Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has started asking witnesses about Jared Kushner’s role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and Kushner has handed over documents to Mueller’s team in the last few weeks, according to a new report.
The focus on Kushner, a senior adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law, is a sign that Mueller is looking more closely at the decision to fire Comey as part of its investigation into whether the White House obstructed justice, CNN reported.
Many of the documents turned over by Kushner relate to the campaign and the transition and are thought to be similar to the documents he’s already turned over to congressional investigators. He met with both the Senate and House intelligence committees back in July.
But the CNN report also clarified that “sources close to the White House say that based on their knowledge, Kushner is not a target of the investigation.”
The news about Kushner comes towards the end of a week which was kicked off by the explosive news of indictments against Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manafort’s business associate, Rick Gates on a dozen charges, including money laundering and failure to register for work done on behalf of a foreign agent. Both Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty. A third person from the campaign, George Papadopoulos, has struck a plea deal with prosecutors for misleading FBI agents.
Kushner’s role in the campaign has been of interest to investigators on many fronts. Those include his relationship with Trump’s original national security advisor Mike Flynn, his efforts to set up a “back channel” of contact with some Russian officials during the transition, and also his attendance at a hotel meeting in 2016 in which some people from the Trump campaign believed they would receive damaging information on the Clinton campaign from a Russian lawyer.
Kushner’s role in the dismissal of Comey seemed likely to be probed by investigators, as opponents to the president have believed that Trump fired Comey for not backing off of an investigation into Flynn. The president is believed to have mentioned to Comey that he should back off the Flynn investigation during a one-on-one meeting, of which Comey took notes shortly after, and then ultimately leaked part of those notes to the press.
