Kellyanne Conway calls Kushner's backchannels 'regular course of business'

Back-channel communication with foreign nations of the type that White House adviser Jared Kushner reportedly sought with the Russian government are “the regular course of business,” counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday morning.

The Washington Post and other media outlets reported over the weekend that Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, suggested to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. that the Kremlin and Trump’s transition team set up a secret communications channel and meet in Russian diplomatic facilities in order to avoid U.S. intelligence operations.


Former U.S. national security officials have suggested that such a line of communication would be out of the norm for a presidential transition team and that could possibly be illegal. But Conway downplayed the reports of Kushner’s proposals to Russian officials as falling within the realm of ordinary White House work.

“Back channels like this are the regular course of business. And that's really all that we know,” she told Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday. “And I think it's very important to recognize that the president has expressed full confidence in Jared Kushner and also went on to note the considerable progress and very large important portfolio that Jared oversees here at the White House.”

Other White House officials have come to Kushner’s defense as well, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who said he was “not concerned” by the reports, and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, who said Sunday that “any channel of communication, back or otherwise, with a country like Russia is a good thing.”

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Conway declined to comment on a New York Times story published Monday reporting that Kushner was seeking a line of communication to Vladimir Putin when he met in December with a Russian banker with close ties to the Russian president. According to the Times, that meeting has come under increasing scrutiny from investigators examining the possibility of collusion between the Russian government and individuals with ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“I'm not going to comment on any of that because there is no reason to, frankly,” Conway said when asked specifically about the Times report. “We know that there are been many news reports very recently that had the facts wrong."