White House adviser Jared Kushner was forwarded an email during the campaign last year offering a “backdoor Russian overture” as well as communications from a Belarusian-American businessman who has been identified as a major source of the infamous Steele dossier.
But Kushner, who is President Trump’s son-in-law, failed to turn those documents over to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the top Republican and Democrat on the panel said in a letter sent Thursday to Kushner’s attorney.
“We appreciate your voluntary cooperation with the Committee’s investigation, but the production appears to have been incomplete,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote to Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer.
Grassley and Feinstein informed Lowell that “several documents that are known to exist” regarding Russia contacts were not included in a batch of documents that Kushner provided to the Judiciary Committee earlier this month.
Kushner was forwarded a Sept. 2016 email concerning WikiLeaks, the website operated by Julian Assange that published emails that were stolen from the DNC and Clinton campaign. Kushner was also sent documents regarding a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite.”
The young real estate executive was also copied on communications that Trump associates had with Sergei Millian, the chairman of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. (RELATED: The Source Of The Most Salacious Claims In The Dossier Has Been Identified)
Other Trump associates have turned those communications over to the Judiciary committee, though Kushner has not.
The Judiciary committee’s letter does not provide additional details on the emails forwarded to Kushner. The email mentioning WikiLeaks could be the same document reported about earlier this week.
The Atlantic reported that on Sept. 21, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. contacted Kushner and Trump campaign advisers Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway about a message he had received from WikiLeaks.
Kushner forwarded the message to Trump campaign aide Hope Hicks.
The contacts with Millian could be significant because the Belarus-born entrepreneur is alleged to be “Source D” in the anti-Trump dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele and financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC.
The Wall Street Journal and ABC News reported back in January, just after the dossier was published, that Millian, whose real name is Siarhei Kukuts, was “Source D” and “Source E” in the document.
The source is described in different parts of the dossier as “a close associate of Trump” and “an ethnic Russian close associate of Trump.”
If Millian is indeed the dossier source, he would be responsible for some of the most salacious allegations in the report. “Source D” is cited in Steele’s June 20, 2016 memo as claiming that the Kremlin has blackmail material on Trump stemming from his visit to Moscow in 2013. The source also claimed that Russian intelligence had been “very helpful” to the Trump campaign.
The dossier cites “Source E,” who is also alleged to be Millian, as saying in July 2016 that there was a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between the Trump campaign and Russian leadership.
The source alleged that then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had deployed campaign adviser Carter Page to serve as an intermediary to the Kremlin.
Page has vehemently denied the allegations against him in the dossier. Both he and Manafort have denied knowing each other, as the dossier suggests.
Millian has issued vague denials that he was a source for the dossier. And it remains unclear, if he was a source for Steele, whether he provided truthful information or exaggerated his ties to Trumpworld.
Trump associates who are known to have had contact with Millian claim that he has exaggerated his business achievement and his links to Trump.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, had contact with Millian. After the dossier was published and Millian was identified as a source, Cohen claimed that Millian had exaggerated his ties to Trump.
Cohen claimed that Millian, who he called “a phony,” had falsely claimed to have worked as a broker for Trump real estate transactions.
Cohen told The Daily Caller back in January that he emailed Millian at one point to ask him to “cease contacting me.”
“You’re clearly seeking attention, something that I have no interest in giving you,” Cohen said he wrote to Millian.
TheDC and The Washington Post have reported that people who know Millian say that he is prone to embellishment.
Millian was also an acquaintance of George Papadopoulos, the energy consultant who served as a volunteer on the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the campaign. (RELATED: George Papadopoulos’ Fascinating Link To The Dossier)
Papadopoulos made numerous attempts to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian government leaders.
He also attempted to set up a meeting between Millian and Trump associate Boris Epshteyn. The Washington Post reported this month that Papadopoulos emailed Epshteyn seeking a meeting with Millian, who he referred to as a friend.
Epshteyn did not accept the meeting, and it is unclear whether that is the same exchange referenced in the Judiciary committee’s latest letter. The wording of the letter suggests that Kushner was forwarded communications directly from Millian.
Millian does appear to have had high hopes of penetrating the Trump orbit. A friend of Millian’s told TheDC that Millian said in Summer 2016 that he expected to earn a spot as a Trump adviser. The friend had little knowledge of Millian’s contacts to the Trump campaign but said they believed he was living in a fantasy world.
