Ethics experts describe omission of meeting with Donald Trump Jr and Russia lawyer as ‘consciousness of guilt’ and say it warrants re-evaluation of clearance

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Jared Kushner’s White House security clearance should be “re-evaluated” after the revelation that he attended a now notorious meeting with Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer, according to a former White House ethics tsar.

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Democratic senators were still more forceful on Wednesday, one saying of Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser: “I don’t know why he still has a job.”

Kushner is facing growing pressure over his presence at the June 2016 meeting, which email correspondence published by Trump Jr said was intended as part of a Russian government effort to damage Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.

Kushner was required to disclose all meetings with foreign government officials over the past seven years when he applied for security clearance for his White House role. He initially failed to mention the Trump Jr meeting, then included it on a supplemental form.

Norm Eisen, the former ethics tsar in Barack Obama’s administration, told the Guardian on Wednesday: “Given the nature of the meeting, it stretches credibility to say he simply forgot it when he initially filled out his forms. That puts him on the hook for false statements liability, possibly. At any rate, it increases his exposure.

“The pattern of omission by Mr Kushner and others in Donald Trump’s circle of their Russia connections increasingly points to a consciousness of guilt.”

Crucial to the question of whether Kushner is charged with making false statements is intent. His lawyer has claimed the omissions were an honest mistake.

Eisen, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said: “I think, certainly, the security clearance should be re-evaluated. One must balance the principle of innocent until proven guilty with the less prudential standards that go into giving a security clearance.

The pattern of omission by Kushner and others in Donald Trump’s circle increasingly points to a consciousness of guilt. Norm Eisen

“Once a security clearance is granted it’s much harder to take away, and if this pattern of omission had been known when the security clearance was being considered, I doubt it would have been conferred.”

Trump Jr released a series of emails on Tuesday that revealed he had eagerly agreed to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer offering damaging information about Clinton. Trump Jr and the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, claim they ended up talking primarily about sanctions banning the adoption of Russian children by American citizens.

The president defended his eldest son on Wednesday, using Twitter to praise his performance in a Fox News interview. In the interview with Sean Hannity, Trump Jr admitted that, with hindsight, he would have done things differently.

“My son Donald did a good job last night,” the president wrote. “He was open, transparent and innocent. This is the greatest witch hunt in political history. Sad!”



Christopher Wray, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, told a Senate confirmation hearing he did not consider special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference to be a witch-hunt.

Kushner kept his usual low profile but faced growing calls to step down after months in which he said nothing while Trump and his associates repeatedly and misleadingly denied contacts with Russians. Whereas Trump Jr is a private citizen and businessman, Kushner is potentially more vulnerable because he is a member of the administration with security clearance.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic senators were happy to talk about Kushner. Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “I don’t know why Jared Kushner still has a job. He allowed the president of the United States, the vice-president, every spokesperson in the White House to openly lie about his contacts with the Russian government.

“You don’t think the Republicans would be calling for the resignation of an Obama official who allowed the president and the vice-president to openly lie about a major national security issue? He watched his father-in-law go on TV and say, ‘No one in my campaign talked to the Russian government.’

“He knew that was false. Either he didn’t alert the president or the vice-president, or there’s a much bigger problem, and the president and the vice-president knew that they were lying.”

New Mexico’s Martin Heinrich, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said Kushner should not maintain his security clearance until investigators get to the bottom of what transpired between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

“There’s this collective amnesia situation going on over there, where everybody suddenly forgot all of these meetings with Russian interests,” Heinrich said. “It’s just not credible.”

Heinrich would not say if Kushner should resign, but was terse when asked about his role as one of the president’s top advisers. “Then he should act like a senior adviser,” Heinrich said.

Asked if Kushner should lose his White House position, Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii told the Guardian: “That’s the decision that the president gets to make but let me put it this way, if he were not related by marriage to the president, I think he’d be already gone.”

