Jared Kushner

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      Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015

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      Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.Trump said sorry to Cruz for 2016 insults, Paul Manafort says in new bookRead moreIn the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’“‘Please, you’re in a Republican primary,’ I said, hoping he wasn’t about to post a negative tweet aimed at the most powerful man in conservative media. ‘You don’t need to get on the wrong side of Rupert. Give me a couple of hours to fix it.’”Kushner says he fixed it. If his claim is true, he could be seen to have made a hugely consequential intervention in modern US history.Murdoch’s support, chiefly through Fox News, did much to boost Trump to victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Despite persistent reports of friction between the two men, Murdoch supported Trump through four tumultuous years in power which culminated in Trump’s refusal to admit defeat and the deadly attack on Congress.The Guardian obtained a copy of Kushner’s book, which will be published next month.The book lands at a time when Murdoch’s newspapers and to some extent Fox News are widely seen to be pulling away from Trump, amid congressional hearings into his election subversion and the January 6 attack, speculation about criminal charges and as he prepares another White House run.In his book, Trump’s son-in-law, who became a senior White House adviser, describes a friendship with Murdoch built on time on Murdoch’s yacht and at Bono’s house in France, watching the U2 frontman sing with Bob Geldof and Billy Joel. Kushner also describes how Wendi Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s third wife, helped get him back with Ivanka Trump after a breakup.Kushner claims to have convinced Murdoch to support Trump in 2015.Trump and Murdoch were not close before Trump entered politics. But in July 2015, after Trump launched his explosive campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with a racist rant about Mexicans, the Fox News owner tweeted: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing the whole country?”A week later, the New York Times described Murdoch disparaging Trump. Trump was furious and threatened to tweet. Kushner was not then an official adviser to his father-in-law but he writes: “I called Rupert and told him I had to see him.“‘Rupert, I think he could win,’ I said, as we sat in his office. ‘You guys agree on a lot of the issues. You want smaller government. You want lower taxes. You want stronger borders.’“Rupert listened quizzically, like he couldn’t imagine that Trump was actually serious about running. The next day, he called me and said, ‘I’ve looked at this and maybe I was misjudging it. He actually does have a real following. It does seem like he’s very popular, like he can really be a kingmaker in the Republican primary with the way he is playing it. What does Donald want?’“‘He wants to be president,’ I responded.“‘No, what does he really want?’ he asked again.“‘Look, he doesn’t need a nicer plane,’ I said. ‘He’s got a beautiful plane. He doesn’t need a nicer house. He doesn’t need anything. He’s tired of watching politicians screw up the country, and he thinks he could do a better job.’“‘Interesting,’ Rupert said.“We had a truce, for the time being.”Kushner also writes about Trump’s clashes with Fox News during the 2016 campaign, including a clash with the anchor Megyn Kelly. Kushner says he agreed a deal with Roger Ailes, then in charge of Fox News, for a donation of $5m to a veterans’ organisation of Trump’s choice, in return for Trump choosing not to skip a debate.Murdoch rejected the deal, Kushner writes, saying if he took it he would have to “pay everyone to show up to debates”.Kushner also describes how Murdoch helped shape his view of why the US needed Trump. At a rally in Springfield, Illinois in November 2015, Kushner was reminded “of a book that Rupert Murdoch had given me months earlier: Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, which makes a case that over the last 50 years America has divided into upper and lower classes that live apart from each other, geographically and culturally”.Trump, Kushner writes, appealed to the “forgotten and disenfranchised”. For his son-in-law rally in Illinois “was a wake-up call”.Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-presidentRead moreKushner’s version of another call with Murdoch, on election night 2020, has been widely reported. He says Murdoch told him Fox News’s call of Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in Arizona, a decision which infuriated the president and his advisers, was “ironclad – not even close”.Arizona played a central role in Trump’s attempt to overturn the election through lies about voter fraud. Fox News is now the subject of a $1.6bn defamation suit from a maker of voting machines, over conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies and repeated on the network.Fox News has said it is “confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs”.TopicsBooksJared KushnerDonald TrumpRupert MurdochRepublicansUS politicsPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      Murdoch told Kushner on election night that Arizona result was ‘not even close’

