Did Jared Kushner Help Russian Hacks Spread Fake Campaign News?

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By Daniel J. Solomon July 12, 2017

The pressure is building on Jared Kushner in the days after revelations that he attended a meeting with an attorney linked to the Russian government. And now he’s apparently under investigation for possible ties to the Kremlin’s fake news campaign against Hillary Clinton.

According to McClatchy, an unidentified source close to Russia special counsel Robert Mueller said the team was probing whether Kushner, the head of his father-in-law’s digital operation, served “as a possible cut-out or conduit for Moscow’s influence operations in the elections.

Kushner, now a senior adviser in the Trump administration, was a crucial actor in the campaign, managing crisis communications as well as the digital outfit. He is credited with having supervised a successful fundraising and data mining operation that he fine-tuned in meeting with representatives of Silicon Valley.

The Kremlin is suspected to have meddled in last November’s election using multiple means – handing hacked e-mails from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta to WikiLeaks, targeting important areas with fake news about the Democratic hopeful and even attempted though failed hacks of voting machines.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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