Jared Kushner Was ‘Infuriated’ When Russians Didn’t Deliver Hillary Dirt
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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 fisher@forward.com or on Twitter, @alyssalfisher
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