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EXECUTIVE SESSION 

PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

INTERVIEW OF: JARED KUSHNER 

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 

Washington, D.C. 

The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol, 

commencing at 10:06 p.m. 

Present: Representatives Conaway, King, LoBiondo, Rooney, 

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Ros-Lehtinen, Gowdy, Crawford, Stefanik, Hurd, Schiff, Himes, Sewell, Carson, 

Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck. 

Also Present: Representative Granger. 

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Appearances: 

For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: 

For JARED KUSHNER: 

ABBE LOWELL 

KEITH ROSEN 

BENJAMIN D. BLEIBERG 

NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT 

Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP 

1200 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20036 

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MR. CONAWAY: Let's go ahead and get started. 

Mr. Kushner, good morning. Mike Conaway from Texas. Thank you very 

much for agreeing to come visit with us this morning. We've got some what, we 

think, are important questions to ask you. The proof will be in the pudding of 

whether or not that's the case. But we do appreciate your willingness to be here. 

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With the Intelligence Committee, we don't have criminal authorities. We 

don't have criminal investigatory powers. We're simply looking at the questions of 

what did the Russians do or not do with respect to our elections and those 

campaigns and what did the transition teams and/or the Trump campaigns do or not 

do. And so that's the issue. 

We will issue a report at some point laying out what we find. And if we do 

come across criminal things, then that would, of course, be turned over to Robert 

Mueller. But our job is to just try to determine what happened. So, again, thank 

you very much for being here this morning. 

With that, I'll turn it over toYeah, just some opening remarks. 

Good morning. This is a transcribed interview of Jared Kushner. Thank 

you for speaking to us today. For the record, I am- for 

majority at HPSCI, a staff member here. There's a lot of folks in the room, and 

we'll have the individuals identify themselves as they speak. 

Before we begin, I wanted to state a few things for the record. The 

questioning will be conducted by members and staff.. During the course of this 

interview, members and staff may ask questions during their allotted time period. 

Some questions they seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish 

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facts and understand the situation. 

Please do not assume we know any facts you have previously disclosed as 

part of any other investigation or review. 

During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that you desire. 

There is a reporter making a record of these proceedings so we can easily 

consult a written compilation of your answers. The reporter may ask you to spell 

certain terms or unusual phrases you might use and may ask you to slow down or 

repeat your answers. 

We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions based on 

your best recollection. This entire hearing will be at the unclassified level. If a 

question is unclear or you are uncertain in your response, please let us know, and if 

you do not know the answer to a question or can't remember, simply say so. 

You are entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview, though you're not 

required to. But I do see you brought counsel. At this time, would the counsel 

please state their names for the record? 

MR. LOWELL: My name is Abbe Lowell of the law firm of Norton, Rose, 

Fulbright, along with Keith Rosen and Ben Bleiberg. We are counsel to 

Mr. Kushner. 

Thank you. 

As I said, the interview will be transcribed. Because the court reporter 

cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. If you forget to do this, 

you might be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to spell certain terms or 

unusual phrases. 

Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel, if 

you wish, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect the transcript of this 

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interview in order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed. 

The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. The committee also reserves 

the right to request your return for additional questions should the need arise. 

The process for the interview is as follows: The minority will be given 

45 minutes to ask questions. Then the majority will be given 45 minutes to ask 

questions. Immediately thereafter, the minority will be given rebuttal time, and the 

majority will be given equal rebuttal time. These time limits will be strictly adhered 

to by all sides. Time will be kept for each portion of the interview with warnings 

given by me at the 5-minute and 1-minute mark, respectively. 

To ensure confidentiality we ask that you do not discuss the interview with 

anyone other than your attorneys. 

Our record today will reflect that you have not been compelled to appear. 

You are reminded that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information to 

Members of Congress or staff. Lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily 

participating in this interview, which will be given under oath. 

Mr. Kushner, if you would raise your right hand to be sworn. Mr. Jared 

·Kushner, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, 

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do. 

Thank you. And as a reminder, we are at the unclassified 

level, and also for those speaking, please turn on the microphones before speaking 

so that the recordings can be properly transcribed. 

Thank you. 

Mr. Rooney. 

MR. ROONEY: Adam. 

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MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Kushner, welcome. 

Mr. Lowell, pleased to have you here today. 

We appreciate your willingness to volunteer to come in and testify today. 

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Because of the time constraints, we're only going to be able to get to a fraction of 

the questions that we have for you. And I want to be quite open at the outset. 

They will be of a survey nature because of the time limits, and we'll fully expect that 

we're going to need to invite you back. 

There are also additional documents that we're going to need to request that 

we will follow up with counsel to make sure that you have those requests. 

It won't be necessary for you to restate the written statement that you 

presented the other day, but I would like to begin by asking you whether, to the best 

of your knowledge, all of the facts in that statement that you released, your written 

testimony, whether all the facts in that statement are true and accurate to the best 

of your knowledge? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. SCHIFF: We will submit that document to the record of this interview. 

[The information follows:] 

******** INSERT 1-1 ******** 

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MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Kushner, who else, apart from your counsel, did you 

discuss your proposed testimony with in order to prepare for it today? 

MR. KUSHNER: My counsel, my wife, but other than that, really just got 

ready to come tell you guys what I know. 

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MR. SCHIFF: Let me begin by asking you about a Washington Post report 

from April of this year that refers to a meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi 

and his brother, the UAE National Security Advisor, with a respect to a meeting in 

the Seychelles with someone close to Vladimir Putin and Blackwater founder and 

Trump campaign supporter Erik Prince. 

In that article, The Post reported that you had met separately in New York 

City in mid-December with the Crown Prince, Steve Bannon, and Mike Flynn. So I 

want to begin by asking you about some of the facts that are alleged in that article. 

Did you meet with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in mid-December, as alleged in 

that article? 

MR. KUSHNER: In New York City? 

MR. SCHIFF: Yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes, I did. 

MR. SCHIFF: And when would that meeting have taken place? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the specific date, but we met at the Four 

Seasons Hotel in New York. 

MR. SCHIFF: And who arranged the meeting and who requested the 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Who accompanied you to the meeting? 

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MR. KUSHNER: I went with Steve Bannon and General Flynn. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether it was Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn who 

had arranged the meeting? 

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MR. KUSHNER: Again, at that point in time, we had a lot of things going on. 

We were doing a lot of meetings. I can try to go back through my records, but I 

don't recall exactly how all the meetings got set up. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what did either Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn tell you prior to 

the meeting about why the meeting was taking place? 

MR. KUSHNER: It was a meeting with a foreign government that wanted to 

create a relationship with the incoming administration, discuss their views of the 

world, and to hear our views of the world. 

MR. SCHIFF: And was there an effort made to keep this meeting 

confidential? 

MR. KUSHNER: We weren't going out and publicizing the work we were 

doing, but it was conducted in the same normal course of the rest of the meetings 

that we conducted. 

MR. SCHIFF: Prior to your arriving at the meeting, did either Mr. Bannon or 

Mr. Flynn indicate to you in any way that there was an effort made to keep this 

meeting outside the knowledge of the then Obama administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, this meeting was no different than all the other 

meetings we were having where we weren't calling people and telling them what we 

were and weren't doing. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did either Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn indicate, though, that they 

were making an effort, along with UAE, to keep the Obama administration from 

finding out that the meeting was taking place? 

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MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: And were there any other parties at the meeting other than 

the representatives from the UAE, yourself, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Flynn? 

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MR. KUSHNER: There was a lot of people in the room when we got there, 

so I don't know who every specific person was or what their roles were with the 

Crown Prince and the Deputy-- is it the Deputy Crown Prince as well, Sheikh 

Nahyun? What's his title? Whatever it was. So I knew the main players in the 

room. The rest of the people in the room I was not familiar with what their titles 

were. 

MR. SCHIFF: Were there any other people present who were from the 

Trump campaign or associated with the Trump campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not believe so. 

MR. SCHIFF: And apart from the representatives from the UAE, were there 

any other third parties who were not from the UAE? 

MR. KUSHNER: I can recall one person, yes. 

MR. SCHIFF: And who was that? 

MR. KUSHNER: A guy Rick Gerson. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what was his status? Why was he at the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think he's a friend of Sheikh Muhammad. 

