Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was among several witnesses to testify before a grand jury in recent weeks about the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, US media reported on Thursday.
Testifying at a federal courthouse in Washington DC last month, Kushner, a former White House adviser to Trump, said it was his impression that Trump truly believed the 2020 election was stolen, the New York Times reported, citing a person briefed on the matter.
CNN, which confirmed the Times’ reporting, reported that former Trump aide Hope Hicks also testified before the grand jury.
Other former Trump allies have already appeared before the grand jury. In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.
Jack Smith, the special counsel, was appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, last November to take over two justice department investigations involving Trump.
In one case, Trump was indicted over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House in January 2021. He pleaded not guilty. The second is an investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 US election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment on the New York Times report. A representative for Kushner could not immediately be reached for comment.
Trump, the frontrunner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces mounting legal problems. Prosecutors in New York City charged him in April in a case involving an alleged 2016 hush-money payment to an adult film star.
Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election and that Biden’s win resulted from fraud. Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win. In a reversal of its position, the justice department this week said Trump can be held personally liable for remarks he made about the writer E Jean Carroll, who says he sexually attacked her in the mid-1990s.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
