Former White House counsel John Dean believes Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner could be among the next people indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“He’s probably been told by the prosecutors that he’s a target. That means that there’s — unless you’re going to cooperate, there’s going to be an indictment very likely following,” Dean told CNN Wednesday of President Trump’s eldest son and Mueller’s ongoing federal Russia investigation. “He’s not been called in front of a grand jury. That’s another sign that he’s being treated at arm’s length. So he’s got jeopardy.
“Kushner, I will be surprised if he’s not indicted. I think he’s got problems,” Dean said of the White House senior adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law, referring to the work Kushner did during the transition period to allegedly establish back channels with foreign governments.
Dean’s comments targeting Trump’s family come after Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior Fox News legal commentator, made similar remarks Wednesday afternoon to SiriusXM’s “The Dan Abrams Show.”
“I do know that Donald Jr. has told friends he expects to be indicted,” Napolitano said.
Trump Jr.’s legal exposure is rumored to originate from the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting set up between top Trump campaign aides and a Kremlin-linked lawyer on the pretext of sharing political dirt on then-Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. reportedly gave differing accounts of the meeting to the media and Congress.
Speculation regarding Trump Jr.’s future ramped up in October following Michael Cohen, the president’s ex-longtime personal lawyer and fixer, pleading guilty to “knowingly and willfully” making “a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement and representation” to the House and Senate Intelligence committees in 2017 regarding a Trump real estate project in Moscow. The charge emanated from Mueller’s probe.
Dean, a Trump critic, worked for former President Richard Nixon and served time in prison after pleading guilty to obstructing justice as part of the administration’s attempts to cover up the Watergate scandal.
