text: FILE - In this June 22, 2017, file photo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during the "American Leadership in Emerging Technology" event with President Donald Trump in the East Room of... (Associated Press) 
   
   WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the Russia investigations (all times local): 
   
   1:25 p.m. 
   
   White House senior adviser and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner says he did not collude with Russia. 
   
   Kushner spoke to reporters at the White House Monday after meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. Kushner told reporters he wanted to be "very clear." He said he "did not collude with Russia nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so." 
   
   Kushner says he "had no improper contacts" with Russia and says his actions were entirely "proper." 
   
   Kushner left his private meeting with Senate investigators, nearly three hours after it began. He delivered a brief statement upon his return to the White House but did not answer reporters' questions. 
   
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   12:30 p.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump's son-in-law has concluded his meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 
   
   Jared Kushner left the private meeting around 12:25 p.m., nearly three hours after it began. A man tried to hand him a Russian flag and police stopped him. 
   
   Kushner is to make a public statement from the White House Monday afternoon. 
   
   In a written statement released before the committee meeting, Kushner said he never colluded with Russians looking to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton and does not know of anyone who did. 
   
   He disclosed four interactions with Russians during the campaign and transition, saying he had nothing to hide. Those were with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., a Russian banker and a Russian lawyer said to have damaging information about Clinton. 
   
   Kushner was to meet Tuesday with the House intelligence committee. 
   
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   11:10 a.m. 
   
   House Speaker Paul Ryan says special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, isn't a biased partisan. 
   
   Ryan's comments in a radio interview in Milwaukee come as President Donald Trump repeatedly has dismissed Mueller's investigation as a political witch hunt. 
   
   On the "Jay Weber Show," Ryan was asked why more Republicans aren't defending Trump in light of the Mueller investigation. 
   
   Ryan says the facts uncovered through the Mueller and congressional investigations will "vindicate themselves." And he says there's no question that Mueller is a Republican, noting that he was first appointed FBI director under Republican President George W. Bush in 2001. 
   
   Ryan says, "I don't think many people are saying Bob Mueller is a biased partisan. He's anything but." 
   
   ___ 
   
   9:45 a.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump's son-in-law has arrived for questioning by Senate investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. 
   
   Jared Kushner is speaking in a closed session Monday to staff on the Senate intelligence committee. Earlier, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. 
   
   Kushner in those prepared remarks says he "did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government." 
   
   Kushner is to meet with lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday. 
   
   __ 
   
   9:20 a.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump is calling the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel "sleazy" for conducting what he says is a "biased" Russia investigation. 
   
   The president tweeted Monday that "Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into 'Russia,' spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!" 
   
   Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a "witch hunt" spearheaded by Democrats because of the Republican victory in 2016. 
   
   California Rep. Schiff has been an outspoken advocate of hearing testimony from Trump associates on their contacts with Russian officials during last year's election. 
   
   ___ 
   
   9 a.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump is questioning why those investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by members of his campaign aren't digging into Hillary Clinton's "crimes & Russia relations." 
   
   In doing so, the president took his latest swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, including him in the list of people who he says should be investigating Clinton's potential Russia links. 
   
   Trump tweeted Monday, "So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" 
   
   Sessions recused himself from the investigation earlier this year after it was revealed that he had met with a top Russian diplomat last year. 
   
   Trump condemned Sessions' recusal in a New York Times interview last week, saying he never should have taken the job as attorney general. 
   
   __ 
   
   7:20 a.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump's son-in-law says he received a "random email" during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trump's tax returns and demanding ransom to keep the information secret. 
   
   Jared Kushner says he interpreted the email as a hoax. Kushner says the email came from a person going by the name "Guccifer400." The name is an apparent reference to Guccifer 2.0, an anonymous hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee's computer systems. 
   
   Kushner says the emailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it. Kushner disclosed the details of the email ahead of a closed-door interview Monday with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. 
   
   __ 
   
   6:33 a.m. 
   
   The son-in-law of President Donald Trump is blaming his assistant for filing a version of his security clearance questionnaire that left off any contacts with foreign governments. 
   
   Jared Kushner says the assistant accidentally filed the questionnaire while it was still being prepared. He says the initial form left off all foreign contacts, not just ones with Russians. Kushner says he eventually disclosed more than 100 contacts with people from more than 20 countries. Kushner says that list includes the King of Jordan, the prime minister of Israel and a high-ranking Mexican government official. 
   
