Did Jared Throw Don Jr. Under The Bus?

Donald Trump Jr. Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman July 24, 2017

Image by Getty Images

The tightening Russian investigation is quickly evolving into a potential Trump family feud.

Analyzing Jared Kushner’s written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted how Kushner, “with scalpel-like precision,” sought to shift his responsibility for a controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer to his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr. — and to distance himself from any discussion of campaign-related dirt in that meeting.

Kushner started by making clear it was Trump Jr. who set up the meeting and asked him to join. Then he argued that the email inviting him to the meeting was “on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time.”

The “long back and forth” included a clear indication that the meeting was set to discuss damning information the Russians had supposedly held on Hillary Clinton. That would amount to the quid in any quid pro quo between the Russians and the Trumps.

Kushner notes that he had arrived late to the meeting and quickly concluded that it “was a waste of our time.”

Taken together, the Post argues, Kushner’s account does nothing to challenge the facts regarding the Russian meeting, “It just separates him from them.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter, @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO