FILE - In this May 20, 2017 file photo, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz waves after addressing the Utah GOP Convention in Sandy, Utah. Chaffetz, a five-term Republican, says he doesn't feel compelled to talk... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 20, 2017 file photo, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz waves after addressing the Utah GOP Convention in Sandy, Utah. Chaffetz, a five-term Republican, says he doesn't feel compelled to talk about what he may do after leaving Congress next month. But he told The Associated Press on Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is willing to cooperate with federal investigators looking into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, his attorney said Thursday. 
 
 The statement from attorney Jamie Gorelick was issued amid reports that the FBI was investigating meetings Kushner had in December with Russian officials. 
 
 "Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry," the statement said. 
 
 Meanwhile, the chairman of the House oversight committee asked the FBI to turn over more documents about former Director James Comey's interactions with the White House and Justice Department, including materials dating back nearly four years to the Obama administration. 
 
 The FBI and the oversight committee — as well as several other congressional panels — are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump fired Comey May 9 amid questions about the FBI's investigation, which is now being overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director. 
 
 NBC News and The Washington Post first reported that the FBI's ongoing investigation includes a look at Kushner, which would place the probe inside the White House. 
 
 Kushner, a key White House adviser, had meetings late last year with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov. 
 
 The Post story cited anonymous "people familiar with the investigation," who said the FBI investigation does not mean that Kushner is suspected of a crime. 
 
 Earlier Thursday, House oversight committee chairman Jason Chaffetz told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants records of Comey's contacts with the White House and Justice Department dating to September 2013, when Comey was sworn in as FBI director under President Barack Obama. 
 
 In a letter to McCabe, Chaffetz said he is seeking to review Comey's memos and other written materials so he can "better understand" Comey's communications with the White House and attorney general's office. 
 
 Chaffetz, R-Utah, previously requested Comey's recent memos about his private contacts with Trump. But the bureau told him Thursday it could not yet turn them over because of Mueller's probe. 
 
 Chaffetz, who said last week he has his "subpoena pen" ready to force Comey or the FBI to turn over the documents, told McCabe that "Congress and the American public have a right and a duty to examine this issue independently of the special counsel's investigation." 
 
 He added, in a thinly veiled threat, "I trust and hope you understand this and make the right decision — to produce these documents to the committee immediately and on a voluntary basis." 
 
 Chaffetz's letter comes a month before he is scheduled to leave office after abruptly announcing his resignation earlier this year. He canceled a hearing scheduled Wednesday after Comey declined to testify. 
 
 Assistant FBI Director Gregory Brower told Chaffetz on Thursday the agency is evaluating his request and will update him as soon as possible. 
 
 Some Republican members of Congress have pressured Chaffetz to step down from the Comey probe, saying it should be led by someone who will remain in Congress. 
 
 Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., is considered the front-runner to replace Chaffetz as oversight chair. Gowdy led a special House panel that spent more than two years investigating the deadly 2012 attacks at a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Ken Dilanian, Peter Alexander. and Courtney Kube 
 
 Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, has come under FBI scrutiny in the Russia investigation, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News. 
 
 Investigators believe Kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry, officials said. That does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him. 
 
 The FBI’s scrutiny of Kushner places the bureau’s sprawling counterintelligence and criminal investigation not only on the doorstep of the White House, but the Trump family circle. The Washington Post first reported last week that a senior White House official close to Trump was a "person of interest," but did not name the person. The term "person of interest" has no legal meaning. 
 
 The officials said Kushner is in a different category from former Trump aides Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, who are formally considered subjects of the investigation. According to the Justice Department's U.S. Attorneys' Manual, "A 'subject' of an investigation is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation." 
 
 Records of both Manafort and Flynn have been demanded by grand jury subpoenas, NBC News has reported. 
 
 Related: Feds Subpoena Records for $3.5M Mystery Mortgage on Manafort's Home 
 
 It is not known whether Kushner has received any records requests from federal investigators. 
 
 Also unclear is what precisely about Kushner’s activities has drawn the FBI’s interest as it investigates whether Trump associates coordinated with the Russian campaign to interfere in the election. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is now leading the probe as a special counsel. 
 
 Kushner met at least once in December with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and he also met last year with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov. 
 