   Kushner is disclosing the information about his foreign contacts just hours before he speaks behind closed doors with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with Trump associates. 
   
   ___ 
   
   6:06 a.m. 
   
   The son-in-law of President Donald Trump says a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. 
   
   That's according to a statement Jared Kushner is providing to congressional committees this week. 
   
   Emails released this month show Donald Trump Jr. accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers. 
   
   Kushner says in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions. He says he texted his assistant to call him out of the meeting. 
   
   ___ 
   
   6:00 a.m. 
   
   President Donald Trump's son-in-law says that he only had four contacts with Russians during the campaign and presidential transition and that none of them were improper. 
   
   Jared Kusher also says he never colluded with any foreign government during the presidential campaign. He also is denying that Russians finance any of his business in the private sector. 
   
   Kushner is disclosing the information in an 11-page statement provided to The Associated Press. The release of the statement comes just hours before he is to be interviewed by a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates. 
   
   The interview with the Senate intelligence committee is behind closed doors. 
   
   ___ 
   
   3:20 a.m. 
   
   Congressional investigators probing Russia's meddling in the U.S. election will have their first opportunity this week to hear from someone in President Donald Trump's innermost circle: son-in-law Jared Kushner. 
   
   Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president and is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, will talk to staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday behind closed doors. On Tuesday, he'll talk privately to members of the House Intelligence Committee. 
   
   Both panels are investigating Russian interference and possible connections to Trump's campaign. Kushner has attracted attention for a December meeting with a leading Russian diplomat. He oversaw digital strategy for the campaign, and some lawmakers have said they want more answers about whether Russian social media "trolls" were connected to Trump's election efforts. ||||| Jared Kushner really wants everyone to believe that he did nothing wrong. 
   
   Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide released a public statement about the Russia scandal on Monday morning, a preview of what he’s going to say in closed-door congressional testimony this week. 
   
   “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. 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,�? Kushner writes. “Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.�? 
   
   But a close read of the letter suggests that it does not, in fact, put these matters to rest. By Kushner’s own account, he met with Russian nationals four times during the presidential campaign and transition. His descriptions of these meetings are incomplete, full of unconfirmed details, and at times directly contradictory of other sources’ accounts of the same events. 
   
   The statement is carefully constructed; the whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team. But shady behavior is still shady no matter how good the lawyers — and even Kushner’s very precise defense of his actions raises big new questions for the Trump-Russia scandal. What follows are three of the biggest issues it brings up. 
   
   Someone has massively misled us on the Trump-Russia backchannel 
   
   On December 1, 2016, Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump’s now-disgraced National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was also present at the meeting. 
   
   At this meeting, the Washington Post reported back in May, Kushner had asked Kislyak if it would be possible to set up a secure communications line between the Trump camp and Russia inside the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Post reported that this was “an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to US officials briefed on intelligence reports.�? 
   
   In his statement on Monday, Kushner confirms that this meeting took place. He also confirms that he asked Kislyak about communicating through a secure line at the embassy. But he says it was a one-time proposal for receiving information about the Syrian conflict during the transition and denies that there was any effort to hide communications between the Trump camp and Russia from US snooping: 
   
   I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, 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. Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a "secret back channel." I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions. 
   
   To be clear, experts believe even this limited proposal was a bad idea. Anyone familiar with spying knows that sending a US citizen into a secure Russian communications facility would be rejected by both US and Russian intelligence as too risky. Kushner’s defense, in essence, is ignorance: He briefly proposed a really bad idea, it was shot down by Kislyak, and that was the end of it. 
   
   But this is a very different account of the meeting than what appeared in the Post. A number of US intelligence officials, according to the Post, seemed to believe the effort was a far more ambitious attempt to hide the Trump team’s communications from the US’s own spies. This would be incredibly nefarious: It would suggest that there was some information Kushner wanted to share with the Russians (or vice versa) but did not want anyone in the US government, let alone the American public, to know about. 
   
   There are only three possible options: The Post’s report is wrong, American spies misread the meeting, or Kushner is lying. 
   
   This isn’t an unresolvable conflict. According to the Post, US intelligence officials based their assessment on an intercept of a phone call between Kislyak and his superiors at the Kremlin, wherein he recounted his version of the meeting. 
   
   “Kislyak reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate,�? the Post’s Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller write. “Officials said that it’s unclear what Kislyak would have had to gain by falsely characterizing his contacts with Kushner to Moscow.�? 
   