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      Murdoch told Kushner on election night that Arizona result was ‘not even close’Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser’s new book recounts turmoil caused by Fox News decision to call state for Biden in 2020 When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night 2020, infuriating Donald Trump and fueling Republican election subversion attempts which continue to this day, Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner “the numbers are ironclad – it’s not even close”.Is Murdoch tiring of Trump? Mogul’s print titles dump the ex-presidentRead moreDetails of the Fox News owner’s conversation with Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser about the call which most observers say confirmed Trump’s defeat are contained in Kushner’s memoir, Breaking History, which is due out next month.They also come as Murdoch-owned papers and even Fox News itself seem to turn against Trump in light of the January 6 hearings on the US Capitol attack and his attempt to overturn his election defeat.A first extract from the book, in which Kushner described being secretly treated for thyroid cancer, was reported by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.On Wednesday another Times reporter, Kenneth Vogel, tweeted pictures of pages from Kushner’s book, each emblazoned with the word “confidential”.Kushner’s description of the shock of the Fox News Arizona call mirrors those in numerous reports and books on Trump’s 2020 defeat, his refusal to accept it and the attack on US democracy which followed.“The shocking projection brought our momentum to a screeching halt,” Kushner writes. “It instantly changed the mood among our campaign’s leaders, who were scrambling to understand the network’s methodology.”Kushner describes the Trump campaign’s focus on Arizona and writes that losing there “would drastically narrow our path to victory”.In Landslide, a book released last year, the author Michael Wolff reported that Murdoch gave his son Lachlan Murdoch approval for Fox News to call Arizona for Biden with “a signature grunt” and a barb for Trump: “Fuck him.”Fox News denied Wolff’s story.Kushner writes: “I dialed Rupert Murdoch and asked why Fox News had made the Arizona call before hundreds of thousands of votes were tallied. Rupert said he would look into the issue, and minutes later he called back.“‘Sorry Jared, there is nothing I can do,’” he said. “‘The Fox News data authority says the numbers are ironclad – he says it won’t be close.’”Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, a margin which increased after a partisan audit encouraged by Trump allies and commissioned by state Republicans.Key members of the Fox News decision desk left after the election. Chris Stirewalt, the politics editor, was fired. He has appeared before the January 6 committee.“We knew [Arizona] would be a consequential call because it was one of five states that really mattered,” Stirewalt testified.Stirewalt also said that by the time of the Arizona call, Trump’s chances of beating Biden were “very small” and “getting smaller”. After Arizona, he said, those chances dwindled to “none”.In his book, Kushner shades close to his father-in-law’s lie about electoral fraud in Biden’s victory, writing: “2020 was full of anomalies.”The election was called for Biden on 7 November, when Pennsylvania fell into his column. He won the electoral college by 306-232, the same margin Trump called a landslide when it landed in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden won the popular vote by more than 7m.In his passage on the speech Trump gave in the early hours of 4 November, the day after election day, claiming “Frankly, we did win this election”, Kushner says he was called by Karl Rove, the strategist who helped George W Bush win “the closest presidential election in US history”, against Al Gore in 2000.Trump claimed to have been the victim of fraud. Rove, Kushner writes, said: “The president’s rhetoric is all wrong. He’s going to win. Statistically, there’s no way the Democrats can catch up with you now.”Kushner says he responded: “Call the president and tell him that.”Trump later turned on Rove, who he said called him at 10.30pm on election night “to congratulate me on ‘a great win’”. Fox News called Arizona just before midnight.On Wednesday, Vogel also tweeted pages in which Kushner describes his work on presidential pardons.Kushner says he did not oppose a pardon for Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who was accused of fraud but who was a prominent White House leaker, because of the work Bannon did on Trump’s winning campaign in 2016.He also writes that when Trump pardoned Alice Johnson, a Black grandmother sentenced on a minor drugs-related charge of the sort Kushner targeted in his work on sentencing reform, Trump said: “Let’s hope Alice doesn’t go out and kill anyone!”TopicsBooksJared KushnerRupert MurdochFox NewsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump documentary exposes family divisions over Capitol attack

