Jared Kushner, President Trump's son in law and close advisor, faced questioning from congressional investigators for the first time today. In his prepared statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kushner said, quote, I did not collude nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded with any foreign government. Kushner confirmed for contacts with Russians during his father in law's presidential campaign in the transition, but he described the encounters as
un memorable. We're going to go live in a few minutes to Jared Kushner as he speaks and makes a statement to the press outside the White House. Our guests are Nato Mariotti, partner at Thompson Cockburn, and Andrew Wright, professor at Savannah Law School. Renato, let's start with the arrangement. Why is Kushner, at his request, not being questioned under oath and what impact does that have on using what
he said? Well, it's it's it's not uncommon for witnesses to be permitted to give an interview that's not in public, uh, and that's not under oath. And the reason that Congressional committees do that is because it is a crime to lie to congress regardless of whether you're under oath or not. And so Congress UM I think feels comfortable with that, you know, with having an off the record interview for that reason. I think it has other advantages as well.
I mean, when there's a public uh interview that is excuse me, a public testimony that is under oath, uh, you know, members of the committee can be more focused on what the political um appearance of their questioning might be as opposed to actually getting the job done and asking questions that will generate the evidence that the committee needs going forward. Andrew, let's talk a bit about the substance of what Mr Kushner said, at least a prepared
statement UM that he gave to Congress. He described a number of meetings that with various different people with some contract of the Russian government. Is this the sort of you know, the way he paints it is it is this this sort of activity one would expect from campaign officials to be having with a foreign government during the course of a presidential campaign. I think it's pretty clear that the Russian government was trying to curry favor and
perhaps infiltrate the Trump campaign. I think UM plenty of UM folks on presidential campaigns. I've worked on one or two as well. UM find this um number of meetings and the and the nature of some of them to be abnormal. UM. Certainly, you know, one would expect that during a transition period there would be some contacts with foreign governments UM trying to establish relations with the incoming president. But I do think that the nature of the contact
UH is a little bit strange. And you know, my colleagues in the Obama administration suggested that they certainly didn't have any meetings that were analogous to these during the campaigns in two thousand eight or Nado. One of the meetings that people have been talking about a lot is the one that Donald Trump Jr. And Paul Maniford and Kushner attended UM with and the list keeps growing of
who was there. So he completely downplayed his attendance at that meeting, said he didn't even know what it was about. That he asked his assistant to get him out of there in an email. Did that work as far as what you saw? Well, first of all, at the starting point, I think it's important to note that you know, as you did, that he is trying to distance himself from that, from what happened there, and more importantly, from knowing what the purpose of the meeting was and who he was
meeting with. And I think it's important for a couple of reasons. One, it shows that his attorneys realized that it's problematic legally, UH to be at a meeting for the purpose of seeking aid from a foreign government. Um. But separate and apart from that, it also he is an important thing for him because he needs to disclose his contacts with foreign government since the extent he thought that this was a representative of foreign government that would
need to be disclosed. Um. But was it effective. I thought, you know, it looked like he was trying to provide um excuses and you know, to get around what I think is a very obvious piece of evidence that he did know what was gonna happened in that meeting, which is an email that was directed to him. I mean, he's saying he didn't read it and he didn't read
it carefully. UM. And it's not an uncommon thing to have happened when there's a criminal investigation, is that people um, you know, don't read um you know well allege that they haven't read emails that are problematic. I will say, obviously Mr Krishner is a wealthy person and very busy and has a lot of responsibilities, and um, the burden would ultimately be on the government to prove that he knew what the government is going to allege she knew
when he took that meeting. Well, Andrew, let's also talk about another meeting that was discussed in his statement was a meeting he had with a a Russian banker named Sergey Gorkov, who's the head of a state owned Russian bank and allied with President Putin of Russia. Um, And according to Mr Krishner's statement, they didn't talk about sanctions on Russia at all. And they also didn't talk about any loans or banking that Mr Krishner's private business has had.