   So far from clearing things up, Kushner’s letter has now raised a series of new questions: Why does his account of the meeting differ so sharply from what the intercept of Kislyak’s call seemed to suggest? What did Kislyak actually tell the Russian government about the call? And how does Flynn, who has offered to testify in exchange for immunity for prosecution, recall the meeting? 
   
   Kushner met with a shady Russian banker/former intelligence officer at the Russian government’s urging 
   
   After the December 1 meeting, Kislyak and Kushner stayed in touch. According to Kushner, he turned down multiple requests to meet with Kislyak again, once even arranging a meeting between Kislyak and his assistant to avoid having to sit down again (which seems odd, given Kislyak’s stature). 
   
   The ambassador repeatedly insisted that Kushner meet with a man named Sergey Gorkov, the head of the state-connected Russian bank Vnesheconombank (VEB). Gorkov is known to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and graduated from the Russian FSB’s spy academy; his bank had been directly targeted by sanctions imposed by the Obama administration after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet Kushner decided to have a sit-down with Gorkov at the Russian government’s urging. 
   
   “I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President [Putin], and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days,�? Kushner says. 
   
   This meeting has been public knowledge since March. But the details in Kushner’s statement raise new questions about the nature of the meeting itself. 
   
   In a statement, Gorkov said the meeting was part of a broader strategy of sitting down with “business circles of the US, including with the head of Kushner Companies, Jared Kushner.�? This would suggest that the meeting was about potentially doing business together — which would raise serious conflict of interest questions given Kushner’s role doing policy work for his father-in-law. If they chatted about potentially providing loans to VEB, as my colleague Alexia Fernández Campbell explains, Kushner could face 20 years in prison under US sanctions law. 
   
   Kushner flatly denies all of this. 
   
   “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. At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings,�? he writes in his statement. 
   
   Instead, he says, Gorkov gave him some gifts, “told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy,�? and “said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future.�? 
   
   That sounds extremely boring. So why would Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, badger Kushner — for days, Kushner’s account suggests — to take such a boring meeting? And why does the Putin-linked banker in question have an account of the meeting’s agenda that’s different from Kushner’s? And what “statements about the Russian economy�? did Gorkov allegedly make, exactly? Did they suggest investment opportunities for the Kushner Companies, perhaps loans? 
   
   Again, Kushner’s statement doesn’t really resolve anything — instead, it raises a host of significant new questions about his links to the Kremlin. 
   
   This letter reveals a ton of specific facts about collusion that set up Kushner for trouble 
   
   These two meetings, with Kislyak and Gorkov, took place during the transition. But there’s another key meeting that Kushner took, this time during the campaign: Donald Trump Jr.’s now-infamous June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer to try to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. 
   
   Kushner’s defense of attending the meeting is that he had no clue what it was really about. 
   
   He claims not to have read to the bottom of the email chain in which it was written that the meeting was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.�? He claims to have been “a little late�? to the meeting, and that when he arrived they were talking about “the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children,�? implying that he missed the part where they discussed Russian dirt on Clinton (which according to Trump Jr. happened at the beginning). 
   
   He then claims to have been super bored for the whole thing: “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.’�? 
   
   This, yet again, is an odd account of the meeting in question. It would lead us to believe that Kushner never asked Donald Trump Jr. why he brought Kushner into this waste of time meeting during a vital period in the campaign (right after they secured the nomination, shortly before the Republican National Convention). 
   
   But perhaps more fundamentally, Kushner’s account provides a lot of details that can be checked by reporters, FBI agents, and congressional investigators. For example, was Kushner actually late enough to the meeting to miss every mention of potential assistance with the campaign? There were seven other people there, and you can bet the FBI will be talking to all of them to confirm Kushner’s story. 
   
   There’s a lot for investigators to go on here 
   
   Indeed, the entire section of the letter focusing on the campaign is like this: Kushner sets up very specific factual assertions, many of which can be easily checked by reporters and federal investigators. 
   
   For example, Kushner specifically contests a report, from Reuters, that he had two calls with Kislyak during the campaign (specifically, between April and November 2016). 
   
   “I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador,�? he writes. “We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.�? 
   
   This is a very specific factual assertion: There were no calls between Kushner and any number that could be traced back to Kislyak or one of his associates during a seven-month time frame. The FBI can review the same phone records and see who’s telling the truth. 
   
