After much speculation that senior White House adviser Jared Kushner was already a subject of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian investigation into possible collusion during the 2016 campaign, a new report suggests that Mueller opened a new front that could spell big trouble for Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
In recent weeks, according to Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff, Mueller’s investigators questioned staffers with the Republican National Committee (RNC), specifically about the Trump campaign’s data operation, which Kushner headed:
“In just the last few weeks, his prosecutors have begun questioning Republican National Committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states. They are seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of Russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the American electorate, according to two of the sources.”
This, when taken together with details of Kushner’s other involvement with Russia — such as the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian attorney who said she had damaging information about Hillary Clinton — would seem to suggest that the White House’s repeated denials of conspiring with Russia are less than honest.
This is according to Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is also looking into the matter:
“Just from what’s been made public, it’s pretty clear the Trump campaign and family were willing and eager to work with the Russians. They showed almost no restraint in engaging with the Russians to see what they had to offer on their opponent. It was a ‘whatever it takes’ mentality.”
Trump’s allies, however, say that Mueller is on a witch hunt. Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the most rabid defenders of the White House, maintains:
“Everything points to the fact that there was an orchestrated plan to try to prevent Donald Trump from being the next president of the United States.”
Jordan and other GOP attack dogs, however, seem unwilling to entertain the possibility of a reverse scenario: That there was an orchestrated plan to prevent Hillary Clinton from being the next president, which seems to have been the plan of Russian President Vladimir Putin before Clinton even announced her candidacy.
Whatever the outcome, the Trump team had numerous contacts with Russian operatives that remain both troubling and possibly illegal.
Featured Image By Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.
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