 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. 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. 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." 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. 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). 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." 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. For example, was Kushner actually late enough to the meeting to miss every mention of potential assistance with the campaign? 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. 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," Kushner wrote to his assistant in an email provided to the committees alongside the statement. "I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently," he said. __ 
 
 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. 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. Win McNamee / Getty Images 
 
 A Dec. 1 meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower "lasted twenty- thirty minutes," where "Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret. 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. 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. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Kushner wrote of two additional meetings with Russian officials, both which occurred after Trump won. Did they suggest investment opportunities for the Kushner Companies, perhaps loans? 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," Kushner wrote. 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.�? 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. implying that he missed the part where they discussed Russian dirt on Clinton (which according to Trump Jr. happened at the beginning). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. ___ 
 
 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. 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. But a close read of the letter suggests that it does not, in fact, put these matters to rest.
– 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.