   His first conversation with Kislyak, Kushner claims, took place at a Trump foreign policy speech delivered in April 2016 in Washington. Reportedly, Dimitri Simes — the CEO of the Center for the National Interest, which convened the speech — introduced the two men. 
   
   “He [Simes] introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,�? Kushner writes. “With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries. ... Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.�? 
   
   Again, these are all specific assertions that investigators can look into, to see if they are outright false or at very least omit important context. And there’s every indication that Congress and the FBI will do just that. 
   
   “His description of his financial relationships with individuals and businesses tied to Russia appears incomplete, at best,�? Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a statement emailed to press after the letter’s release. “There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement.�? 
   
   Kushner’s legal team may have hoped that this letter would help put suspicion surrounding Kushner’s links to Russia to bed. It seems more likely that the opposite will be true: that the unanswered questions in this statement will lead to even closer scrutiny of one of the president’s top advisers. 
   
   Watch: Why Donald Trump Jr.'s emails change everything ||||| "I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner says in the 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. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest." 
   
   Kushner disputes a Reuters report claiming he had two phone calls between April and November 2016 with the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey Kislyak, explaining that he has no recollection of those calls and a "comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls." 
   
   Kushner also seeks to distance himself from the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that has become a part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, saying he had no prior knowledge of the topic and did not read Trump Jr.'s full email asking him to join the session. 
   
   "That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time," Kushner said in the statement. "As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office." 
   
   The bulk of the email revealed that Trump Jr. believed the Russian government would provide him with damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the meeting. 
   
   The meeting's participants said the meeting instead focused on Russian adoptions, and Kushner says in his statement that he emailed his assistant about 10 minutes after he walked into the room. 
   
   "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting," Kushner wrote to his assistant in an email provided to the committees alongside the statement. He quoted the emails in his statement but did not disclose them to the media. 
   
   The previously undisclosed detail is just one of several that Kushner reveals in the letter in an effort to clear himself of any suspicions stemming from the congressional and federal investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russia. 
   
   The June 2016 meeting set up by Trump Jr., which was only publicly revealed for the first time this month, has become a target of scrutiny in those investigations after emails revealed that Trump Jr. believed he would obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. 
   
   President Donald Trump has repeatedly decried the investigations as a "witch hunt," but the June 2016 meeting and surrounding emails offered the most concrete evidence that Trump campaign officials were open to collaborating with the Russian government. 
   
   Kushner also addresses the controversy over his SF-86 form -- the questionnaire needed to obtain a security clearance -- explaining that it was prematurely submitted in error by his assistant, who believed the forms were complete. 
   
   "People at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form. They 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," Kushner writes, noting that the form was a "rough draft" at the time. "Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017." 
   
   Kushner says he and his team realized that evening the form was submitted prematurely and the next day, they provided an update to the transition noting that Kushner had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and would soon provide a full accounting of those contacts. 
   
   He would subsequently update the SF-86 form two more times. In the next update, he provided a list of more than 100 contacts with foreign officials, but left off the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. 
   
   JUST WATCHED Mueller to WH: Preserve Trump Jr. meeting docs Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mueller to WH: Preserve Trump Jr. meeting docs 02:56 
   
   Kushner said he later became aware of that update amid a review of his records, and his attorneys provided another update to his SF-86 form last month. 
   
   Kushner also provided his first accounting of what he said were his only two meetings with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, during the campaign and transition, and says that neither encounter included a discussion of US-imposed sanctions. Kislyak completed his service as ambassador and returned to Russia over the weekend. 
   
   Kushner described his first encounter with Kislyak during the campaign as brief, with little more than "pleasantries exchanged." 
   
   He then met with Kislyak during the transition, at which point the then-Russian ambassador offered to provide transition officials with Russian military information on the conflict in Syria. 
   
   That meeting was the subject of reports claiming that Kushner and Kislyak had sought to establish a secret backchannel between the two countries, which Kushner denies. 
   
   But Kushner does confirm that he sought to receive the Syria briefing from Russian generals at the Russian embassy in Washington because the transition office was not equipped with secure lines. But Kislyak said "that would not be possible," Kushner explains. 
   
   Kushner also offers his first on-the-record account of his meeting with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian state-owned VneshEconomBank, or VEB, whom Kushner says he met with at Kislyak's behest. 
   
   Kushner disputes VEB's account of the meeting. He says he met with Gorkov in his capacity as a transition official because of Gorkov's close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. VEB, which has been under US sanctions since July 2014, has claimed the interaction was a business meeting set up due to Kushner's role as a prominent New York real estate developer. 
   
