US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner in December last year spoke with the Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak about establishing a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow to discuss strategy in Syria and other policy issues, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.
The conversation between Kushner and Kislyak took place during a meeting at Trump Tower that Trump’s presidential transition team did not acknowledge at the time.
Also present at the meeting was Trump’s then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, the three people said.
It is unclear who first proposed the communications channel, but the people familiar with the meeting said that the idea was to have Flynn speak directly with a senior military official in Moscow to discuss Syria and other security issues, but the communications channel was never set up, the people said.
The three people were not authorized to discuss the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
News of the discussion was first reported by the Washington Post. The revelation has stoked new questions about Kushner’s connections with Russian officials at a time when the FBI is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s presidential election and whether any of Trump’s advisers assisted in the Russian campaign.
Current and former US officials said that Kushner’s activities, like those of many others around Trump, are under scrutiny as part of the investigation.
However, Kushner is not currently the subject of a criminal investigation.
In the days after the meeting with Kislyak, Kushner had a separate meeting with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
US intelligence agencies first learned about the discussion several months ago, according to a senior US official who had been briefed on intelligence reports. It is unclear whether they learned from intercepted Russian communications or other means.
The idea behind the secret communications channel, the three people said, was for Russian military officials to brief Flynn about the Syrian war and to discuss ways to cooperate there.
Less than two weeks later, Kushner backed off the idea of the communications channel when Trump announced now-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil who had worked closely with Russian officials on energy deals, as his choice for the role.
Two congressional intelligence committees are conducting parallel investigations into Russian interference during the presidential campaign.
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