MR. SCHIFF: So he came as part of the UAE delegation? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what was discussed at the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: They started the meeting by talking about their current 

relationship with America, some of their complaints with the way things were 

handled with the previous administration. And then we just went into discussing 

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the situation in the Middle East and their views on what could be different and just 

generally speaking. 

MR. SCHIFF: During the meeting, was there any discussion of Russia? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't believe so. 

MR. SCHIFF: So there's no mention of lifting sanctions against Russia? 

MR. KUSHNER: That would not have been the scope of what I recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Was there discussion involving Russia as it pertained to 

Russia's involvement in Syria? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. It was not-- we did not spend a lot of time 

on Syria. 

MR. SCHIFF: And how long was the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think it was about probably an hour and a half or so. 

MR. SCHIFF: During the meeting, was there any discussion about having a 

followup meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Was there any discussion at that time of a meeting in the 

Seychelles? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Was this meeting memorialized in any way; that is, was there 

any written record made of the meeting that you're aware of? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what would the protocol, practice have been in the 

campaign when you had a meeting with foreign officials? Would someone be 

designated to write an email or otherwise record what took place so that the 

campaign would be aware of either what commitments had been made or what 

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followup was necessary? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Now being in government and understanding 

how -- the proper protocols that occur makes me understand why you're asking this 

question. But during the period of the transition, things were a little bit-- I wouldn't 

say chaotic, but we had a lot of things moving very quickly at a lot of different paces. 

And we were not necessarily following all the different protocols that you might 

expect us to have. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you inform Donald Trump of the meeting either before or 

after the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Afterwards I let him know that I met with the gentleman. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what did you tell him about the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: That it was a great meeting. You know, he was excited 

about the opportunity for a change in America's relationship with the UAE. And he 

was hopeful that strong American leadership in the Middle East would hopefully 

reverse what he saw as very detrimental to the Middle East-- the last administration 

where a lot of our allies felt like America pulled back and Iran was strengthened. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone in the Trump transition team disclose this 

meeting to the Obama administration or anyone then in the U.S. Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of whether or not the UAE disclosed the 

meeting to anybody in the U.S. Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'm pretty sure the Obama administration knew about the 

meeting. 

MR. SCHIFF: But did the UAE disclose that they were having this meeting 

to the administration, to your knowledge? 

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MR. KUSHNER: I don't know what discussions occurred between the UAE 

and the Obama administration. 

MR. SCHIFF: Then on what basis do you state that you believe the Obama 

administration was aware of the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I recall conversations with them saying that the current 

administration knew they were there. 

MR. SCHIFF: You recall conversations that you had with the administration 

or--

MR. KUSHNER: No, not with the administration, with the Ambassador, 

Yusif. 

MR. SCHIFF: So the representatives of UAE, The Ambassador indicated 

that he believed the Obama administration was aware that they were meeting with 

you? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes, which, by the way, was not relevant necessarily one 

way or the other. 

MR. SCHIFF: The Washington Post also reported on a meeting between 

the Russian Government through an either Russian Government official or an 

oligarch and an Arab prince that took place in the Seychelles as part of an effort to 

establish a back channel line of communication between Moscow and the 

President-elect. 

Do you have any personal knowledge of the Seychelles meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Has anyone ever discussed that Seychelles meeting and 

whether it took place with you? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

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MR. SCHIFF: What role did Erik Prince have, either with the campaign or 

on behalf of the campaign, to your knowledge? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'm pretty sure I'd never met him throughout the campaign. 

I remember, before Steve Bannon was on board with the campaign, he tried to 

introduce me to Eric, but we weren't able to connect. 

MR. SCHIFF: And just to make certain I have this, when the Crown Prince 

visited during that meeting you described, there was no discussion of a follow-on 

meeting, either in the Seychelles or anywhere else? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: And so did you-- have you met Erik Prince then? 

MR. KUSHNER: I have subsequently met him since we've been in 

government. 

MR. SCHIFF: And in your discussions with Mr. Prince, has he ever 

indicated that he met wi,th representatives of the Russian Government or oligarchs 

acting either on behalf of the Russian Government or acting independently? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. I would note that I've shaken his hand. I have not 

had extensive discussions with him. 

MR. SCHIFF: Now, I don't want to assume that the reporting is accurate or 

that the meeting, if it took place, took place necessarily in the Seychelles. Are you 

aware of any meeting that Mr. Prince or anyone else affiliated with the Trump 

campaign or acting on behalf of the campaign had with representatives of the 

Russian Government or Russian oligarchs outside the United States as it pertained 

to the incoming administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I have no knowledge. 

MR. SCHIFF: What was Michael Cohen's role in the campaign? 

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MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Can you say the name? I missed it. 

MR. SCHIFF: Michael Cohen. 

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MR. KUSHNER: So Michael had been a lawyer with the Trump 

administration for a long time -- with The Trump Organization for a long time. And I 

guess he would get involved in different things here and there, and then there would 

be certain people trying to get him uninvolved with certain things here and there. 

So I would say he would go on TV sometimes, but in terms of the actual operations 

of the campaign, I would say virtually nonexistent. 

MR. SCHIFF: So he had no role in the campaign? 

MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry, Congressman. Do you mean other than what he 

just described as the role? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, I think he just described virtually nonexistent. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. So Michael, again, I think he went on TV 

sometimes being a surrogate. But in terms of all the areas -- let me answer it to 

what I have knowledge of, in terms of all the different areas of operations that I was 

involved in the campaign, Michael Cohen was not involved in any of those areas. 

And the areas that I was involved in the campaign were fairly expansive. 

MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any international travel by Michael Cohen 

during the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: There have been allegations that Mr. Cohen met with 

representatives of the Russian Government or Russian oligarchs in Prague and 

other allegations that the meeting may have taken place in Budapest. Are you 

aware of any foreign meetings that Mr. Cohen undertook with any representatives of 

the Russian Government or any Russian citizens of Russia? 

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MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I'm not aware of that. I also do recall one of the 

press reports concluding that it was a different Michael Cohen, perhaps, but you 

probably know more about this than I do, so --

MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any international travel during the campaign 

by Mr. Cohen? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I'm not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any arrangements for cash payments to be 

made to hackers who worked in Europe or in Russia under Kremlin direction during 

the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: There are several individuals who have been listed or 

referred to by then-candidate Trump as being part of his national security advisory 

committee. I'd like to ask you what you know about them and their role in the 

campaign. 

What can you tell us about Walid Phares and his role in the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. Before I go into the names, maybe I'll back up and 

give you a little bit of context on how that came about? 

MR. SCHIFF: You know, I'm not sure that we have time for that, but 

perhaps in our subsequent meeting. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, I don't want you to think you have-- you don't 

have limited time. If you want to keep going, keep going. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I'm here to answer your questions, so I'll-- again, 

so I'm happy to -- if you need more time, happy to play with that. So --

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. I appreciate that. 

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MR. KUSHNER: But I'll stay with what you'd like. So with Dr. Phares, he 

was introduced to the President from Roger Ailes. I think he was a FOX News 

contributor, and he was one of the few people who was actually willing to put their 

name out publicly and say they were giving advice to our campaign. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what was his role during the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: He would-- I think he maybe met with the candidate 

maybe once, and I think he would send emails with suggestions that probably a 

small fraction actually got to the candidate with regards to the policy. 

MR. SCHIFF: And who did he send those suggestions to? 

MR. KUSHNER: Either myself or lvanka or whoever else would take his 

emails. 

MR. SCHIFF: And are you aware of any international travel by Mr. Phares 

during the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: What role did Mr. Phares have during the Republican 

Convention? 

MR. KUSHNER: None that I know of. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any knowledge or involvement in the debate 

over the Ukraine plank in the Russian -- in the Republican Convention? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I was not involved in the platform. 

MR. SCHIFF: What was Joseph Schmitz' role in the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know who that is, so I don't think it could have been 

very major or maybe one at all. 

MR. SCHIFF: And how about George Papadopoulos? 

MR. KUSHNER: Who? 

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MR. SCHIFF: George Papadopoulos. 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know who that is. 

MR. SCHIFF: So you've never met him or spoken with him? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

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MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any conversations that-- from third parties 

that Mr. Phares had any contact with Russian nationals during the course of the 

campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I'm aware of. 

MR. SCHIFF: Same question about Joseph Schmitz. 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, I don't know who that is so--

MR. SCHIFF: And same question about George Papadopoulos? 

MR. KUSHNER: Same answer. 

