Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Did Jared Kushner Meet Russian Oligarch Over Business Or Politics — Or Both?

Jared Kushner’s meeting with a Russian banker with close ties to President Vladimir Putin is reportedly drawing intense scrutiny from investigators who want to know what the real purpose of the meeting was.

President Trump’s son-in-law and top advisor says was seeking a so-called back channel to the autocratic Russian leader when he met in December with Sergey N. Gorkov, who runs a state-tied bank that is under U.S. sanctions, The New York Times reported.

Gorkov is a close associate of Putin and is suspected of a wide range of financial misdeeds — but he has no known diplomatic profile.

That raises big questions about the White House’s claims that the meeting was part of an effort to establish a way of communicating with the Russians outside the normal channels that would possibly be monitored by U.S. intelligence — an effort that in itself is highly unusual.

Gorkov himself claimed that the meeting was part of a push to establish business ties betweeen Kushner’s real estate firm and his bank, which is prevented from doing business with American firms under sanctions designed to punish Russia for annexing the Ukrainian province of Crimea.

Kushner did not initially disclose the meeting on disclosure forms that are required to obtain security clearances, raising even more eyebrows.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.