Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Kushner: Trump Campaign Was Too Incompetent To Collude With Russia

Jared Kushner invoked the ineptitude defense on the Trump-Russia investigation, telling a group of congressional interns that his father-in-law’s presidential campaign was too disorganized to cooperate with the Kremlin.

“They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices,” he said, according to notes of the talk obtained by Foreign Policy magazine.

He also seemed to dismiss concerns about his failure to disclose some of his meetings with foreign officials in his security clearance application form, known as an SF-86. “There are 127 pages on the SF-86, but there are only two you guys have to worry about,” he said. “Make sure you guys keep track of where you travel.”

Kushner has come into the cross-hairs during the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 elections due to his secret meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney last June. He has also faced questions about mistakes and omissions in his disclosure form.

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

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 during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.