 Related: Flynn, Manafort Are Key Figures in Russia Probe That Mueller Will Lead 
 
 “Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings," Kushner's lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, told NBC News. "He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry." 
 
 Congressional aides have said they would like to question Kushner about that meeting, and Kushner has said he would voluntarily appear before the Senate intelligence committee as part of its Russia investigation. 
 
 Gorkov is chairman of VneshEconomBank, a Russian government-owned institution that has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2014. Gorkov studied at the training school for the FSB, one of Russia’s intelligence services. 
 
 Kushner, whose family’s real estate empire is worth $1.8 billion, according to Forbes, wields significant power in the White House. He is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. ||||| The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is calling for the suspension of Jared Kushner’s security clearance while the senior White House adviser is under FBI scrutiny. 
 
 “The FBI’s Russia investigation reached Trump’s backyard, and now it’s in his house,” DNC Deputy Communications Director Adrienne Watson said in a statement Thursday. “Kushner’s security clearance should be suspended until the FBI’s findings are complete.” 
 
 NBC News on Thursday reported that Kushner has come under scrutiny in the FBI’s investigation of possible collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 The FBI’s focus on Kushner does not mean he is suspected of a crime or considered a subject of the bureau’s wider probe of Russian election meddling last year. 
 
 Kushner’s attorney on Thursday said that top Trump administration official would cooperate on any probes of his past meetings with Russians. 
 
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 “Mr. Kushner previously volunteered with Congress what he knows about these meetings,” Jamie Gorelick said in a statement. “He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry” 
 
 The Washington Post on Thursday reported that investigators are instead examining Kushner’s meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a Russian banking executive late last year. The news comes a week after reports that the law enforcement investigation of Russian election intrusions had identified a current White House official as a person of interest, though the person’s identity was not revealed. 
 
 Kushner ranks among Trump’s closest confidants as is married to the president’s daughter Ivanka and oversees a vast agenda in his administration. ||||| White House senior adviser Jared Kushner leaves a meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Kushner defends his Russia contacts: 'I did not collude' In his statement to Senate investigators, the president's son-in-law recounts but downplays four meetings with Russians. 
 
 In his first public defense of his meetings with Russian officials during Donald Trump’s campaign and transition, Jared Kushner on Monday presented his encounters with those operatives as innocent interactions, according to testimony submitted to Senate investigators. 
 
 In an 11-page opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is part of the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign, Kushner — now a senior White House adviser — attempted to exonerate himself, writing: “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Instead, the powerful son-in-law painted a picture of himself as a loyal, overworked, and underexperienced senior adviser to his father-in-law during a novice campaign that was never staffed up to win. 
 
 Kushner reiterated the message in a brief statement to reporters gathered outside the White House after testifying to the Senate panel, during which he answered senators’ questions. He took no questions from reporters. 
 
 But the statements, designed to look fully transparent and take Kushner out of the Russia investigation spotlight, appeared to raise more questions about Kushner’s judgment than they answered. 
 
 To wit: The former real estate developer explained the glaring omissions on his security clearance forms — which did not originally include several meetings with Russian officials that have since come to light — as an honest mistake made by his assistant at the time. And like others in the Trump orbit who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Inauguration Day, Kushner also said he had trouble remembering the official after their first brief, previously unreported encounter at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. — the same event at which Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with, but didn’t remember, the Russian ambassador. 
 
 Overall, his account of events “still feels incomplete; it was not fulsome,” Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, said of the testimony. “I still wonder exactly what he discussed with Kislyak,” she said. But more importantly, she added, Kushner’s testimony provides no explanation for why he was cavalier in his interactions with Russians after intelligence community reports that Russia tried to meddle in the U.S. election. 
 
 “After that,” Farkas said, “why not alert the FBI? It doesn’t exhibit good judgment, or concerns for national security or the integrity of our democracy to be taking those meetings with the Russians.” 
 
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 The testimony also raised questions about how a man who blamed multiple foul-ups on sloppy paperwork, unread emails and misunderstandings, is overseeing such a vast portfolio in the White House. As a top West Wing official, Kushner’s situation does not appear to have changed much since the campaign. He still operates with a bare-bones staff, little bureaucracy and impossible burdens (see: overseeing the Middle East peace process while also innovating the entire federal government). 
 