And so, you know, I wonder how, you know, investigators are going to look at a statement like that about us with a you know, about what he would have discussed with this banker. Yeah, well, first of all, it's
kind of an extraordinary meeting. When I was reading his prepared statement, my eyes kind of jumped out of my head when I saw that it was the Russian ambassador who arranged that meeting, was quite insistent, according to Kushner, about having that taking that meeting, and that the Russian banker was described as, um, you know, very close to President Putin. So the you know, I'm not sure what work it does to suggest that, you know, that that there was some sort of distance. Um, this was clearly
a Russian government operation. He even brought him a painting of his you know, family's hometown in Belarus, So it's quite coordinated. Um. So you know, in terms of his statement about no sanctions, clearly Russian government is quite interested in sanctions. And so you know, that would be one of those things that we'd have to test Kushner's credibility
about whether that was done. Um, it's hard to imagine that it was just purely pleasantries if the ambassador was so insistent about having the meeting in the first place. The other point I'll just make is that Kushner now owns those statements for all future investigative activity. He's now said declaratively that there were no personal business dealings discussed and that there were no ancients discussed, So he will
have to stand behind that from now on. And also, Renato, this was not in his statement, But last week he filed an amended financial disclosure that included seventy seven items worth at least ten million dollars that were described as quote inadvertently omitted from a March filing. The disclosure has been revised thirty nine times since its initial filing on March nine. Can you make an excuse after it's the thirty ninth time or at thirty seven or well, look
it is always it's evidence. So what the government has to prove is that the omissions were knowing and willful, Okay, So in other words, that it was something that he did on purpose, essentially, you know, showing that he had an intend to deceive or you know, or intend to um an intend to mislead the government or hi what he was doing from the government as opposed to really
making a mistake or or something like that. The the number of times that you revised to form is certainly one piece of evidence that the government is going to use to show that he knowingly and willfully made those omissions. Now, of course, what his camp is going to be saying, and the defense would say, is that he's a very sloppy person, a very disorganized person, a very busy person.
He's got a big staff. Maybe they're sloppy, maybe they're disorganized. Um. Obviously, the number of omissions are an important piece of evidence. I think the other you know, you know, piece of evidence that you would be looking at is you know, what what were the omissions of and what what was
he omitting? And you know, if, for example, some of the later revisions included meetings that were more and more problematic, that might go to suggest that those revisions were done with the intent to hide from the government as opposed
to merely uh, a clerical oversight. Well speaking Andrew of you know, how people are going to assess the arguments and statements in here and in One of the things that I thought was interesting about the statement is that there's a sort of bold faced statement about Um that the thing that's gotten a lot of publicity, which is whether or not Mr Kushner was trying to set up some secret back channel communications with the with the Russian government.
And he says that the fact that he was trying to start a dialogue on that with the Russian government after election day should be viewed as strong evidence that he was not aware of one that existed before election day, So is that, Um, you know, is that argument going
to be persuasive to people? Well, one of the things to note is that Kushner doesn't have and his lawyers don't have access to all the facts because and presumably the Intelligence Committee will have access to the signals, intelligence and other things that might lead to contradictions to that statement. We've been talking about Ared Kushner's a testimony today after not testimony, but questioning from congressional investigators for the first time today, and um, that was not one under oath.
