Trump’s son-in-law faces US senate probe over ties to Russia

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, will testify before the US senate intelligence committee over his contacts with a Russian bank, the White House has said.

Sean Spicer, White House spokesperson, on Monday, said that Kushner was Trump campaign’s foreign contact during the 2016 election campaign.

Kushner will testify to the senate committee investigating whether Russia tried to interfere in the November 8 election.

A Russian bank under US economic sanctions over Russia’s incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives met with Kushner during the campaign.

“Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials until we had State Department officials up,” Spicer said.

“I think based on the questions that surround this, he volunteered to go in and sit down with them and say, ‘hey, I’m glad to talk about the role that I played and the individuals I met with’.

“But again, remember, given the role that he played both during the campaign and during the transition, he met with countless individuals.

“That was part of his job. That was part of his role. And he executed it completely as he was supposed to.”

Executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) held talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow in 2016 when it was preparing a new strategy.

“As part of the preparation of the new strategy, executives of Vnesheconombank met with representatives of leading financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America multiple times during 2016,” VEB said in a statement.

It said the roadshow meetings took place “with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies”.

Allegations by US intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind the hacking of senior Democratic National Congress operatives and spreading disinformation has lingered over Trump’s presidency.

Democrats alleged that Russia wanted to tilt the election toward the Republicans, a claim dismissed by Trump and the Russians.

Michael Flynn, Trump’s erstwhile national security adviser, was forced to resign on February 13 after it was revealed that he had discussed US sanctions on Russia with Sergey Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

US officials said that after meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner later in December met with Sergei Gorkov, the CEO of Vnesheconombank.