Should he attend the July 26 hearing, Donald Trump Jr. is certain to be asked about his role in arranging a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with officials connected to the Russian government. | Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort scheduled to testify in high-stakes hearings next week The hearings are the riskiest confrontations yet between lawmakers and Trump allies on the issue of Russian election meddling.

Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner are scheduled to face lawmakers next week in the highest-stakes hearings yet on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a top adviser, has been identified in a string of news reports as having multiple contacts with Russian officials and Kremlin surrogates during the 2016 campaign and transition. He plans to testify in a closed-door hearing of the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, his lawyer confirmed.


“As Mr. Kushner has been saying since March, he has been and is prepared to voluntarily cooperate and provide whatever information he has on the investigations to Congress," said attorney Abbe Lowell. "Working with and being responsive to the schedules of the committees, we have arranged Mr. Kushner's interview with the Senate for July 24. He will continue to cooperate and appreciates the opportunity to assist in putting this matter to rest.”

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee intends to call Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to testify on a panel about foreign influence in elections. The panel is also scheduled to include Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the firm that commissioned the salacious — and disputed — dossier on President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia.

The requests to testify at the July 26 hearing were received on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, and include a broad request for documents from players such as recent Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

The committee is also asking the campaign, the Trump Organization and those invited to testify to save documents from a host of characters, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The document requests also cover communications with Russian political operative Rinat Akhmetshin and lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya – who were present at a Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner – along with entertainment publicist Rob Goldstone and British intelliigence operative Christopher Steele, who orchestrated the disputed Trump Russia dossier.

It is unclear whether Trump Jr. and Manafort will actually testify. Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said the former Trump campaign manager's attorney got the Judiciary panel's letter late Wednesday and they were still reviewing the request.





Breaking News Alerts Get breaking news when it happens — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Taken together, the hearings are the riskiest and potentially most explosive confrontations yet between lawmakers and Trump allies on the issue of Russian meddling in the election on behalf of Trump. The president himself has dismissed the inquiry — the subject of two congressional probes and a special counsel investigation — as a hoax concocted by political enemies.

Now, it’s up to two of his closest family members to face probing questions from lawmakers on matters that have hobbled and consumed the Trump administration from the start.

The hearings — especially Wednesday's public session scheduled to include Trump Jr. and Manafort — are likely to be the most intensely watched since since former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last month and described his closed-door interactions with the president.

Should Trump Jr. attend the public hearing, he is certain to be asked about his role in arranging a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with officials connected to the Russian government, which he says he had hoped would result in the delivery of incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.

Those revelations, which Trump Jr. confirmed in an email chain he released last week, poured fuel on allegations that Trump campaign figures colluded with Russia.

He and his father have dismissed the criticisms, arguing that taking the meeting was standard-issue opposition research in the heat of a political campaign. But the meeting was the first concrete connection between Trump campaign and Kremlin-linked officials during the height of the election season.

Asked Monday night if Trump Jr. was planning to testify before Congress, his attorney Alan Futerfas told POLITICO: “We’re discussing this with various committees. That’s where I’m going to leave it.” Futerfas did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday after the Judiciary Committee notice went out.