We've been talking with Ernato Mariotti, partner at Thompson Cockburn and Andrew Wright, professor at Savannah Law School. Andrew, we just heard a very very short statement, no questions from Jared Kushner. What was your reaction? I think it was just a top line, blanket denial, and it will give the media some sound and camera video to run with
today on the story. It will be very interesting to see if there are any leaks or characterizations by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee about how that meeting went later in the day. So I look forward to seeing the story developed throughout the day as we get more information. Bernano,
he mentioned he'll be talking to House investigators. How long do we expect that he's going to be questioned for well, I mean, I think he may be questioned for hours by both by ultimately both committees, and I doubt that this is going to be the last time that Mr Krishner's gonna ask questions. So I thought Andy brought up a good point when he said that ultimately, uh Krishner is going to have locked himself into a certain set of facts here, and that's you know, you know what
why the the statement was so carefully worded. I think you know, of all the people swirled up in this investigation, the person whose legal strategy I've been mostly impressed with has been Jared Kushner's because he's stayed off Twitter and stayed off radio and TV shows and is very careful, been very careful about what he says to the press,
and it's generally always been through lawyers. This is the first time we've heard in his own words an account of what's happened, and ultimately he'll he'll be he'll be held to that in future. Questioning Andrew, how smart is it that he had a closed door meeting but he put out a statement, and now he makes a statement before before the cameras which reiterates what he said, so he as his his message out there. Yeah, I mean
he's generally getting to drive the message today on game day. UM. You know, obviously the fact that he's doing the interview is going to dredge up all the previous reporting and that'll get re recited in the news cycles today. But he's getting to put his spin on and that was really one of the chief benefits of negotiating to a private interview for him, um, rather than a public hearing. But on the committee side, they get a lot of
benefits out of this. They've now locked him into certain statements, and they haven't given up any of their prerogative to be able to bring him back under subpoena voluntarily to testify in front of the committee um and in front of the public. So I think both sides came away um as a legal matter with some benefit to this, And Jared Kushner's media strategy is at the center from his side of that negotiation. NATO. UM. So just in terms of how this will proceed, You've got the special counsel,
you've got the committees. Once they get these statements from Kushner and others under oath, where where does it go from here? So not under Earth, I should say where
does it go now? So I would expect that that Mueller's team will be, you know, has already been, you know, giving regular reports to Congress about what they're doing and coordinating with Congress so that this way there's no um, there's no way in which either of the investigations are undermining the others so that they can work in concert. I know there have been public reports that have suggested
just that. Uh. And and frankly, from what I've seen to you know, the Congressional committees have been very deferential of Mueller and the investigation that he's doing. So what I would expect is that this interview before Congress would be before Congressional committee, would be a piece of evidence
that Mueller would use. I expect that at some point in the future, Mueller will be potentially, you know, seeking interviews with many others, uh, including Mr Kushner, and it'll be interesting to see if they agree to sit for an interview with him. He may try to compel testimony before a grand jury. UH. And ultimately that process can can take you many months to unfold Andrew. So now we're back to Muller and the investigation, and that leads us to President Trump and some of his tweets over
the weekend. The Washington Post reported last week that he's been discussing pardons for his aids and even for himself. On Saturday, he tweeted that quote, while all agree, the US president has the complete power to pardon, so that's certainly an overstatement if the president includes himself in that pardon power. Is there any indication in the Constitution, in the case law, or anywhere that the president can pardon himself? Well, it's a slightly trickier question than I'd like it to be,
to be quite honest. It's the Constitution clearly limits pardon power in cases of impeachment, and it clearly only applies to federal offenses. Is the question of whether the pardon the president can pardon himself? Um? I think is something that the Framers didn't probably devent devote a lot of
time too, because it was such an absurd notion. UM. The OLC, Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice issued an opinion UH several days before Nixon resigned, indicating that it was not permissible or constitutional for the president to issue a pardon for himself on the theory that no man can be a judge in his own case, which is a natural law theory. Others have argued that
it would violate the structure of the Constitution. Some have made a textual argument that the idea of the president granting a pardon requires two parties to that transaction. Therefore he can't be both the pardoner and the pardon me.
I think that has the better side of the argument, but there are a lot of scholars on the other side and legal commentators who believe that there is no limitation it would have to be expressed, and that the president might have the power to do it as a political matter or as a matter of stewardship of our government that's supposed to be a nation of laws rather
than individual leaders. I think it would be quite absurd, and I would hope, uh that there would be such a violent political reaction um that that would not be permitted by any sitting president. We're not knowing about thirty seconds we have left. At what point might we see the president seriously considering pardons for other members of the administration beside himself. I think it would only be when they are in very serious legal jeopardy, so until one.
One thing you need to understand about pardons is that they extinguish your Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself. So um, there you know. It may be for right now, it's in the it's in the president's interest to have certain people not before to testify about topics that might be problematic. As soon as he gives that that pardon, than than that person loses that right and would be held in contempt if they refuse to testify. So I expect him to do so at the last possible moment.
Thank you all for being on Bloomberg Law. It has been a fascinating discussion. That's Renato Mariotti. He's a partner at Thompson Colburne and Andrew Wright, professor at Savannah Law School.