Did Ron Dermer Get Jared Kushner In Trouble?

Ron Dermer Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman December 4, 2017

Could the source of trouble now shaking Trump’s inner circle be the Israeli ambassador to the United States?

On Friday, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on two conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak. In one of them, Flynn asked the Russians to help block an upcoming United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israel’s settlement policy. Flynn, who is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, said he was ordered to do so by “very high level” officials in the Trump transition team and news reports shortly after pointed to Jared Kushner as the senior official behind the initiative.

All this was done at Israel’s request, as confirmed Monday by the Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer.

In an interview with Susan Glasser in Politico Dermer said he had personally urged the Trump team to lobby foreign governments in an effort to table the resolution. “We reached out to them in the hope that they would help us avert what would be bad for Israel and bad for the United States,” Dermer said.

The potential legal questions arising from this move could relate to the Logan Act which prohibits unauthorized people to conduct foreign policy negotiations, and on the question whether Kushner revealed all the information about his involvement in this talks.

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.

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