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      Trump documentary exposes family divisions over Capitol attackAlex Holder’s Unprecedented shows ex-president perpetuating big lie about voter fraud – but his children are much less forthcoming A documentary film scrutinised by the congressional January 6 committee exposes divisions between the former US president Donald Trump and his children over the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.Released to the public on Sunday, Unprecedented portrays Trump’s 2020 election campaign as a family affair and features interviews with him and his inner circle before, during and after the vote.Trump lawyers feel heat as legal net tightens on plot to overturn electionRead moreBritish film-maker Alex Holder gives plenty of airtime to the ex-president and his offspring lavishing praise on one another – material that is not likely to interest the committee – but also asks their views on the fateful events of January 6.Trump reverts to his lies about widespread voter fraud: “Well, it was a sad day but it was a day where there was great anger in our country,” he says. “The people went to Washington primarily because they were angry with an election that they think was rigged.“A very small portion, as you know, went down to the Capitol and then a very small portion of them went in. But I will tell you, they were angry from the standpoint of what happened in the election and because they’re smart and they see and they saw what happened. And I believe that was a big part of what happened on January 6.”But when Holder then puts the same question to three of Trump’s children, they are less forthcoming. His son Eric says: “Yeah, let’s skip the 6th.” Son Don Jr and daughter Ivanka also decline to comment on the incendiary subject, as does vice-president Mike Pence.Ivanka’s silence is perhaps the least surprising. The film recalls how, at a campaign rally in Georgia on 4 January, Ivanka swerved past the election fraud conspiracy, allowing Don Jr to seize the opportunity to outflank her and impress his father. The January 6 committee has also heard Ivanka testify that she accepted attorney general William Barr’s assessment that the election was free and fair.Ivanka is less forthright in Unprecedented when she carefully states: “As the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard. And he campaigned for the voiceless.”Author and journalist Philip Rucker comments in the film: “She was very uncomfortable with the president’s lie after the election but she would never utter anything herself to establish that disagreement.”Holder recently testified to the House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6 attack for around four hours behind closed doors about his approximately 100 hours of footage. He turned over segments of the footage demanded in a subpoena requiring his cooperation.The film-maker has also been subpoenaed to testify in a Georgia investigation into whether Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.Holder conducted three sit-down interviews with Trump, and the film is punctuated by out-takes of the president expressing concern about camera angles, lighting and objects spoiling the shot (“Can we get the orange out please? It’s very orangey”). Trump is also seen proudly watching videos of his children on the campaign trail.The interview with Pence – whom Trump pressured to overturn the election result, even though he had no such power – took place on 12 January.Pence is seen reacting to an email which the documentary says is a congressional draft resolution demanding that he invoke the 25th amendment of the constitution to remove Trump from office. Pence’s office has insisted it was in fact confirmation that his letter had been sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejecting her request to invoke the 25th amendment.During the interview, Pence says: “I’m always hopeful about America. I always believe that America’s best days are yet to come. I still believe that.”Earlier, the vice-president recalls happier times when he and his family were invited to Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to discuss becoming his running mate in 2016. “I did play golf,” he says. “Not the way he does.”By January 6 2021, Trump was assailing Pence via Twitter and, the House committee has heard, raising no objection to the notion of his deputy being hanged by the mob. The documentary features Trump saying: “I think I treat people well, unless they don’t treat me well, in which case you go to war.”It shows the Trump clan inside a bubble where they speak at huge rallies, are told by aides that the president is on course for re-election and come to think that defeat is unthinkable. At one point Ivanka remarks: “I’ve been in four states in the last two days and the energy and excitement for the president surpasses that in 2016.”Speaking to the Guardian earlier this month, Holder said he went into the interviews with Trump and his children with open-ended questions and a deferential approach to avoid the exchanges coming off as confrontational.At one point Holder asks Ivanka: “What’s your first memory of your father?” She replies: “He used to sing to me when I was little, and nobody knew this except me and him until my mom caught him on the baby monitor, which I cannot imagine him doing now.”Holder then asks Trump if he remembers that story. He replies: “I do, sure, I used to sing to all my kids a little bit. When I say sing, not sing with any ideas for myself to go to Carnegie Hall someday. Just, you know, I love my kids. I’ve been, I think, a very good father. It’s been very important to me.”In another segment, Ivanka comments: “Well, arguably, nobody takes more incoming than the president. I mean, most people would be under their desk in a fetal position sucking their thumb crying. And most politicians don’t have the strength or the conviction to withstand that pushback. This president does and I think our whole family does.”Her husband, Jared Kushner, also speaks in glowing terms about his father-in-law.But the three-part documentary, streaming on Discovery+, also contains raw footage of the Capitol attack recorded by Holder’s director of photography, Michael Crommett, and multiple critical voices from academics, authors and journalists.Princeton University’s Eddie Glaude, a professor of African American studies, comments about January 6: “If the kindling is just sitting there and no one throws the match on it, it’s just going to sit there. Trump threw the match so he’s responsible. All of the folks around him are responsible because they threw the damn match.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsMike PenceIvanka TrumpJared KushnernewsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump Jr to appear before House Capitol attack panel – report