   Now a senior adviser to the President, Kushner discloses that he received two gifts from Gorkov and said he asked his assistant to register them with the transition at the time: "One was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village." 
   
   This story has been updated with additional details from Kushner's statement. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
   
   Jared Kushner told reporters Monday he had done nothing wrong, that no collusion with Russia had taken place, and that his father-in-law won in November because he ran a better campaign than Hillary Clinton — not because he got help from Moscow. 
   
   "Let me be very clear. I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner, a senior presidential adviser, said at a podium in front of the White House after more than two hours of questions behind closed doors from staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 
   
   Related: Jared Kushner’s Full Statement to Congress 
   
   "Records and documents I’ve provided will show all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events in a very unique campaign," he said. "I had no improper contacts, I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information." 
   
   He added, "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him." 
   
   Earlier in the day, before Kushner was interviewed by the committee staff, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during the election and transition and denying any collusion with Moscow. 
   
   Among the meetings with Russian officials he addressed in his written statement was a June 2016 sit-down that included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. In his statement, Kushner said that meeting was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. 
   
   Ahead of that meeting, Donald Trump Jr. had been promised potentially damaging information about Clinton, according to emails he released earlier this month — although the president's son has said the meeting did not produce any information and that Veselnitskaya wanted to discuss an adoption program of Russian children. 
   
   Democrats have pounced on the meeting as evidence that Trump Jr. was willing to collude with a foreigner purporting to have information tied to the Russian government to help his father's presidential campaign and influence the results of the election. 
   
   Kushner said in his initial Monday statement that he had not spoken to the lawyer since. "I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently," he said. 
   
   In his statement, Kushner said his first meeting with a Russian official came in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Following a speech there by then-candidate Trump about foreign policy, the event’s host, Dimitri Simes, introduced Kushner "to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak." 
   
   Kushner wrote of two additional meetings with Russian officials, both which occurred after Trump won. 
   
   President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor, Jared Kushner, arrives for a meeting with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 24 in Washington. Win McNamee / Getty Images 
   
   A Dec. 1 meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower "lasted twenty- thirty minutes," where "Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President's National Security Advisor" was also present, Kushner said he "stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President," he wrote. 
   
   Kushner, in his statement, also wrote of a Dec. 13 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, who Kislyak had said "was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together." 
   
   "I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days," Kushner wrote. 
   
   "As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration," Kushner wrote. 
   
   NBC News had reported in June that members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees proving Russian interference might be looking into whether Kushner had been looking for a customer in Moscow to buy the massively expensive 41-story tower at 666 Fifth Avenue from his family's real estate company. 
   
   The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Russia's alleged attempted interference in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the covert operation was intended to damage Clinton's campaign and evolved into an attempt to help Trump win. 
   
   Kushner arrived at Capitol Hill for his interviews around 9:40 a.m., and did not respond to questions being shouted by reporters. 
   
   He emerged more than two hours later, responding to more shouted questions from reporters that his interviews had gone "very well" and that he had answered "as many (questions) as they had." He later spoke to reporters in front of the White House at a podium with the White House seal on it. 
   
   His interview took place in a special area used for classified briefings and meetings called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF. The SCIF is on the second floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, the same place where the Intelligence Committee has held recent interviews with James Clapper, Denis McDonough and Susan Rice. 
   
   Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate panel, said Monday there was a "broad bipartisan expectation" that Kushner would be called before the committee again. ||||| STATEMENT OF JARED C. KUSHNER TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES 
   
   
   
   July 24, 2017 
   
   I am voluntarily providing this statement, submitting documents, and sitting for interviews in order to shed light on issues that have been raised about my role in the Trump for President Campaign and during the transition period. 
   
   I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception. Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. 
   
   My Role in the Trump for President Campaign 
   
   Before joining the administration, I worked in the private sector, building and managing companies. My experience was in business, not politics, and it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law's campaign when he decided to run for President. However, as the campaign progressed, I was called on to assist with various tasks and aspects of the campaign, and took on more and more responsibility. 
   
   Over the course of the primaries and general election campaign, my role continued to evolve. I ultimately worked with the finance, scheduling, communications, speechwriting, polling, data and digital teams, as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials. 
   