MR. SCHIFF: Lieutenant General Joseph Kellogg, what was his role in the 

campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: General Kellogg was introduced to us from General Flynn. 

He got involved and really was very, very helpful in terms of organizing a lot of 

retired military support for the President. 

You know, we had a time in the campaign where a lot of these people in 

Washington, perhaps in attempt to audition for working in another administration, 

were coming out signing letters. And what he was able to do was organize a lot of 

generals who were supportive of Trump and help us build that coalition. So he also 

helped us with some debate prep too. 

MR. SCHIFF: And are you aware of any meetings or discussions that 

General Kellogg had with Russian Government officials or Russian nationals during 

the course of the campaign? 

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MR. KUSHNER: No, I'm not. 

MR. SCHIFF: What was J.D. Gordon's role in the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think he was one of the guys on that list, but I've never 

met him. And, again, the guys on that list, I'm not even sure if they even got a 

chance to meet the President, so I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: And you wouldn't be aware of what role he played at the 

convention either? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: And I take it you're not aware of any international travel by 

J.D. Gordon during the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Or any contact that Mr. Gordon may or may not have had 

with Russian officials or Russian nationals? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: What was Carter Page's role during the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: He also was one of those guys who was on that list. But, 

again, we put together that list because we were getting a lot of pressure from the 

media to put out a list of foreign policy advisers. A lot of the people who the 

President was talking to were not willing to have their names publicly associated 

with that campaign-- with our campaign, and so this was a list that Sam Clovis put 

together. 

And I don't know to what degree that those people even got the chance to 

meet the President, but I do know that the amount of interaction they had with the 

actual campaign or influence they had on anything that happened in the campaign 

was virtually nonexistent. 

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MR. SCHIFF: So the individuals on that initial national security advisory 

committee were brought in by Mr. Clovis? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

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MR. SCHIFF: And are you aware of any campaign travel or individual travel 

taken by Carter Page during the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I know from press --from my personal knowledge or from 

press reports? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, let's start from personal knowledge. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, I had no knowledge of anything he did. 

MR. SCHIFF: There has been a lot of public reporting about Mr. Page. 

Have you had discussions with other people during the course of the campaign or 

thereafter about the allegations involving Carter Page? 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean, just to the extent where we would say, who was 

this guy? And, you know, it was somebody who nobody on the campaign really 

knew. 

MR. SCHIFF: So the only one who really knew him would have been the 

gentleman who brought him into the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Possibly, and I don't know to what degree that guy knew 

him either, so you'd have to ask him. 

MR. SCHIFF: If he were to travel with the permission of the campaign or 

under the auspices of the campaign, who would have to approve that? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether J.D. Gordon approved his travel? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Who have you discussed with the allegation that Mr. Page 

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met with individuals in Moscow that has been the subject of public discussion? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'll be honest; it's not been a topic of discussion internally 

because he was really not somebody who we were very involved with in any way. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the allegations involving Mr. Page with 

Mr. Bannon? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the allegations involving Mr. Page with the 

President? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall, but, again, unlikely for both. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you recall discussing the allegations involving Mr. Page 

with anyone? 

MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, this was not something that was of great-- the 

only way that it would have come up would be to almost laugh at the fact that 

people were trying to turn this into, you know, an extension of the campaign and 

something that was having any bearing on what we were doing. 

MR. SCHIFF: So you have no specific recollection of any conversation you 

have had regarding Mr. Page? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: When did you first meet General Flynn? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the specific time. I remember he came on 

our radar screen about the time we were vetting Vice Presidential candidates, and I 

believe he spoke at the convention. I don't think I met him there. 

Afterwards, I heard he wanted to get involved in the campaign. We were 

thrilled to have somebody who was a former military person with some stature 

willing to be a surrogate for us. So I was connected with him and we got him more 

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involved in the campaign, and he did some great surrogacy work for us. 

MR. SCHIFF: And when he first became involved in the campaign, how 

often did you interact with him? 

22 

MR. KUSHNER: It really depended. I mean, if he had an issue or 

something he wanted to bring to my attention, he would call me or email me, but I 

wouldn't say that extensively. 

MR. SCHIFF: The now much publicized trip that he took to Moscow on 

behalf of RT, did you ever discuss that trip with him? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: The reported conversation, the alleged conversation that 

General Flynn had with Ambassador Kislyak, conversation/conversations, have you 

had the opportunity to discuss his contacts with Ambassador Kislyak with General 

Flynn? 

MR. KUSHNER: The only thing I recall is I remember him saying that 

somebody -- and I don't remember the specifics but that somebody got killed in 

battle and maybe it was a friend of his or it was somebody else and he sent 

condolences. 

And so that's why they had a nice relationship because he-- you know, that 

was one thing about General Flynn was that he was very personable. He did 

develop good relationships with people, and he would always go out of his way to 

try to do thoughtful things like that. 

MR. SCHIFF: And I'm not sure I'm following you. He had a good 

relationship with whom? With Ambassador Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: I remember it wasn't-- I wouldn't say extensive, but I 

remember at some point when Kislyak came up he said along the lines of, you 

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know, I reached out to him to wish condolences on somebody. I don't remember 

the whole context of the story. So -- and it was in a prior time. 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, tell me when that conversation took place, and when 

he's referring to a conversation he had with Kislyak that involved condolences, 

when would that conversation have taken place? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. Again, it's a very-- it's like a bit of a 

memory. I don't know. I don't recall the context of it or even if it was actually even 

Kislyak, so maybe I probably shouldn't go into it. But I remember there was 

something along the lines of that, but I can't-- that's all I'm coming up with. 

MR. SCHIFF: The conversation, the alleged conversation between Michael 

Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak that led to General Flynn's removal from his position 

as National Security Advisor, what conversations did you have with General Flynn 

about that? 

MR. KUSHNER: None, really. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever discuss with General Flynn his discussion with 

Ambassador Kislyak that was reported to have included the topic of sanctions or the 

removal of Russian personnel from diplomatic facilities in the United States? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: So that particular alleged phone call you never discussed 

with General Flynn? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Have you discussed reports about that call with others in the 

administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: Can you say that again? 

MR. SCHIFF: Have you discussed reports of that call with other members 

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of the administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I -- nothing specific comes to mind that I recall. 

mean, it's possible I did, but nothing memorable. 

24 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, just for creating a very accurate, specific 

record, this question refers to what would have happened after the administration 

took office? 

MR. SCHIFF: This-- what I'm asking about is after the reported call or 

discussion or meeting between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak that 

resulted in his removal from office, did Mr. Kushner discuss this with other members 

of the administration? 

MR. LOWELL: So I just need to make sure I'm understanding the 

parameters, as reading your May 9 letter and talking to your staff. When you get 

into issues about what happened once the administration takes office as opposed to 

your described definition of what was the attempts to interfere with the election, I 

just want to be clear that I have told the White House Counsel's Office, for example, 

that things that might implicate them, they don't need to be here of because it's 

outside what I understand to be your parameters. 

So, when there's a conversation happening after Inauguration Day, if you 

identify that that's a question you're asking, that will help for the record, and that will 

help me decide whether I need to include anybody else that I haven't included in the 

conversation today. 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, that's the question I'm asking. And I will leave it to you 

how you want to advise your client. 

MR. LOWELL: Well, he's answered it, so --

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, I can answer that question. Again, at that point in 

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time, there were so many things happening. We were adjusting to a new 

administration. I don't recall anything specific with regards to that. 

25 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever discuss with General Flynn any interactions that 

he had with representatives of the Russian Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: That's a very broad question, so let me try to think 

about -- nothing is coming to my mind on that. 

MR. SCHIFF: Let me ask, if I could, how we're doing on time? When did 

we--

We have 15 more minutes. 

MR. SCHIFF: Fifteen more minutes, okay. 

MR. KUSHNER: And I don't know the rules of how you guys conduct this, 

but I'm available for more time. So don't feel crunched unless --

MR. CONAWAY: Each side has a certain amount of time, and we're altering 

back and forth. 

MR. KUSHNER: Just let me know what you need from me. 

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. 

Mr. Kushner, do you ever communicate with encrypted apps? 

MR. KUSHNER: I use WhatsApp. 

MR. SCHIFF: And did you use that throughout the campaign as well? 

MR. KUSHNER: The only thing I used it for during the campaign was we 

have a family WhatsApp group. That's why I downloaded WhatsApp. So my 

sisters upload pictures of their kids for my mom and my dad to see, and it's a good 

thing for the family to share messages and photos on and videos sometimes. 

