Donald Trump may be able to claim he has no relationship to the people in the indictments that Robert Mueller handed down last Friday. He’ll have a little more trouble should the paperwork turn in a new direction.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's interest in Jared Kushner has expanded beyond his contacts with Russia and now includes his efforts to secure financing for his company from foreign investors during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the inquiry.
Kushner put himself, his family, and his entire company over a barrel with a miserable deal on the property at 666 Fifth Ave. The deal extended Kushner’s borrowing power past the breaking point, and even his reluctant partners on the deal … are pretty much done with deal.
Kushner had bought the property in 2007 in a mostly debt deal valued at a record $1.8 billion. … The office tower shoulders more than $1.4 billion in debt, according to a report Vornado released in March.
Banks wanted money. Jared Kushner was desperate, and something really strange happened ...
The White House and a Russian state-owned bank have very different explanations for why the bank’s chief executive and Jared Kushner held a secret meeting during the presidential transition in December.
It might be expected that the White House would disclaim any connection to the meeting. But that’s not what happened. Vnesheconombank said the meeting was about Kushner’s real estate company, but Trump claimed the meeting wasn’t personal at all. It was about ‘diplmatic outreach.’
Why would the Trump White House want to claim a meeting with a bank deeply connected to the Kremlin and Putin? That’s a really, really good question. One that also seems to interest special counsel Robert Mueller.
Back in July, Trump tried to place some limits on Mueller’s investigation.
"Look, this is about Russia," he said. "So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. And actually, when I do my filings, people say, 'Man.' People have no idea how successful this is. It's a great company. But I don't even think about the company anymore. I think about this. …
Trump did not confirm to The Times how he might respond if Mueller were to cross the red line.
"I can't answer that question because I don't think it's going to happen," he said.
That red line drawing followed about a month after news of Kushner’s meeting with a Russian bank
… known for advancing the strategic interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin and for its role in a past U.S. espionage case, into the center of the controversy enveloping the White House. And it has highlighted the role played by the bank’s 48-year-old chief executive, Sergey Gorkov, a graduate of the academy of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic intelligence arm of the former Soviet KGB, who was appointed by Putin to the post less than a year before his encounter with Kushner.
But it also came after Bloomberg already reported that Mueller was looking into the finances of Trump and his associates. Trump was likely aware by then that drawing a line around Kushner’s cash-strapped company wouldn’t stop Mueller from looking under the hood.
Vnesheconombank says Kushner was there looking for … something to help his foundering real estate business. Trump says Kushner met with the KGB-related bank for ‘diplomacy,’ though why anyone would need to practice diplomacy with a bank isn’t quite clear.
Get the truth about the meeting might be interesting, but … there’s a chance that Mueller may not actually care how much Kushner owes, or who he owes it to, or even why he really met with the Russian bank. Instead, the special counsel may be interested in just one thing.
Kushner testified on Capitol Hill that the meeting was for official US government purposes. But the Russian bank maintains that the sit-down in New York was part of their "roadshow of business meetings" and that Gorkov met Kushner because he ran Kushner Companies.
Mueller may simply want a clear case of Kushner lying under oath. Not because it’s the worst thing that Kushner might have done, but because it’s one of the least important things he might be charged with.
Why would Mueller need a charge like that? Ask former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. Ask former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And very soon, you might also be able to ask former adviser Rick Gates. If you’re going to have a plea deal, you need a lesser charge that someone can plead guilty to. Making false statements has been Mueller’s go-to charge for plea deals.
The Vnesheconombank deal might have been a desperate attempt to find money by a sinking company. It may have been a way to pass on information to Putin. Either way, it may turn out to be Jared Kushner’s only chance to find his way to a few months in a low-security facility.
And a chance to see just how well he can perform a flip.