 “I am not a person who has sought the spotlight,” Kushner said in his opening statement. But he explained that after Trump clinched the Republican nomination, his father-in-law asked Kushner to be the point of contact for foreign governments, and he was in touch with emissaries from 15 countries, including Russia. To put his hectic life and schedule into context — and explain away his presence at a meeting at which a Russian lawyer was hawking opposition research about Hillary Clinton — he also wrote that he typically received about 200 emails a day during the campaign and often didn’t read through every exchange. 
 
 In his opening testimony, Kushner walked through each of his four meetings with the Russians, downplaying all of them as brief, pro forma interactions that led to no follow-ups. 
 
 “I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then,” he wrote of Kislyak, with whom he reportedly tried to set up a communications back channel during the transition. “In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador.” 
 
 Trying to prove his point, he added: “when the campaign received an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from President Putin, I was asked how we could verify it was real. To do so, I thought the best way would be to ask the only contact I recalled meeting from the Russian government, which was the Ambassador I had met months earlier, so I sent an email asking Mr. [Dimitri] Simes [the publisher of a foreign policy magazine], ‘What is the name of the Russian ambassador?’” 
 
 Kushner also responded to a Reuters report that he had two follow-up calls with Kislyak. “A comprehensive review of my landline and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls,” he wrote of the reported calls in April and August 2016. 
 
 His second interaction with a Russian official was the now infamous Donald Trump Jr. meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, that June. 
 
 Kushner claimed he had no idea what he was walking into. An email from his brother-in-law reminded him of the time change to 4 p.m. for the Trump Tower meeting, and Kushner wrote that it was not abnormal to pop into each other’s offices for meetings. “That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time,” he wrote. “Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as ‘Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner.’ No one else was mentioned.” 
 
 The meeting, at which Veselnitskaya, Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and four other people were discussing Russian adoptions — and at which Trump Jr. expected to receive damaging information about Clinton — was outside his purview, he wrote. 
 
 “I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting,’” Kushner wrote. “No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted.” 
 
 His third and final contact with a potential Russian agent, he claimed, was a hoax email he received from a hacker trying to obtain Trump’s tax returns. 
 
 During the transition, he said, his only meeting with Kislyak lasted 23 minutes. 
 
 “I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations,” he wrote of the meeting where Kushner reportedly tried to set up a back channel of communication. It was Kislyak, Kushner wrote, who brought up U.S. policy in Syria and said “he wanted to convey information from what he called ‘his generals.’” 
 
 “He said he wanted to provide information that would help inform the new administration. He said the generals could not easily come to the U.S. to convey this information and he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation,” Kushner added. 
 
 Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Kushner explained to Kislyak that there was not. “I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” he explained, “and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration.” 
 
 Kushner said he declined two attempts by Kislyak in December for a follow-up meeting. Eventually, Kushner sent his assistant instead. It was there that Kislyak recommended that Kushner sit down with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Kremlin-linked Russian bank. All that was exchanged, he said, was a humble piece of art and a bag of dirt from the Belarus village where his grandparents were born. 
 
 “There were no specific policies discussed,” he said. “We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration. At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind.” 
 
 The Putin-linked bank, however, has provided a different explanation. The Washington Post reported that the bank claimed the meeting was part of a new business strategy and that it was held with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos. 
 
 As for the confusion about his security clearance forms, he blamed the omissions on an assistant. 
 
 “[People at my New York office] sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed,” he wrote. “At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017.” 
 
 But lawyers cast doubt on his hurried explanation of the gaps on his security clearance forms. “The idea he’d have his staff fill out the questionnaire is beyond belief itself,” said Nick Akerman, a former assistant Watergate prosecutor, noting the process requires a physical signature. “Someone on this committee has to go through this point by point and take him through this whole process.” 
 
 Kushner is so rarely heard from in public that when he spoke, briefly, at a tech conference earlier this summer, many people joked they didn’t know what his voice sounded like. “It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense,” Kushner noted in his testimony. But it won’t be his last such appearance. 
 
 Kushner, who will face a second grilling by the House on Tuesday, prepared for both sessions with his lawyers. He claimed, at the end of his lengthy statement: “I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required.” 
 
 Sen. Mark Warner, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, said he anticipated additional appearances by Kushner before the committee in the future: “There’s broad bipartisan expectation that we’ll want to hear from Mr. Kushner again.” 
 
