Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is looking into White House adviser Jared Kushner’s contacts with Israeli officials in the days leading up to the election, in yet another indication of the ever broadening scope the Justice Department probe.
The investigators are questioning witnesses about Kushner’s role in a December 2016 dispute regarding a U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s continued construction of settlements in the West Bank, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
The resolution passed on Dec. 23, weeks before President Donald Trump took office. Israeli officials reportedly reached out to senior Trump campaign officials, including Kushner and former White House advisor Steve Bannon, to ask for their assistance in opposing the measure. Then-candidate Trump disparaged the resolution one day prior to the U.N. vote and said it should be vetoed.
The emphasis on Kushner’s dealings with Israel remain unclear, however, it likely relates to the investigation’s broader focus on his dealings with foreign officials in the months preceding Trump’s inauguration. Investigators have questioned Kushner repeatedly about his contact with foreign officials after he failed to disclose a number of such contacts on his government mandated security clearance form. Kushner has since updated the form three times to reflect what he claims are more than 100 contacts with more than 20 countries. (RELATED: UNSEALED: Fusion GPS Bank Records Show Russia-Related Payments)
Kushner identified himself as the main point of contact between the Trump campaign and foreign governments between the time Trump won the primary and the inauguration, he said in a July statement to congressional committees . He has cast his initial omissions on the disclosure form as the result of an “administrative error.”
Mueller’s broad investigative mandate empowers him to explore any potential criminal activity he discovers while pursuing possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Thus far, his team has examined former campaign chairman Paul Manfort’s financial dealings, a number of meetings between senior campaign officials and foreigners, and whether Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey constitutes obstruction of justice.
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