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      Donald Trump Jr to appear before House Capitol attack panel – reportThe meeting comes in the wake of other family members such as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner testifying to the committee Donald Trump Jr. has agreed to meet in the near future with the US House of Representatives panel that is investigating the 6 January 2021, attack on the US Capitol, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing a source.Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attackRead moreTrump, the eldest son of former president Donald Trump, is set to meet with the House committee of his own will and without the threat of a subpoena, the outlet said without reporting when the testimony was scheduled.A request for comment from the House committee investigating the Capitol siege was not immediately returned.The meeting would come in the wake of appearances by other Trump family members before the select committee investigating the events that lead to the deadly raid on the Capitol building in protest against the result of the 2020 presidential election.Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter and one of his senior White House advisers, testified for about eight hours earlier this month days after Jared Kushner, her husband and former White House adviser, testified to the committee. TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald Trump JrDonald TrumpUS politicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnernewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attack

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      Ivanka Trump testifies before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, spoke via video to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump testified before the January 6 committee on Tuesday, the special congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 in which extremist supporters of Donald Trump attempted in vain to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said on Tuesday afternoon that she had been answering investigators’ questions on a video teleconference since the morning and was not “chatty” but had been helpful. “She came in on her own” and did not have to be subpoenaed, Thompson said.Ivanka Trump, who was with her father in the White House that day, is one of more than 800 witnesses the committee has interviewed as it works to compile a record of the attack, the worst on the Capitol in more than two centuries.She is the first of Trump’s children known to speak to the committee and one of the closest people to her father.Whether she gave the committee new information or not, her decision to cooperate was significant for the panel, which has been trying to secure an interview with her since late January.The nine-member panel is particularly focused on what the former president was doing as his supporters broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s victory for several hours as lawmakers and staff fled for their lives.The Guardian had earlier confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, would speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony came after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.Also in Washington on Tuesday, Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, pleaded not guilty to felony charges including conspiracy to block the certification by Congress of electoral college results on January 6. The January 6 committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for the day of the Capitol attack.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attack

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      Ivanka Trump to testify before panel investigating Capitol attackDonald Trump’s eldest daughter, a former senior White House adviser, to speak virtually to committee about events of January 6 Ivanka Trump will testify before the January 6 committee on Tuesday.‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansRead moreThe Guardian confirmed that former president Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, and former senior White House adviser, will speak to the panel virtually.Her testimony will come after that of her husband and fellow former presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who spoke to the panel for more than six hours last week.After Kushner’s testimony, Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a member of the committee, told the Guardian: “There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation. When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by supporters Donald Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Republican senators stayed loyal.The House’s January 6 committee includes two Republicans, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.As the Guardian reported this week, the committee has identified Ivanka Trump as a senior