MR. SCHIFF: And did you use that app purely for personal business, or did 

you also use it for campaign business? 

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MR. KUSHNER: No, purely personal. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what was your primary method of communication with 

respect to things pertaining to the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Email and my personal cell phone. 

26 

MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of your email, what provider do you use for your 

email? 

MR. KUSHNER: The main provider was my Kushner Companies and 

Observer emails. 

MR. SCHIFF: And that's a proprietary server? 

MR. LOWELL: Can you define what do you mean by "proprietary"? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, in other words, you don't use a commercial provider for 

your email. You have your own through your business? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Yeah, my email-- the business did it. I don't 

know-- I'm sure we were probably in the cloud somewhere who, you know, did the 

storage and whatnot. But, yeah, I mean, we have our own IT department and 

whatnot, and that's how I would do it. So --

MR. SCHIFF: And what cell phone carrier did you use? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. 

MR. KUSHNER: But I could get you that answer if you'd like. 

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. Thank you. Do you know who Porter Smith is? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: There have been newspaper reports that Porter Smith was 

doing opposition research for a quasi-independent committee or independent 

expenditure committee. Do you have any knowledge of the operations of the 

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committee that he was affiliated with? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know who that is. What committee was he 

affiliated with? 

27 

MR. SCHIFF: There are allegations that he sought to enlist the help of 

foreign hackers who may have possession of the Hillary Clinton emails and that he 

had a relationship with the Flynns or others on the campaign. But you're not 

familiar with Porter Smith or any of the facts underlying those allegations? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, I have no knowledge of that. 

MR. SCHIFF: Have you had any meetings with any Russian Government 

representatives or Russian nationals or dual Russian-American citizens that are not 

discussed in your written testimony? 

MR. KUSHNER: So I just want to be very clear, if you're saying-- you know, 

my wife has a girlfriend who is Russian and, you know-- and, you know, we go to a 

kid's birthday party or something like that and we see her. Is that included in that 

as a Russian contact? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, let me narrow it to any Russian nationals, Russian 

Government representatives, or others who have engaged you in conversation on 

any matters pertaining to U.S./Russia relations or the campaign. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, then it's all covered in my statement, as far as I can 

recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Who else in the Trump campaign, to your knowledge, had 

contact with Russian officials or their proxies or individuals acting on behalf of 

Russian interest during the course of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Let me say that the campaign was obviously a very 

different campaign, and I think different than -- I mean, all of you have-- obviously, 

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you're here, so you're pretty good at running campaigns and have been effective at 

it. We had a very different type of campaign than most. 

What I would say is there was a core team that actually got the work done, 

built out the operations, built out the ground game, did the digital effort, did all this 

stuff. Most of these people were just focused on how do we win Michigan or 

Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or all these different States. 

There may have been -- I know that Chris Christie got a few incoming calls 

from foreign governments, and I know that Jeff Sessions did. But other than that, 

that's all I have knowledge of. 

MR. SCHIFF: I'm going to come back to this, but at this point, I want to 

defer to one of my colleagues for some of his questions. I appreciate your 

willingness to stay beyond our initial estimate of how long you'd be here. 

And as my colleague made clear, the process, just to make sure that you 

understand, we will have 45 minutes for our first round and then the majority. And 

then we will go to 15-minute rounds, where we will go back and forth as long as 

your time permits. 

MR. KUSHNER: Great. 

MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Himes. 

MR. HIMES: Thank you. 

And thank you, Mr. Kushner, for being here. I've got a series of questions 

that pertain to financial transactions, financial relationships. And what I'd like to 

do-- which maybe take 10, 15 minutes, if the time allows; if not, we'll come back to 

it -- is ask you a couple of specific questions about some specific entities and them 

close out hopefully in a way that will largely dispose of the questions with more 

categorical questions. 

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So let me start, my questions really stem from a statement you made in your 

written testimony: I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business 

activities in the private sector. 

I'd like to sort of color that in a little bit. 

And I'd like to start with the meeting that you reported in December of 2016 

with Sergey Gorkov of VEB. You said in your testimony that he told me a little 

about his bank. Can you describe exactly what he told you about VEB in that 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: He basically told me that they were a massive bank; they 

did a great job. I mean, it's funny, people asked me after, they said, did you know 

his bank was under sanctions? I said, talking to him, you would have thought his 

bank was the best bank in the world. So he was clearly selling what a great job 

they were doing. And I think he mentioned that they financed the Olympics, and 

that was really the extent of it. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Had you heard of or had any sort of contact with VEB 

or people associated with VEB prior to that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'd never heard of it before. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. I think you reported that your assistant, Avi 

Berkowitz-- is that correct-- also met with Mr. Gorkov in December 2016 shortly 

before that meeting took place-- that your meeting took place. Were you aware of 

that meeting with Mr. Berkowitz, Mr. Gorkov? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if he had a meeting with him or if he brought 

him up to the meeting. I don't believe he had a meeting with Mr. Gorkov by 

himself. He may have escorted him into the meeting, but I don't think he had a 

meeting. 

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MR. HIMES: Okay. So that was actually on the same day and 

Mr. Berkowitz simply met him and brought him to the meeting with you? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. As far as I know, but I'm pretty confident of that. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. So there was no separate meeting with Mr. Berkowitz? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Did Mr. Berkowitz tell you anything about VEB or 

Mr. Gorkov prior to your meeting with him? 

MR. KUSHNER: All he told me was that the Russian Ambassador-- you 

know, we had a pretty uneventful meeting with him a couple weeks earlier. He 

followed up, requested another meeting with me. 

I didn't really have interest in meeting with him again, because the first one 

wasn't-- it wasn't a bad meeting; it just wasn't a productive meeting. And during 

the time of the transition, we had a lot going on, so I was trying to be judicious with 

my time. So I declined that meeting. 

He then was very insistent. He asked if my assistant A vi would meet him. 

Avi, he's a Harvard law grad, so he's not a-- he's a smart kid. But A vi went and 

met with him, and he asked me to meet with this guy, Gorkov, who said could give 

him much more insight into what Putin's thoughts were on a potential new 

relationship. 

And so he asked if I could do it, said he was in town for, you know, a couple 

days. And so I don't want to be rude to the Russian Ambassador and then tell, you 

know, Russia, "Go screw yourself; I'm too important to take a meeting." So I said, 

"Squeeze the guy in." So we took the meeting. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. In your statement, you do say: 

At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transaction, 

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real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements. 

Did Mr. Gorkov mention the possibility of a future business relationship or 

make any sort of offer or suggestion for future business relationships of any kind --

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. HIMES: -- in that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. My interpretation of the meeting was that-- at the 

end, is I wasn't sure quite what it was for. But I did take the two gifts that he gave 

me, and I registered them with the transition. So I think that that shows that my 

intent at the time was that it was a meeting I was conducting in my capacity as a 

transition official. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Were you asked by anyone to convey any sort of 

message or make any sort of offer or communicate anything in specific to 

Mr. Gorkov in that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. So let's move on from VEB. I'm going to just mention 

a couple of companies to see if you have knowledge of or any relationship with. 

There's a Russian energy company by the name of Rosneft, which I guess at some 

point was run by Igor Sechin. Have you had any contact with Rosneft? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. HIMES: Alfa Bank, Russian bank. Have you had any contact of any 

kind with Alfa Bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. There's a Russian bank VTB. Any contact or 

knowledge of VTB? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

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MR. HIMES: Okay. As I mentioned, I'm going to sort of ask some 

categorical questions that hopefully will dispose of a lot of specific questions. And 

the question I'm going to ask you now is whether you -- you do make a point about 

your business financing. 

But I'm going to broaden that to say you, members of your family, Kushner 

businesses, corporations, partnerships, other businesses organizations, has that 

category of people and organizations ever purchased any sort of asset, and by 

"asset" I mean equity, that tangible assets, any sort of derivative assets from any 

Russian bank, Russian business, or Russian individual? That was a lot to do. 

Was I clear in --

MR. KUSHNER: That is about as broad of a question as you could possible 

answer. So, look, I'll try to answer that in the best I can without, you know, putting 

myself in a "gotcha" situation where you can come back and say, "Your 

brother-in-law, you know, bought a share of stock from a guy whose brother may 

have known a Russian at some point," you know. 

