Jared needs some Gingko
by digby
Jared has a real memory problem. Seriously. A bad one. He should have some tests. But not by this guy:
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, was aware of a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” but failed to provide that information to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the leaders of that committee said in a letter Thursday to Kushner’s lawyer. The reported overture is one of multiple revelations about Trump campaign contacts with Russia that Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disclosed in their letter accusing Kushner of improperly withholding information about the communications.
The letter marks the resumption of a joint Russia investigation led by Grassley and Feinstein. The two senators had stopped cooperating last month due to a disagreement about the scope of the probe.
The senators said they know Kushner withheld the information because people questioned separately by the committee disclosed emails detailing contacts with Russia on which Kushner was copied. “Other parties have produced documents concerning a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’ that Kushner forwarded to others,” the senators wrote. Kushner is one of several Trump associates who reportedly had multiple contacts with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent transition period. Those include a November 16, 2016, meeting in which Kushner reportedly requested Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s help in setting up back-channel communications between Trump and the Kremlin. Kushner claims that he was responding to Kislyak’s request to set up a secure line to convey sensitive information on Syria. It is not clear if that meeting represented the “overture and dinner invite” the senators cited or if the overture is a newly disclosed contact between the Trump camp and Russia
Grassley and Feinstein also said that their committee has obtained communications, on which Kushner was copied, with Sergey Millian, a Belarusian-American businessman with multiple ties to Trump and his campaign. Millian, the president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the United States and the owner of a translation service, once described himself as the Trump Organization’s “exclusive broker” helping Russians buying apartments in Trump buildings. Millian is also reportedly one of the key sources whose claims about Russian attempts to cultivate Trump were cited in the set of memos compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. The Washington Post has reported that Millian last year told associates he was in touch with George Papadopolous, the Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russians. Papadopolous and Millian were Facebook friends, the Post noted.