adviser who would have known her father’s attempt to block certification of electoral college results at the Capitol was unlawful.Referring to a law professor who presented the plan to block certification, a federal judge recently said it was “more likely than not that President Trump and Dr [John] Eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 2021”, and thereby committed multiple felonies.The committee also hopes Ivanka Trump might help explain a more-than seven-hour gap in White House call logs for 6 January.Ivanka Trump’s role in her father’s administration has long been a lightning rod for controversy. On Monday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) said: “Here’s a question Ivanka Trump can answer: how did she and Jared make up to $640m while working ‘for free’ in the White House?”TopicsIvanka TrumpJared KushnerDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle

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      Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circle House select committee seizes momentum as it embarks on final push to conclude evidence-gathering phase of inquiryThe House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalize on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete the roughly one hundred remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election.Members on the select committee believe Kushner’s cooperation might prompt other Trump officials to assist the investigation as the panel inches closer to Trump’s inner circle and the former president himself, according to sources familiar with the matter.The panel has also been buoyed by the federal court ruling that said Trump “more likely than not” violated the law over 6 January, reaffirming the purpose of the investigation and making it harder for Trump’s allies to defy the inquiry, the sources said.And members on the select committee believe that opening contempt of Congress proceedings against the Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for ignoring their subpoenas, will reinforce the message that the panel will punish non-compliance, the sources said.“There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation,” Jamie Raskin, one of the congressmen on the panel, said of the burst of recent activity. “When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”The select committee has now conducted more than 800 depositions and interviews, obtained almost 90,000 documents and followed up on more than 435 tips received through the tip line on its website, since it started its work in earnest last August.House investigators also have more than 100 depositions remaining on the schedule, the sources said, including one with a key witness who is expected to reveal connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys militia groups and the Capitol attack.That deposition – slated for 5 April – would represent another breakthrough and could play a big role in establishing for the select committee whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy as part of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.It is so crucial, the sources said, since it could form part of the evidence to connect the militia groups that stormed the Capitol to the organizers of the rallies that immediately preceded the attack – who in turn are slowly being linked to the Trump White House.But that testimony has been on the books for several weeks, and the greater challenge for the select committee remains to resolve ongoing cooperation talks with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s one-time attorney, and Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter.The select committee has a special interest in Giuliani since he was in close contact with Trump as he oversaw the implementation of the scheme to have the thenvice-president, Mike Pence, stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return Trump to office.The Guardian first reported that Giuliani was poised to cooperate with the investigation and reveal the roles played by Republican members of Congress with caveats – such as not discussing matters covered by executive privilege – that are not yet resolved.House investigators have also identified Ivanka Trump as a key person of interest since she appeared to have learned before 6 January that the scheme to have Pence stop the certification was unlawful – but and might shed light on why the former president still went ahead with the plan.Testimony that speaks to whether Trump knew what he was pressing Pence to do was unlawful – and when he knew it – is a central question for the panel as it seeks to establish whether Trump’s actions should warrant a criminal referral to the justice department.The panel has also privately noted in recent days that Ivanka Trump might be able to shed light on who Trump was calling from the White House as the Capitol attack unfolded, after call logs from that day showed a near eight-hour gap in communications.The Guardian has revealed at least one of Trump’s phone calls on 6 January – when he dialed the Republican senator Mike Lee trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville – was routed through an official White House phone and should have been in the call logs but was not.As the select committee moves towards wrapping up the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation, the hope among its members is that the recent momentum will carry the inquiry through to public hearings that are now expected to start in mid-May.The panel remains undecided whether to