So we have a fairly extensive holdings. Again, I did not design my life to go 

into politics. And, you know, we had a very, very growing business, very 

complicated. And what I did was I then went back when all of this Russia stuff 

came up, and I said: Look, do we have any Russian investors that we could find? 

Do we have any Russian financing that we could find? The answer is, is I couldn't 

find any. 

And, again, we have extensive banking relationships. A lot of our stuff we 

fund ourselves, but we also have a lot of partners and different things. A lot of 

them are all blue chip banks, blue chip partners. And I'm very proud of the 

companies we've built. 

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And, you know, again, you know, could you find, you know, some guy who 

may-- like, one example is, in this business that I have, Cadre, which I wrote the 

business plan for, but there's another CEO who runs the business. He raised, you 

know, some money for the company in the first round of the financing. The 

company now has raised over $100 million. There's a guy who's Russian named 

Yuri Milner, who made a small angel investment in the company. He wanted to go 

bigger. We didn't have room in the deal because it was over subscribed by a lot of 

other people. Yuri is Russian, but I think he also is one of the most prestigious 

internet investors probably in the world. He invested in Facebook and other 

places. So I don't want to say, "Okay, I have no Russian investments anywhere," 

and then have people come out and say, "We gotcha." 

MR. HIMES: I understand. 

MR. KUSHNER: So -- but my basic point is that we run a very clean 

business. We have fairly extensive holdings, but there is nothing I could find 

anywhere that shows that we've relied on Russian capital to finance our 

businesses, not during the campaign and not even prior. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. 

MR. KUSHNER: Does that answer? 

MR. HIMES: I think so. Thank you. 

MR. KUSHNER: With all the "gotcha" caveats. 

MR. HIMES: I appreciate the complexity. I want to get away from the word 

"relied," though. And so I asked about the purchase of assets, and you alluded to 

this in your answer, but to your knowledge, have you personally, members of your 

family, or corporations, partnerships, associations that are associated with the 

Kushner Companies, have they borrowed or assumed any sort of material liability 

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from a Russian person, bank, or business? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. You know, the one thing-- because, 

again, your thing is so broad -- is there was an article written in The Washington 

Post about a building I bought, I think it was in 2014, from a guy Lev Leviev. So 

Lev, I think he's Israeli, but he may have come from Russia originally. I never met 

him during the transaction. 

We paid $293 million for the building at the time. Actually, Blackstone had 

to write a first offer. They bid 265, so we overbid them. And, you know, it ended 

up being a successful transaction. But that's the only thing I could think of that had 

a Russian in any of our business dealings, and everything was totally arm's length. 

MR. HIMES: And just for clarity sake, what is the Russian connection in that 

purchase? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think that guy may be Russian. 

MR. HIMES: The individual who runs the Israel-Africa? 

MR. KUSHNER: Israel-Africa, yeah. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Okay. 

MR. KUSHNER: So, again, I just don't want you to come back with 

"gotchas." 

MR. HIMES: Yeah. Understood. 

And let me come back to that. My last kind of categorical question, we 

talked about purchase of assets and assumption of liabilities, debt, loans. Same 

question: Have you, as an individual, members of your family, or businesses, 

entered into any sort of partnership or joint venture, any sort of formal legal 

association with a Russian person, business, or bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that comes to mind. 

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MR. HIMES: Let's go back to that Deutsche Bank transaction, which you 

raised. It was the subject of a Washington Post story. Other than what you 

mentioned, the individual who was the head of, I guess, it's Africa Israel, have you 

heard or learned anything else about Russian financial support or involvement in 

the securing of that Deutsche Bank loan? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I have not. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. 

MR. KUSHNER: I will say that they did retrade me and not in a good way 

after the loan was closed. So--

MR. HIMES: Deutsche Bank retraded you, is that what you mean? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Yeah, they took away, I think, maybe it was like 

30, 40 bps --the market moved after the election and they didn't want to eat the 

loss, so we locked in a good rate. It wasn't securitized. They went back and 

retraded us before final syndication. So--

back. 

MR. ROONEY: Jim, we're going to have to move to our side and then--

MR. HIMES: That's fine. I probably have four more minutes, so we'll come 

MR. ROONEY: No, 53 was the end of 45 minutes. 

So do you need to use the restroom or anything? Are you good? Okay. 

Trey, go ahead. 

MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, our committee is essentially looking at four 

things: What did Russia do during the 2016 election cycle? With whom, if 

anyone, did they do it? What was the U.S. Government's response during the 

pendency of those attacks? And then the issue of leaks and unmaskings. 

My questions are going to focus on the first two prongs of that four-part 

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jurisdiction. Other than what you cited in your 11-page written statement, did you 

meet in 2016 with anyone you knew or suspected to be connected with the Russian 

Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

MR. GOWDY: Now, when you say not that you can recall, what duty do you 

believe you have to investigate and what steps did you undertake to make sure that 

your memory is exhausted? 

MR. LOWELL: Well, Congressman, hold on a second. You mean other 

than talking to counsel, right? 

MR. GOWDY: Yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, so people went through my phone logs, my emails, 

my calendar. So we've done a pretty extensive search. I mean, there may be 

something in my memory that I ran into somebody somewhere, but, again, nothing 

that I can think of that is outside of those. 

MR. GOWDY: When did you learn the DNC server had been hacked? 

MR. KUSHNER: When it was reported in the news. 

MR. GOWDY: When did you learn that John Podesta's email had been 

hacked or compromised? 

MR. KUSHNER: When it was reported in the news. 

MR. GOWDY: Were you involved in any fashion with discussing or 

coordinating the public dissemination of information taken from the DNC server 

hack? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Were you involved in any fashion with discussing or 

coordinating the public dissemination of information taken from the John Podesta 

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email hack? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Did you meet with anyone connected with the Russian 

Government, to any degree, whatsoever connected with the Russian Government in 

an attempt to gather negative information about 2016 candidates in either the 

primary or the general election? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: There was a meeting on June 6, maybe-- my date may be 

off. June the 9th. There is an email from --that was to Donald Trump, Jr. I think 

you are part of the tail end of that email string. Do you recall when you first read 

that email? 

MR. KUSHNER: The part of it to me or the entirety of the chain? 

MR. GOWDY: Both. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. The part to me that said the meeting is moved to 4 

o'clock, I probably read that day quickly on my iPhone. I mean, I hope so, because 

I think I showed up at that meeting, maybe a little late. And the part with the email 

chain, when it was shown to me by my lawyers. 

MR. GOWDY: So, when you showed up in June of 2016, you did not realize 

that there had been email traffic back and forth about an attempt to gather negative 

information about Secretary Clinton? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Walk us through what steps you took to remove yourself 

from that meeting. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. So, first of all, even backing up further, it wasn't 

uncommon. We were all kind of hacking together a Presidential campaign, and we 

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were all working out of the same building, mostly jumping in and out of each other's 

meetings. So, you know, I'd tell Don to stop into my stuff or Eric to stop into my 

stuff. I would stop into their stuff. So it wasn't uncommon for us to jump in and out 

of meetings. 

That meeting in particular, I showed up in the meeting. I saw a bunch of 

people sitting there. I remember I sat down. Someone was talking about Russian 

adoption and how it was something that Americans really wanted and it was a 

whole travesty that it wasn't allowed. 

I remember sitting there saying, I'm not sure what this has to do with 

anything that I'm working on. So I thought of what's a very polite way to -- maybe 

the least rude way to excuse myself from the meeting. I didn't recall this fresh, but 

then I saw the emails when my lawyers were searching through where I sent a note 

to my assistant saying: Can one of you guys please call my cell? I've got to get 

out of a meeting. And I guess one of them called. I took the call and politely had 

to excuse myself, and I went back to my other jobs. 

MR. GOWDY: It looked like you may have actually made two requests to 

people to get you out of the meeting. Am I reading that incorrectly? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes, I did. 

MR. GOWDY: Okay. So two separate times you wanted someone to give 

you an excuse to leave this meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. Well, the first time was to my assistant. She didn't 

call very quickly so I assume maybe she wasn't at her computer. So I emailed the 

assistant that sits next to her. 

MR. GOWDY: How long were you in this meeting before you realized you 

didn't want to be there? 

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MR. KUSHNER: It was probably a couple-- I mean, just, again, you know, 

during the campaign, you do a thousand things, right, and everyone is asking you to 

meet with everybody. They say politics and sports are the two things that everyone 

can tell the people who are doing it how to do it better. 

