Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner denied Monday that he colluded with Russians in the course of President Donald Trump's successful White House bid, declaring in a statement ahead of interviews with congressional committees that he has "nothing to hide."
The 11-page statement , released hours before Kushner's closed-door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee, details four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. It aims to explain inconsistencies and omissions in a security clearance form that have invited public scrutiny.
"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in the prepared remarks in which he also insists that none of the contacts, which include meetings at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador and a Russian lawyer, was improper.
In speaking to Congress, Kushner - as both the president's son-in-law and a trusted senior adviser during the campaign and inside the White House - becomes the first member of the president's inner circle to face questions from congressional investigators as they probe Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. He is to meet with staff on the Senate intelligence committee Monday and lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday.
Kushner's appearances have been highly anticipated, in part because of a series of headlines in recent months about his interactions with Russians and because the reticent Kushner had until Monday not personally responded to questions about an incomplete security clearance form and his conversations with foreigners.
A 'waste of time'
The 36-year-old, working in his first political position, was to be asked about meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer - the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.
In his statement Kushner said the meeting – which Donald Jr had taken hoping to get dirt on his father's rival Hillary Clinton – was a "waste of time."
Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading the investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.
The White House has recruited an array of attorneys with expertise in constitutional law and criminal defense. They have mounted a vicious media counter-attack, accusing Mueller's team of being biased toward Trump's election opponent Hillary Clinton, and have also assailed the breadth of the investigation.
On Sunday, newly-installed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."
Donald Jr and Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign director, are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee to give their version of events.