 While Kushner and his aides may be hoping to make him a less juicy target than other former Trump officials under investigation, like Manafort and Trump Jr., the statement is only the beginning of the story. 
 
 “The key,” said Peter Zeidenberg, who served on the Justice Department’s special prosecution team during the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation, “will be how this story holds up to a thorough cross-examination.” 
 
 Darren Samuelsohn and Austin Wright contributed to this report. ||||| The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat called for a review of Jared Kushner's security clearance over questions of whether he was truthful about his contacts with Russia. 
 
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 Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, spoke to ABC News' Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview on "This Week" Sunday in the wake of revelations that Kushner, the son-in-law and senior adviser to President Trump, talked to the Russian ambassador about establishing a back channel for communications in December, before Trump took office. 
 
 “If these allegations are true and he had discussions with the Russians about establishing a backchannel and didn't reveal that, that's a real problem in terms of whether he should maintain that kind of a security clearance,” Schiff said. 
 
 "There ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful, whether he was candid" about his Russia contacts, Schiff added in an apparent reference to what Kushner may have submitted in the security clearance application process. "If not, than there's no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance." 
 
 Kushner, who met with the Russian ambassador in December along with Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, asked for back-channel communications to discuss Syria and other policy matters, sources told ABC News. 
 
 The Democratic National Committee is calling for Kushner's security clearance to be suspended until the federal investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump associates is completed. 
 
 "The FBI's Russia investigation reached Trump's backyard, and now it's in his house," the DNC deputy communications director Adrienne Watson said in a statement Thursday. "Kushner's security clearance should be suspended until the FBI's findings are complete." 
 
 U.S. intelligence operatives reportedly learned about Kushner's interest in back-channel talks through communications that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had with Moscow. Raddatz said Kislyak must know "he’s being monitored all the time" and asked Schiff if it was possible the Russians wanted U.S. intelligence to hear what the Russian ambassador said about Kushner. 
 
 "Could it be a ruse" by Russia to get Americans to suspect Kushner? Raddatz asked. 
 
 Schiff responded, "Certainly in dealings with the Russians, they're very sophisticated, you always have to take into consideration that the Russians may be doing things that are designed to throw you off the track or provoke discord." 
 
 He added, though, that "it's hard to understand ... why this would be some kind of a Russian ruse. Why would they want to undermine the very government that they hope to have a good relationship with?" 
 
 Schiff said that he expects Kushner to be asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat called for a review of Jared Kushner's security clearance over questions of whether he was truthful in his application about his contacts with Russia.
– Jared Kushner will be cooperating with any probe of Russian links to his father-in-law's campaign, a lawyer confirmed Thursday after reports that investigators are focusing on the senior White House adviser surfaced. Attorney Jamie Gorelick said Kushner has already offered to tell Congress all about his meetings with Russian officials and he will do the same "if contacted in connection with any other inquiry." Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that federal investigators have been looking into Kushner's Russian contacts for months, though he has not yet been contacted by the FBI. In other coverage: Sources tell NBC News that investigators believe Kushner has information that could be very useful to the Russia investigation, though he's not personally suspected of wrongdoing. Kushner met Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov last year. Democrats are calling for Kushner's White House security clearance to be pulled, the Hill reports. "The FBI's Russia investigation reached Trump's backyard, and now it's in his house," DNC Deputy Communications Director Adrienne Watson said in a statement. "Kushner's security clearance should be suspended until the FBI's findings are complete." Investigators are also looking into possible financial crimes, according to the Telegraph, though the Justice Department isn't providing details. "I can't confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations," spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said. While much is still unclear, there will be plenty of people saying "I told you so" if corruption allegations involving Kushner surface, according to Aaron Blake at the Washington Post. Trump's hiring of a family member for a senior White House role was strongly criticized, and "as any expert on corrupt authoritarian regimes throughout history will tell you, those regimes' wrongdoing will often run through family members with official titles," he writes. In a separate development linked to the Russia investigation, House Oversight Committee chief Rep. Jason Chaffetz said he wants to review former FBI Director James Comey's contacts with the White House and Justice Department going all the way back to 2013, the AP reports. He told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants to "better understand" Comey's interactions with the White House. Chaffetz announced his surprise resignation last week, and Republicans are pushing to have him replaced by somebody who will be in office for longer.