Jared Kushner Is In Big Trouble, Whether Or Not He Tried To Make a Deal With the Russian Government

Photo Credit: Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff/Flickr)

​Friday the Washington Post reported that Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to President Trump, proposed setting up a secret channel within the Russian embassy for private communications with the Kremlin. The conversation took place in December, during the transition period when Barack Obama was president. Kushner’s contact, Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, was so taken aback by his request that he discussed it with his superiors in Moscow. Kislyak ultimately turned down the offer.
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Michael Flynn, advisor during the transition, who was fired as National Security Advisor for lying to the Vice President about his conversations with the Russian government, was also present during the conversation.

Mr. Kushner is in big trouble, no matter what his reasons were for attempting to set up a secret channel of communication, outside the prying ears of the National Security Agency. He failed to disclose this conversation on this SF 86, the security form used for investigations necessary to earn a security clearance. When confronted with the omission on his SF 86, his attorney stated that he had forgotten to disclose the contact. Since then, it has been reported that there were additional conversations between Kushner and the Russian government, also not disclosed on the SF 86, as early as April of 2016.

The attempted channel, relying on Russian government communications within the Russian embassy, would have gone far beyond any “back channel” communications set up during any other administration. (The proposed secret channel was to circumvent surveillance before Inauguration, so there is no credible explanation that Kushner was acting as a representative of a sitting president.) “Back channel” normally refers to private conversations between a representative of the president and members of a foreign government. A legitimate back channel would not be set up before Inauguration, using Russian communications systems.

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, suggested in a Twitter message Saturday: “When are back channels suspicious? When proposed by president-elect's son-in-law using Russian comms w/ no clear national security purpose.”

Regardless of the reasons for this attempt at circumventing U.S. intelligence monitoring (and I can think of none that are not nefarious), it is felony to knowingly fail to disclose contacts with foreign nationals on the SF 86 (18 USC 1001). By the normal procedures followed in such cases, Kushner’s security clearance should be suspended pending further investigation, and he should be suspended from his job as senior advisor to the president.
The Washington Post article about the attempt to set up the secret channel, published May 26, can be found here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.b31b0a061659
 
The Reuters article about Kushner’s conversations before and after the election, published May 27, can be found here.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-fbi-kushner-exclusive-idUSKBN18N018
 
 An article from Solomon Wisenberg, attorney specializing in white collar felony defense, describing how to avoid going to jail for violating 18 USC 1001, can be found here.
http://www.wisenberglaw.com/Articles/How-to-Avoid-Going-to-Jail-under-18-U-S-C-Section-1001-for-Lying-to-Government-Agents.shtml

 Bill Kristol's Tweet:

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The certification from the form is shown below.

The SF 86 form can be found here.
file:///C:/Users/Lisa/Downloads/SF86-10.pdf