   All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously. When I was faced with a new challenge, I would reach out to contacts, ask advice, find the right person to manage the specific challenge, and work with that person to develop and execute a plan of action. I was lucky to work with some incredibly talented people along the way, all of whom made significant contributions toward the campaign's ultimate success. Our nimble culture allowed us to adjust to the ever-changing circumstances and make changes on the fly as the situation warranted. I share this information because these actions should be viewed through the lens of a fast-paced campaign with thousands of meetings and interactions, some of which were impactful and memorable and many of which were not. 
   
   It is also important to note that a campaign's success starts with its message and its messenger. Donald Trump had the right vision for America and delivered his message perfectly. The results speak for themselves. Not only did President Trump defeat sixteen skilled and experienced primary opponents and win the presidency; he did so spending a fraction of what his opponent spent in the general election. He outworked his opponent and ran one of the best campaigns in history using both modern technology and traditional methods to bring his message to the American people. 
   
   Campaign Contacts with Foreign Persons 
   
   When it became apparent that my father-in-law was going to be the Republican nominee for President, as normally happens, a number of officials from foreign countries attempted to reach out to the campaign. My father-in-law asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries. These were not contacts that I initiated, but, over the course of the campaign, I had incoming contacts with people from approximately 15 countries. To put these requests in context, I must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States. While I could not be responsive to everyone, I tried to be respectful of any foreign government contacts with whom it would be important to maintain an ongoing, productive working relationship were the candidate to prevail. To that end, I called on a variety of people with deep experience, such as Dr. Henry Kissinger, for advice on policy for the candidate, which countries/representatives with which the campaign should engage, and what messaging would resonate. In addition, it was typical for me to receive 200 or more emails a day during the campaign. I did not have the time to read every one, especially long emails from unknown senders or email chains to which I was added at some later point in the exchange. 
   
   With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any. The first that I can recall was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in April 2016. This was when then candidate Trump was delivering a major foreign policy speech. Doing the event and speech had been my idea, and I oversaw its execution. I arrived at the hotel early to make sure all logistics were in order. After that, I stopped into the reception to thank the host of the event, Dimitri Simes, the publisher of the bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, The National Interest, who had done a great job putting everything together. Mr. Simes and his group had created the guest list and extended the invitations for the event. He introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump's speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America's foreign policy. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions. 
   
   Reuters news service has reported that I had two calls with Ambassador Kislyak at some time between April and November of 2016. While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador. We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place. A comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls. I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then. In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador. 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. Simes, "What is the name of the Russian ambassador?" Through my lawyer, I have asked Reuters to provide the dates on which the calls supposedly occurred or the phone number at which I supposedly reached, or was reached by, Ambassador Kislyak. The journalist refused to provide any corroborating evidence that they occurred. 
   
   The only other Russian contact during the campaign is one I did not recall at all until I was reviewing documents and emails in response to congressional requests for information. In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m. The campaign was headquartered in the same building as his office in Trump Tower, and it was common for each of us to swing by the other's meetings when requested. He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office. Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as "Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner." No one else was mentioned. 
   
   I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, 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." I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently. I did not read or recall this email exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers when reviewing documents for submission to the committees. 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. Finally, after seeing the email, I disclosed this meeting prior to it being reported in the press on a supplement to my security clearance form, even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form. 
   
   There was one more possible contact that I will note. On October 30, 2016, I received a random email from the screenname "Guccifer400." This email, which I interpreted as a hoax, was an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump's tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information. I brought the email to the attention of a U.S. Secret Service agent on the plane we were all travelling on and asked what he thought. He advised me to ignore it and not to reply -- which is what I did. The sender never contacted me again. 
   
   To the best of my recollection, these were the full extent of contacts I had during the campaign with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government. 
   
   Transition Contacts with Foreign Persons 
   
   The transition period after the election was even more active than the campaign. Starting on election night, we began to receive an incredible volume of messages and invitations from well-wishers in the United States and abroad. Dozens of messages came from foreign officials seeking to set up foreign leader calls and create lines of communication and relationships with what would be the new administration. During this period, I recall having over fifty contacts with people from over fifteen countries. Two of those meetings were with Russians, neither of which I solicited. 
   
   On November 16, 2016, my assistant received a request for a meeting from the Russian Ambassador. As I mentioned before, previous to receiving this request, I could not even recall the Russian Ambassador's name, and had to ask for the name of the individual I had seen at the Mayflower Hotel almost seven months earlier. In addition, far from being urgent, that meeting was not set up for two weeks -- on December 1. The meeting occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty- thirty minutes. Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President's National Security Advisor, also attended. During the meeting, after pleasantries were exchanged, as I had done in many of the meetings I had and would have with foreign officials, I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day. 
   