And so, you know, we just had a lot of people trying to offer ideas, 

perspective, advice. So, you know, you take a lot of meetings, but, you know, you 

also try to figure out how to not waste as much time as possible. 

So I got there, quickly realized that it wasn't my relationship. The people 

next to me could kind of suffer through it, and I was going to go back to, you know, 

my different responsibilities. 

MR. GOWDY: What's your best estimate on how long you were in the 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Probably around 10 minutes or so. 

MR. GOWDY: Okay. I want to make reference to some matters that have 

been Bates stamped. Do you have the production that your--

MR. LOWELL: We do, Congressman. 

MR. GOWDY: Bates stamp No. 3. What are we looking at? 

MR. KUSHNER: I guess this is the invite list that was put together for the 

speech we did at the Mayflower Hotel. 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, just for the record, No. 3 would be an 

attachment to Nos. 1 and 2; 1 and 2 is the email. This is the attachment. 

MR. GOWDY: Okay. And that would be a speech -- if memory serves me 

correctly, and if it doesn't, you correct me, that was your first meeting with 

Ambassador Kislyak that you recall? 

MR. KUSHNER: It was the first time I met Ambassador Kislyak. I wouldn't 

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call it a meeting. 

MR. GOWDY: All right. First time you met him. And describe the full 

extent of that interaction, as you recall it. 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. So this was an event that we were able to get 

40 

a -- like I said before, you know, we were not the most popular people in 

Washington at that time. We were able to get this group, The National Interest, to 

host the candidate at the time for a foreign policy address, which was going to be 

the first time he pulled together all the different things he'd been saying on foreign 

policy and really wove it into a theme. 

It was a really great speech. And in doing that, this guy Dimitri, who I'd met 

through a friend, he offered to host so he put together the event. I got to the event 

early just to make -- by "early" I mean before the President-- before the candidate, 

because I wanted to make sure everything was in good shape. 

It was his second time using a teleprompter, so I wanted to make sure the 

height was good, the room felt good. You know and, again, I was the one-- it was 

my idea to do the event, and so I knew that, if things did not go well, I was the one 

who was going to get -- was going to be given crap for it. 

So I went there. Then there was a reception that Dimitri was having for his 

guests, and, you know, I stopped in there to thank him. And he introduced me to 

maybe 20, 25 guests. I shook their hands. I said, I hope you'll enjoy the speech 

and, you know, enjoy the candidate's, you know, fresh perspective on foreign policy. 

And one of those people that I met was the Russian Ambassador. 

MR. GOWDY: Were there other people in the room when you met the 

Russian Ambassador? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

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MR. GOWDY: I was just noting from the invite list, if it were something you 

were trying to keep a secret, you did a lousy job with the invite list. Bloomberg 

News, Politico Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles 

Times, and U.S. Senate. So, if that was something you wanted to keep a secret, 

the attendee list belies that. 

Now, Bates No. 9. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. And just so that I say it, I was not the one in 

charge of the invite list, but the goal of the event was not to keep it a secret. It was 

to do a public speech and try to have the opportunity to meet with and project a 

speech to the foreign -- as much of the foreign policy establishment that would 

actually come and listen to us at that time. 

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[11 :05 a.m.] 

MR. GOWDY: No. 9 is an email that the Ambassador, who said they really 

want to be allies, but the current administration pays them no mind. That is April of 

2016. 

What did you mean by "really want to be allies"? 

MR. KUSHNER: You know, so my thing I said to most of the guests at the 

event was I hope you'll enjoy, you know, the candidate's fresh approach to foreign 

policy. When I said that to the Russian Ambassador, he says: I like what 

Candidate Trump's saying. You know, there's no reason why Russia and America 

shouldn't be able to work on a lot of these problems together. We're not going to 

agree on everything, but, you know, if he wins, we're happy to have a dialogue. 

He then gave me his card, said they had the best Russian food at his 

Embassy, invited me for a lunch there. And I said thank you. And that was the 

extent of our conversation. And I never followed up with him on that generous 

offer. 

MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 24, August 26, 2016. Was that you that sent an 

email with a single word response, "pass"? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: What were you passing on and why? 

MR. KUSHNER: I guess it was a luncheon I was invited to with the Russian 

Ambassador to the United Nations. Again, like I said, at that point in time, my 

focus was on how do we figure out how to run a ground game in the different 

States, and how do I raise money on the internet and how do we make sure we can 

made ads for television and how do I make sure I've got a schedule for the 

candidate where he's not going to kill me because I'm working him too hard and 

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how do we make sure he can overnight in the right places. I mean, that was not 

the number one thing on my mind at the time. So-- but I would get invited to a 

million things, and I would say either, you know, "Why?" or pass to my assistant. 

MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 29. This looks like it's after the election. 

November 9, 2016. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: "Can you look into this? Don't want to get duped, but don't 

want to blow off Putin." 

What did you mean by that? 

MR. KUSHNER: That email was sent by Hope Hicks. Hope was an 

amazing person on the campaign who was with the President almost the whole 

time. 

I guess she got this email with an attached letter the day after the campaign. 

And keep in mind, I mean, we won that very early in the morning, and, you know, 

we kind of built our campaign to go goal line plus an inch. You know, it was not 

something that was, you know, built out for longer than that. So we had a lot of 

incoming from all over the world, from all over the country, from anyone we'd ever 

known sending us congratulatory emails. 

She got this one from a guy Sergey Kuznetsov, I guess with an attached 

letter from Putin, and she just wanted to make sure that it was legit and not 

somebody screwing with us. So --

MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 32. Again, this looks like it may be the day after 

the election. It's an email from you--

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: --to Dimitri Simes. Is that how he pronounces his name? 

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MR. KUSHNER: Simes. 

MR. GOWDY: Simes? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: "What is name of Russian Ambassador?" 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

44 

MR. GOWDY: Are you really struggling to recall the name of the Russian 

Ambassador? 

MR. KUSHNER: You know, I shook his hand at that event, but, again, I, 

over the course of the event, met so many people and had so many names. And I 

figured he would probably be the best person for us to contact to find out if the letter 

was authentic or not. And so I emailed Dimitri to figure out the guy's name so I 

could have somebody track him down. 

MR. GOWDY: And this is the morning after the election? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. Before this guy became famous, so--

MR. GOWDY: Before you became famous. 

MR. KUSHNER: That's true. 

MR. GOWDY: I want to ask you about one line in your statement, and it is 

going to be on page 11, last page. And it's bold on the copy that I have towards 

the end. It may be bold on the copy that you have also. 

"I did not collude nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded with 

any foreign government." 

I want to ask you if that statement is also true if I were to take out the word 

"campaign"? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'm sorry? 

MR. GOWDY: If I were to take out the word "campaign," "I did not collude 

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nor know of anyone else who colluded," is that statement also true? 

MR. KUSHNER: It's still true, yeah. I don't know of anyone anywhere who 

colluded with the Russian Government on the campaign. Again, one of the things 

with me is, you know, I oversaw the data operation. And I saw over the last 10 

days specifically, you know, every place we were sending door knocks, every place 

we were doing phone calls, every place we were doing our ads, every place we 

were sending the candidate, we knew where we were trending on a daily basis. 

We know why we won the election, and it was because we ran a great campaign, 

the candidate had the right message, and he worked like a horse. It was 

unbelievable. 

So, yeah, I mean, nobody that I know of had anything to do with colluding 

with Russia in any way, shape, or form. 

MR. GOWDY: Which is why I ask. And that's one of the reasons people 

hate lawyers as much as they do is they have a tendency to hyper-focus on every 

word in a sentence, and I'm afraid perhaps some of our friends may focus on the 

phrase "in the campaign." 

And I want to make absolutely clear, whether someone was officially or 

unofficially connected with the campaign, no matter, you're not aware of anyone 

who colluded with the Russian Government with respect to the 2016 election? 

MR. KUSHNER: I am not. And thank you for clarifying that. And I will say 

too, I mean, we were talking before about a lot of marginal characters who the 

campaign did have a lot of hangers-oners in different ways. But, again, being as 

somebody who really was at the center of a lot of the substance of the operations 

and the execution and, you know, all the problems came to me and all the 

opportunities came to me, at no point in time did anyone with the campaign or not 

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with the campaign bring me anything that had to do with coordinating with any 

foreign government on anything that would have helped us win. So I want to say it 

as definitively as possible. 

