Kushner: Undisclosed Meetings With Russians Prove I Didn’t Collude With Russians

Ahead of Jared Kushner’s closed-door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he’s released a public statement that flatly denies any sort of collusion with the Russians, NYT reports. Of course, it also admits to having four previously undisclosed meetings with Russian contacts during Trump’s transition in the post-election period. But rather than viewing that as condemning evidence, Kushner believes those meetings actually prove his innocence.

Kushner’s explanation, essentially: If he’d been meeting with the Russians to collude prior to Trump’s election, he wouldn’t have needed to reach out make new contacts post-election.

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.

Kushner asserts that meetings with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak were basically just an attempt to be more friendly with Russia. Kushner’s goal was to figure out how to get in direct contact with Putin, and he’d heard that Kislyak might have important information on the Syrian crisis. In his statement, Kusher explained that:

[Kislyak] 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.

So there you have it—neither Russia nor Kushner were aware that it was possible for their two countries to communicate. This proves there was no collusion, because nobody would have even been able to talk to each other until after Trump was elected. Funny how everything that looks like a scandal can be explained by inexperience or just not understanding how things work. Pretty convenient. EVERYONE GO HOME, NOTHING TO SEE HERE!