demand cooperation from Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, after the Washington Post and CBS reported she pressed Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in texts to overturn the 2020 election.The issue centers on the fact that several members on the select committee did not know about Thomas’s texts – turned over by Meadows months ago – until news reports brought them to public attention, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Some members wanted to call her in to ask her about the texts, but others who had discussed the issue months ago demurred, arguing that Thomas, a far-right activist, was unlikely to assist the panel and would try to turn the inquiry into a political circus.A spokesperson for the panel did not respond to a request for comment.The select committee may yet request cooperation from Thomas, but House investigators are pursuing myriad lines of inquiry and whether to ask her for voluntary assistance or demand documents and testimony pursuant to a subpoena is just one strand, the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationJared KushnerIvanka TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Jared Kushner ‘voluntarily’ gives Capitol attack panel information in testimony

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      Jared Kushner ‘voluntarily’ gives Capitol attack panel information in testimonyKushner becomes first member of Donald Trump’s family to speak to investigators Jared Kushner testified on Thursday before the House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol, becoming the first member of Donald Trump’s family to speak to investigators.Democrat Elaine Luria, a member of the select committee, confirmed that Kushner appeared before the panel “voluntarily”, although she would not provide details on what he said.“He was able to voluntarily provide information to us to verify, substantiate, provide his own take on this different reporting,” Luria told MSNBC. “So it was really valuable for us to have the opportunity to speak to him.”Kushner appeared virtually before investigators and spoke to committee counsel, two sources told the Guardian. A spokesperson for the January 6 committee declined to comment about Kushner’s testimony.Kushner is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, and he served as a senior adviser to the former president. However, Kushner was not at the White House on 6 January as the Capitol attack unfolded because he was traveling back to Washington after a trip to Saudi Arabia.One source said before Kushner’s interview that investigators planned to ask him about a text sent by Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist who is married to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, in the weeks after the election.The Washington Post and CBS News reported last week that Thomas sent a text to Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, on 13 November that seemed to reference Kushner. “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am. Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved,” Thomas wrote.Kushner may have also faced questions from the committee about Trump’s efforts to spread baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s book Peril, Kushner was involved in conversations about how to delicately tell Trump that he had lost the election to Joe Biden.The White House said Biden would not assert executive privilege over the testimony of Kushner, allowing him to speak to the committee about conversations he may have had with Trump in the days and weeks before the Capitol attack.“The president has spoken to the fact that January 6 was one of the darkest days in our country’s history and that we must have a full accounting of what happened to ensure that it never occurs again,” the White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, said on Tuesday. “As a result, the White House has decided not to assert executive privilege over the testimony of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.”Asked whether Biden’s decision had been communicated to Kushner’s team, Bedingfield said: “I won’t speak to private communication between our attorneys and his.”Ivanka Trump has said she is in talks to voluntarily appear before the committee, after the Guardian reported that the committee was considering issuing a subpoena to compel her to testify.In a January letter to Trump, Thompson said the committee wanted to question her about what she witnessed in the Oval Office on 6 January. According to testimony from Keith Kellogg, the former national security adviser to Mike Pence, Trump witnessed a conversation during which her father pressured the vice-president to overturn the results of the election. Kellogg also testified that Trump made multiple attempts to convince her father to take action to quell the violence at the Capitol.Thompson requested Trump’s “voluntary cooperation” with the committee, writing: “We respect your privacy, and our questions will be limited to issues relating to January 6th, the activities that contributed to or influenced events on January 6th, and your role in the White House during that period.”Thompson initially proposed that Trump speak to the committee on 3 or 4 February, but those dates came and went without any progress. It remains unclear when Trump might testify or if she will provide any substantive information to the committee.Hugo Lowell contributed to this reportTopicsUS Capitol attackJared KushnerHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More