A security clearance entitles Jared Kushner to … the keys to the kingdom in terms of our nation's crown jewels Senator Richard Blumenthal

Some Republicans voiced concern. Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent critic of Trump, said he was still waiting for answers from the White House and the FBI on the status of Kushner’s security clearance.

Last month, Graham joined Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee and the panel’s Republican chairman, Chuck Grassley, in signing a letter to Marcia Lee Kelly, deputy assistant to the president and director of White House management and office of administration, and acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.

The letter was sent following reports of previous contacts with Russians that Kushner had failed to disclose on an FBI questionnaire, such as meetings with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov, the CEO of Vnesheconombank, a Russian state-owned bank sanctioned by the US.

Asked if Kushner’s clearance should be revoked, Graham said: “I don’t know. I have no idea about that.”

Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat on the judiciary committee, pointed to his own letter to Kelly last month, seeking an immediate review of Kushner’s security clearance. In the letter, Blumenthal and two Democratic colleagues raised concerns over reports that Kushner sought to establish a back channel to the Russian government during the presidential transition period.

A review of Kushner’s clearance, Blumenthal said on Wednesday, was “now no longer a matter of choice”.

He continued: “They absolutely must review his security clearance. He’s indicated numerous meetings with the Russians, concealment of them, and the White House has offered contradictory statements about them.

“A security clearance entitles Jared Kushner to full access to the most secret and potentially significant information about our national defense and security, the identity of our agents who may be operating in countries like Russia. It’s the keys to the kingdom in terms of our nation’s crown jewels.”

Trump Jr has claimed that he told Kushner and Manafort “nothing of the substance” of the June 2016 meeting when inviting them, but the email chain shows they were sent the full correspondence under the subject heading “Russia – Clinton – private and confidential”.

If it is not revoked, the reason can only be his father-in-law is President Trump. That's no reason at all in a republic Professor Laurence Tribe

Trump Jr told Fox News Kushner left the meeting after five or 10 minutes when he realised it offered nothing pertinent. Veselnitskaya told NBC News that Kushner left the meeting after seven to 10 minutes.

Like Trump Jr, Kushner could be accused of violating campaign finance laws by soliciting a thing of value from a foreign government or a foreign national. Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss professor of constitutional law at New York University’s school of law, said: “Whether the facts are sufficient to bring it under that statute is a little grey, but I think the better of the argument is that they seem to be there.”

Issacharoff added: “I suspect that as [former FBI director] Mueller goes through his investigation this will be tied ultimately to other matters, but standing alone there’s clearly an intent to bring a foreign government into American electoral activity.”

Kushner’s legal status is complicated. “Obviously the more times he changes his declaration as facts emerge about things he knew or should have reported, the more difficult it is to maintain that these are innocent omissions,” Issacharoff said.



Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard law school, wrote in an email: “Jared Kushner’s failure to disclose that memorable (and probably unlawful) June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney is itself a serious and independent crime under 18 USC section 1001 punishable by five years in prison, and it would no doubt justify revocation of his security clearance.

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“If it is not revoked, the reason can only be that his father-in-law is President Trump. But that is no reason at all in a republic rather than a hereditary monarchy and under a constitution that bars titles of nobility. So I’d say his security clearance certainly ought to be revoked.”

CNN reported that the emails from Trump Jr about the June 2016 meeting were discovered as Kushner and his legal team carried out a document review for his testimony before Congress. As soon as the messages came to light, a source said, Kushner’s disclosure form was amended to include the meeting.



Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, issued a statement on Saturday that saidKushner “had over 100 calls or meetings with representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during transition. Mr Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr.

“As Mr Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, insisted Kushner did nothing wrong. “I think Democrats are trying to play political games, and I think it’s ridiculous,” she told reporters.

Huckabee Sanders claimed the White House was being as “transparent as humanly possible”. Asked if the “drip drip drip” is undermining the White House credibility, she shot back: “I think it’s actually undermining the credibility of the media.”