Jared Kushner Was ‘Infuriated’ When Russians Didn’t Deliver Hillary Dirt

Image by Getty Images
Jared Kushner became “agitated” and “infuriate[d]” when a meeting arranged with a Russian Lawyer at Trump Tower in 2016 ended up focusing on U.S. sanctions rather than promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton, a friend of the Trumps who helped set up the meeting testified to Congress.
British music producer Rob Goldstone’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was revealed by the Daily Beast reported Wednesday.
Goldstone’s testimony stands in contrast to what Kushner has said about the meeting. In a July 2017 statement, Kushner paints himself as bored and confused by the presentation conducted by Natalia Veselnitskaya.
“I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting,” Kushner told the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia inquiry, adding that he texted an assistant and asked for a call on his cell phone to excuse himself from the meeting.
But Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee concluded in their final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election that Kushner, along with Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort, “had expected to receive — but did not ultimately obtain — derogatory information on candidate Clinton” during the meeting.
Goldstone testified that Kushner became visibly angry during the meeting.
“After a few minutes of this labored presentation [by Veselnitskaya], Jared Kushner, who is sitting next to me, appeared somewhat agitated by this and said, ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you please focus a bit more and maybe just start again?’” Goldstone recalled of the meeting, according to transcripts released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “And I recall that she began the presentation exactly where she had begun it last time, almost word for word, which seemed, by his body language, to infuriate him even more.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment on the discrepancy in recollections.
Contact Alyssa Fisher at [email protected] or on Twitter, @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Fast Forward Yarden Bibas says ‘I am here because of Trump’ and pleads with him to stop the Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.