MR. GOWDY: Two more quick questions. My friend from California asked 

you about a cash payment to hackers. Again, under the heading that you got to 

pay attention to every word, are you aware of any payments, cash or otherwise, to 

any hackers? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: The June meeting with your brother-in-law and what's now 

been described as a Russian lawyer, did you tell then-candidate Trump about the 

meeting, either before or after? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: With that, I would yield to the gentleman from Florida. 

MR. ROONEY: Thank you, sir. 

My questions have to do with where we are now. So, if you're not 

comfortable or if your counsel is not comfortable talking about since you've been in 

government, I totally understand. I mean, I understand what you were saying 

before. 

But this committee's role is to write a report on what happened in the last 

election and to try to improve what our intelligence-gathering and our Intelligence 

Community can do to thwart such things in the future. 

So, speaking as best you can, and I understand if this is not your lane at all, 

but seeing that you have a prominent role in the White House, can you advise this 

committee or tell this committee of any Russian cyber activity-- and I'm reading 

directly now from what the parameters of what we're trying to do here are -- what 

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Russian cyber activities you have come to learn, and what measures the White 

House has taken to protect our country and our allies moving forward? 

47 

And if this is not part of your purview or if you don't know any of that, I 

understand that. I just wanted to go over what our exact parameters are and what 

we're trying to do with our report. This is not a criminal investigation --

MR. KUSHNER: Of course. 

MR. ROONEY: --despite what some in the press might be alluding to. We 

are trying to make the Intelligence Community better. 

So now that you're part of the government, what have you come to learn with 

regard to Russia, and what is the government, as far as you know, doing about it? 

MR. LOWELL: Hold on, Congressman, just so that we are also very clear 

about this. 

Mr. Kushner, as a member of the government, may have learned things, in 

terms of briefings or conversations. I understand this to be an unclassified event. 

MR. ROONEY: Correct. 

MR. LOWELL: And so I don't think you want--

MR. ROONEY: Right, I don't. 

MR. LOWELL: What's germane-- let me say it this way. There are 

certainly questions you can ask Mr. Kushner, and ask away, about what he's 

learned now about events that occurred, as you have--

MR. ROONEY: Right. 

MR. LOWELL: -- in the campaign. If you're asking what he has learned in 

real time about things that are part of his job or in the intelligence world --

MR. ROONEY: No. 

MR. LOWELL: -- I don't know that you want to do that here. 

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MR. KUSHNER: I understand what he's saying. I think it's a fair question. 

So the first order of priority really was to have a smooth transition of power 

and to make sure that, you know, as we came on board that no footballs were 

dropped, fumbled along the way, which I think we did a very good job of to date. 

The next thing that we've tried to do is really start identifying objectives and 

then working backwards to create strategies to then achieve those objectives. We 

largely inherited what I would call a strategy-free environment. And so what the 

team has done, really led by H.R. McMaster, who I think has done a fabulous job, is 

he's come up with the 16 or so principal objectives that the President has and he's 

run a very extensive interagency processes to try and figure out what steps we 

need to be taking to try and achieve those objectives. 

I believe that cyber plays a role in many of those, in many of those scenarios, 

and will be addressed accordingly by all the wonderful professionals in our 

government. 

Does that answer the question? 

MR. ROONEY: Yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: Without revealing any classified information. 

MR. LOWELL: You did good. 

MR. ROONEY: The other questions that I have also relate to what could 

possibly be classified as well, so I'll save that for another day. 

MR. GOWDY: Can you describe the alleged back channels after the 

election before the inauguration with the Russian Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. So, first of all, I'd want to say that hopefully the fact 

that, as one of the senior-most transition officials and also the person who is 

responsible for primary contacts with foreign governments during the campaign, the 

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fact that we are going through the normal channels during the transition hopefully 

serves to show that there were no existing channels through the campaign. 

At the meeting that I had with the Russian Ambassador, which he requested, 

I guess it was on November 16th, it took me a couple weeks to get to it because we 

had a lot of other pressing matters at the time. One of the topics he raised was 

that we would like to-- you know, they thought that America's strategy in Syria was 

a little bit misguided. Clearly, America and Russia had been not necessarily in 

sync on what the right strategy was in Syria. That's just what I gathered from 

reading the news reports over the prior period. 

He ,.- so I was sitting there with General Flynn and the Ambassador. He 

suggested that -- that-- that there --that they would like to give us, you know, their 

military's perspective on it, asked if there was a secure way to do so. And we didn't 

have access to a secure line in the transition office in New York. And so he-- so I 

said, what if we-- and again, I'm a business guy, so everything I want to get done 

yesterday, especially a situation like Syria where you -- it's one of I think the worst 

humanitarian disasters that, you know, I've seen in my lifetime, what's happening 

there. 

And so I said-- I said, look, can we use your communication? Again, I did 

not have a security clearance then. I did not have a brief on how secure 

communications go. I figured if there was a way that he was comfortable getting us 

the information, that would be acceptable. He said, no, we shouldn't do that. 

Then we moved on and decided that if there was not a way that they were 

comfortable relaying to us that information, then we'd wait until after we were-- after 

inauguration and do it through the normal course. 

So there was no talk of how do we set up a secret back phone between 

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countries or how do we have nefarious hidden conversations. The guy wanted to 

give us information that I thought was pertinent towards developing a strategy on 

one of-- one of the most dire situations that we were going to inherit. And the 

quicker we could get a leap on gathering the different perspectives from the 

different players who were credible and willing to give it, the better off I thought we 

would be. So --

MR. GOWDY: Tell us about the inadvertent filing of the initial SF-86. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. So, first of all, the SF-86, from what I understand, 

when I went through that process, I hired WilmerHale, one of the best law firms in 

D.C., to assist me on doing all my paperwork for all these different things that were 

now happening. I'd never done an SF-86 form. I'd never done, you know, a 

financial disclosure form. And so I figured I'd hire the best lawyers to help advise 

us through on how to do it. 

At that time, there was a lot happening. We were, you know, taking on the 

transition of the government. I was transitioning my family down to D.C. I was 

changing my kids' schools. I was filling out all my forms. So I had people in our 

family office working on doing different parts of the financial disclosures. They 

completed the part of my SF-86 form that has my financial questions on that. They 

gave it to the assistant, said: This is good to submit. 

The assistant submitted it. And then immediately my lawyer saw that and 

said: No, it's not ready. 

They contacted the transition that day and then the FBI the next day and 

said: Look, it's a submission, but we're going to be giving updates to the 

submission. 

And then we subsequently provided all the different updates in the normal 

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course, had a good dialogue with the investigators along the way, answered all their 

questions and provided all information they asked for. 

One thing that has been misreported in the press was to say that I left off 

these two meetings on my SF-86 form. That's maybe technically correct, but what 

happened was is when we submitted, we said, there are many foreign contacts that 

we'll be providing. I then went through -- I think you're supposed to give 7 years. 

was told to give 1 0 years. 

We went through my travel records, went through my emails. We went 

through my calendar books, everything we can do, found as many as we could. 

We put together a list with over 100 foreign contacts that fit that definition, very 

broadly defined. And we submitted, you know, those contacts along with over 100 

others at that time to the FBI before my interview. I got interviewed on all of it. 

Went back. They had more questions that they wanted me to find more answers 

on. I did that. We did one more submission, did my interview. And then that's all 

been submitted. So--

MR. GOWDY: Last two questions. Back to your statement, page 11. The 

word "collude." What do you mean by the word "collude"? 

MR. KUSHNER: That's really just what the allegation is. So I'm saying we 

did not do what's been, you know, alleged. I'll be honest. Sometimes when I read 

these press reports and hear the accusations, I'm curious what they mean by 

"collude" as well. So -- but what I can say affirmatively is we did not-- nobody that 

I know of knew anything about any hacking. And nobody I knew of knew anything 

about, you know, how that information was getting to WikiLeaks to be disseminated. 

MR. GOWDY: Let me try two other words that are more commonly used 

other than collude. "Coordinate." Would it be accurate if you had said, "I did not 

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coordinate nor know of anyone else who coordinated with any foreign government"? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: Let me try one other word that starts with C. "I did not 

conspire nor know of anyone else who conspired with any foreign government." 

MR. KUSHNER: The answer is we did not do that either. 

MR. GOWDY: So no matter what C word is inserted there, the answer is 

no? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: "I had no improper contacts." What did you mean by 

"improper"? 

