Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday disclosed that White House senior advisor Jared Kushner received an email about Wikileaks in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
The two senators sent a letter to Kushner's lawyer Thursday demanding additional documents from Trump's son-in-law as part of the committee's ongoing investigation of Russian election interference. In the letter, Grassley and Feinstein say Kushner received an email about Wikileaks in September of 2016, and a “
Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,” that he passed on to an official within President Trump’s campaign.
“For example, other parties have produced September 2016 email communications to Mr. Kushner concerning WikiLeaks, which Мr. Kushner then forwarded to another campaign official,” the letter reads.
“Likewise, other parties have produced documents concerning a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’ which Mr. Kushner also forwarded," the letter says. "And still others have produced communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Mr. Kushner.
Again, these do not appear in Mr. Kushner’s production despite being responsive to the second request. You also have not produced any phone records that we presume exist and would relate to Mr. Kushner’s communications regarding several requests.”
The letter, addressed to Kushner's attorney Abbe Lowell, says the documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee are “incomplete,” giving Lowell until Nov. 27 to comply with the request.
The lawmakers asked Lowell to provide the committee with transcripts of Kushner’s interviews with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, noting they do not have access to these specific interviews.
They’ve also asked Lowell to submit documents previously requested that relate to specific individuals in the Russia investigation.
“
It appears that your search may have overlooked several documents,” the letter says.
It also asks Lowell to look for communications with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, including any correspondence “to, from, or copied to Lt. General Flynn” that include specific terms like Clinton, Guccifer, Wikileaks, Turkey, Ukraine, and Gazprom.
Grassley and Feinstein pushed back on the attorney’s claim that certain documents related to Kushner’s security clearance on confidential.
“Moreover, with regard to your claim that the documents are confidential, while the Privacy Act limits the government's authority to release the information provided to it,
there is no restriction on your client's ability to provide that information to Congress,” the senators write.