attempt to set up a back channel between Trump and Moscow through a Russian diplomatic building that same month.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
BY GRAHAM LANKTREE for Newsweek.
A team of investigators hired by special counsel Robert Mueller to probe Russia’s campaign to influence the U.S. election will look at the finances and business dealings of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, according to a report.
Mueller is in the preliminary stages of his probe and has recruited a team of top investigators experienced in money laundering, campaign finance violations and organized crime in Eastern Europe. U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post about its financial focus Thursday.
Kushner has not been accused of any specific crime. The finances of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, foreign policy adviser Carter Page and former national security adviser Michael Flynn also are being investigated by the FBI.
Mueller, a former FBI director appointed by George W. Bush, was hired to lead the investigation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17. Other probes of Russia’s election interference are being carried out in Congress.
These investigations are looking at Kushner’s meeting with Russian intelligence-connected banker Sergey Gorkov in mid-December and Kushner’s attempt to set up a back channel between Trump and Moscow through a Russian diplomatic building that same month.
Read more: Trump tried to convince NSA chief to absolve him of any Russian collusion
Gorkov’s state-owned bank, Vnesheconombank (VEB), has been under U.S. sanctions since 2014. The sanctions were imposed following Russia’s forceful annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
VEB said Gorkov met with Kushner in December as part of the launch of a new strategy in a series of meetings with “representatives of leading financial institutes.” The Kushner family’s real estate firm owes a $1.2 billion debt on a tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City and is looking for investors. The loan is due in 2019.
“It would be standard practice for the special counsel to examine financial records to look for anything related to Russia,” Kushner’s attorney, Jamie Gorelick, told the Post in an email. Gorelick pointed out that Kushner has volunteered to speak with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is leading one of the congressional Russia investigations.
On Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein issued a statement that “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country—let alone the branch or agency of government—with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated.”
A spokesman for Mueller, Peter Carr, told the Post that special counsel “has undertaken stringent controls to prohibit unauthorized disclosures and will deal severely with any member who engages in this conduct,” Newsweek has reported.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner joining U.S. President Donald Trump and the rest of the U.S. delegation to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 20. Russia investigation special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating Kushner’s finances.JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
THE TRUMP REACTION
In a separate related development friends of Donald Trump are reportedly telling reporters the President is seriously considering terminating Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller according to the political news website politicususa.com.
Donald Trump has a lot of bad ideas, the website observes, but firing the special prosecutor investigating him for potential obstruction of justice and the Russia scandal would be the worst thing that he could do, the website says. Mueller and his investigation are the only things standing between Trump and Republican abandonment politicususa.com observes.
Whether or not Trump follows through on terminating Meuller is a different story, but it is important to note that innocent presidents don’t have thoughts of firing the special prosecutor seriously kicking around in their heads.
If Trump terminates Mueller, all hell will break loose in Washington, D.C. One would think that the President would have learned something from the Comey firing blowing up in his face. The lesson that Trump needs to learn is, don’t fire people who are investigating you.
The firing of Robert Mueller would make the Russia scandal ten times worse for Trump and leave Republicans in Congress no choice but to support an independent investigation. Trump is playing with fire and inching closer to burning his presidency to the ground.