   The Ambassador expressed similar sentiments about relations, and then said he especially wanted to address U.S. policy in Syria, and that 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. General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines. I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, 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. Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a "secret back channel." I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions. 
   
   Approximately a week later, on December 6, the Embassy asked if I could meet with the Ambassador on December 7. I declined. They then asked if I could meet on December 6; I declined again. They then asked when the earliest was that I could meet. I declined these requests because I was working on many other responsibilities for the transition. He asked if he could meet my assistant instead and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed. He did so on December 12. My assistant reported that the Ambassador had requested that I meet with a person named Sergey Gorkov who he said was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together. I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days. I made room on my schedule for the meeting that occurred the next day, on December 13. 
   
   The meeting with Mr. Gorkov lasted twenty to twenty-five minutes. He introduced himself and gave me two gifts -- one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village. (Any notion that I tried to conceal this meeting or that I took it thinking it was in my capacity as a businessman is false. In fact, I gave my assistant these gifts to formally register them with the transition office). After that, he told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy. He said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future. As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. 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. At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings. I did not know or have any contact with Mr. Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since. 
   
   To the best of my recollection, these were the only two contacts I had during the transition with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government. 
   
   Disclosure of Contacts on My Security Clearance Form 
   
   There has been a good deal of misinformation reported about my SF-86 form. As my attorneys and I have previously explained, my SF-86 application was prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials. Here are some facts about that form and the efforts I have made to supplement it. 
   
   In the week before the Inauguration, amid the scramble of finalizing the unwinding of my involvement from my company, moving my family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from my outside positions and complete my security and financial disclosure forms, people at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form. They 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. 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. 
   
   That evening, when we realized the form had been submitted prematurely, we informed the transition team that we needed to make changes and additions to the form. The very next day, January 19, 2017, we submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI. The supplement disclosed that I had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form. 
   
   It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case. In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan's King Abdullah II, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before. 
   
   Over the last six months, I have made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information is needed to investigate my background. In addition, my attorneys have explained that the security clearance process is one in which supplements are expected and invited. The form itself instructs that, during the interview, the information in the document can be "update[d], clarif[ied], and explain[ed]" as part of the security clearance process. A good example is the June 9 meeting. For reasons that should be clear from the explanation of that meeting I have provided, I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86. When documents reviewed for production in connection with committee requests reminded me that meeting had occurred, and because of the language in the email chain that I then read for the first time, I included that meeting on a supplement. I did so even though my attorneys were unable to conclude that the Russian lawyer was a representative of any foreign country and thus fell outside the scope of the form. This supplemental information was also provided voluntarily, well prior to any media inquiries, reporting or request for this information, and it was done soon after I was reminded of the meeting. 
   
   **** 
   
   As I have said from the very first media inquiry, I am happy to share information with the 
   
   investigating bodies. I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide. As I indicated, I know there has been a great deal of speculation and conjecture about my contacts with any officials or people from Russia. I have disclosed these contacts and described them as fully as I can recall. The record and documents I am providing will show that I had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable. I am very grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. I also have tried to provide context for my role in the campaign, and I am proud of the candidate that we supported, of the campaign that we ran, and the victory that we achieved. 
   
   It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities. I hope that through my answers to questions, written statements and documents I have now been able to demonstrate the entirety of my limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition. I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. 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. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.
target: – With the first of his two days of congressional testimony in the books, Jared Kushner made a rare public statement Monday afternoon to reaffirm his main point: "I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," he said, per the AP. Kushner spoke outside the White House after meeting behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. While he largely reiterated points made earlier in an 11-page statement to Congress, Kushner also suggested that the Russia investigation has political undertones. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," he said, per NBC News. "Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him." Kushner has said all of his actions related to four meetings with Russian nationals were aboveboard, per CNN. He added during his speech that he had "no improper contacts" and has "not relied on Russian funds for my businesses." Kushner is back on Capitol Hill Tuesday, when he again testifies behind closed doors, this time with the House Intelligence Committee. As for that 11-page statement, an analysis by Zack Beauchamp at Vox finds the carefully worded descriptions of the Russian meetings to be incomplete. "The whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team," he writes. Judge for yourself here.