MR. KUSHNER: I guess people were alleging maybe you took a meeting; 

you shouldn't have taken a meeting. I mean, I think, again, we had a very unusual 

campaign, a very unusual set of circumstances, and we navigated through the best 

we can. 

I think we acted -- I think we acted -- I think we acted judiciously in the way 

we approached everything. Look, we figured out how to win. So we figured out 

how to, you know, put together a ground operation, a digital operation. We figured 

out how to, you know, do a transition where we did a smooth transfer of power. 

So, you know, look, people can, in hindsight, go back and try to nitpick 

should you have, you know, done this one thing or that thing, but you have to 

realize that it's part of a much broader canvas that has, you know, thousands of 

hours spent doing-- doing tons of tasks with-- you know, again, we talk about, you 

know, you know, "colluding." 

We had a hard enough time "colluding" with our field offices to try to 

get-- you know, try to get our people doing what they should have been doing, 

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so -- and that's really where our focus was at all times. 

MR. ROONEY: One of my colleagues would like me to ask another 

question. We have until11 :38 before our 45 minutes is up. Then if you'd like, we 

could take a break. Then we'll go back to the minority. But I can say, as 

somebody as a young Army officer who had to do my own SF-86, you're lucky you 

had help. Try remembering your fraternity's address and having that kicked back 

four or five times because it's not right. 

Anyway, on page 5 --

VOICE: Especially given what you were doing at the fraternity. 

MR. ROONEY: Exactly. It's a blur. 

Could you please explain, on page 5, when you reference Guccifer400, what 

were you talking about there? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. So I included this even though it probably was a 

nonevent. I just didn't want to have something, you know, "gotcha" come out later 

at some point. 

So we found this email. It's one I recall receiving when I was on the 

campaign plane on one of those high-tension, you know, crazy days, not that that 

was a specific day; that was all of them. And the email basically was saying that 

this guy had then-candidate Trump's tax returns and was going to release them 

unless we gave him 52 bitcoins, which I guess was about 35,000 euros at the time. 

It came out of nowhere. Again, I was getting crazy emails from all kinds of people 

at that time. I guess my email wasn't that hard to find. 

And so I read it through. And, obviously, I knew the name Guccifer from 

news reports. I didn't know if this was the actual Guccifer or was just somebody 

doing some phishing on us. I took it to one of the Secret Service agents in the 

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back. I showed him. I said: What do you make of this? Is this real or not? 

You know, it seemed like-- and I said-- look, you know, even if-- even if it 

was real, I wasn't going to pay a ransom to some hacker anyway. So I just deleted 

it. And sometimes when you delete emails, you know, it just-- I figured it was 

better than responding yes or no or getting into a dialogue. So I deleted it. Never 

thought of it again until my lawyers found it when they were extensively going 

through all of my information to provide to the committees. So --

MR. ROONEY: Are you good? Do you need a break or--

MR. KUSHNER: I will keep going for as long as you would like. 

MR. ROONEY: Jim, you're back up for 15 minutes. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Thank you, thanks, Tom. 

Just a couple remaining questions, Mr. Kushner. 

I asked you about your personal, your family, and various Kushner 

businesses, assets, liabilities, any joint ventures. Let me ask a similar series of 

questions with respect to your knowledge of Trump, President Trump, Trump family 

members, and Trump businesses. And let me start by asking you, do you have 

any sort of legal relationship with any business entity within The Trump 

Organization? By "legal relationship," I mean, any sort of 

managemenUfiduciary/board/investor relationship with any business within The 

Trump Organization. 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. We have one property where we did a 

license with their name in Jersey City. It was a coincidence. I bought the debt on 

a piece of dirt that they were originally going to do, and so we built the tower, and 

they kept their name on it. But that's one of a ton of entities they have, and it was 

just a weird coincidence. 

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MR. HIMES: Okay. So I'm cognizant of the fact that the questions I'm 

asking you are about very-- you know not to -- anything, you know, fiduciary or 

formal business relationship, but are you aware of Mr. Trump, his family, or any of 

his businesses having purchased any sort of asset from a Russian bank, an 

individual, or a Russian business? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. And that's to include equity, tangible assets. 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. Are you aware of President Trump, family members, 

or his businesses having assumed any sort of liability, including loans, bonds, 

promissory notes made by any Russian bank, individual, or business? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. The same question that I asked you. Are you aware 

of Mr. Trump, his family members or any of his businesses having entered into any 

sort of joint venture, partnership, or any other formal legal association with a 

Russian person, business, or bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: Now, that's a very broad one. So I know they did their 

Miss Universe thing in Russia. Again, I'm not an expert on what their holdings are, 

so -- but, again, nothing -- I guess I assume at this point, with the amount of scrutiny 

he's been under for the last couple of years, that, if there was something like that, it 

probably would have been written about in one of the newspapers, so -- but that's 

all I would know of, and there's nothing I know of that I'm not disclosing so --

MR. HIMES: Okay. Let me just clean up a couple other specific questions. 

Back to that December 2016 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, we've covered it a little 

bit, but did the issue of sanctions generally or specific sanctions with respect to VEB 

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come up in that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. HIMES: You never raised anything related to sanctions specifically or 

generally? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. HIMES: Okay.· Were you aware in that meeting that VEB was a 

sanctioned entity? 

MR. KUSHNER: I was not. 

MR. HIMES: So you learned that subsequently? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. One last cleanup here. You brought up the Deutsche 

Bank loan, which was the subject of a Washington Post story. And that, as I 

understand it, was a refinancing of a property that you had purchased, I guess the 

old Times building? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. HIMES: What was the origin of the relationship with Deutsche Bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'd done business with them for years prior, so one of our 

larger banking relationships in New York. I know the people there very well. 

Actually, the guy who I think ran their thing I think I knew back from the time he was 

with Citi a long time earlier. So it was a CMBS debt, not a balance sheet. So, 

basically, the bank is just the issuer of it. So it was a very competitive process. 

We had a lot of banks wanting to do that piece of business, and I think we chose to 

give it to Deutsche probably because it was their turn as somebody for us to take 

care of. 

MR. HIMES: So they were the syndicator of the CMBS; they didn't actually 

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hold the paper? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know what they did with it once they gave us the 

money, but I assume they syndicated it out. 

MR. HIMES: Do you know to whom they syndicated out the paper? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I do not. 

57 

MR. HIMES: You don't know any of the investors in that particular CMBS? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, nor do I in any of our CMBS loans. I mean, it's not 

really-- that's why you use CMBS. They give you the money, and then they go 

and sell it off, and it's not your problem. 

MR. HIMES: You mentioned that they retraded the deal. I assume that 

they made an initial offer of where they could price the CMBS, and when the time 

came to actually execute the deal, they had a different price on the--

MR. KUSHNER: They came back and said it was --we made a good deal 

with them, I guess, on the rate or whatever it was. And then they came back and 

said it wasn't their job to lose money on the trade, because the markets had blown 

out. So they basically stretched us for, I don't remember how much, maybe around 

30 basis points, which is a lot. So--

MR. HIMES: Okay. Did you consider at the time under those 

circumstances shopping the deal to others? 

MR. KUSHNER: Honestly, you know, we are-- we take more of a long-term 

approach to these things. So, you know, we're "get it done, move on to the next." 

You know, it was just another loan. So it's not like there was one that was more 

significant than the next. If you have a deal in hand, just take it and move on, and 

hopefully they make it up to you in the future. So that's kind of how it works. 

MR. HIMES: Okay. I think you answered this in my previous more 

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comprehensive questions, but are you aware of any banking relationship between 

Deutsche Bank and President Trump or his family? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. HIMES: Can you describe that relationship? 

MR. KUSHNER: I know he does business with them. Not currently. 

know that his company has done business with Deutsche Bank. 

MR. HIMES: I think that's all I've got. 

I yield back to Mr. Schiff. Thank you. 

MR. KUSHNER: Of course. 

MR. SCHIFF: I just want to follow up on Deutsche Bank, but let me begin by 

asking more generally, prior to becoming President, how often would the President, 

then candidate, or even prior to being a candidate, how often would he discuss his 

business with you? 

MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Period of time? I mean, from the time that he 

met his daughter? From ever? 

MR. SCHIFF: Yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: What I would say is that, once he got into the campaign, 

the interest, you know, his business was not that-- I mean, he wasn't focused on 

the business anymore. He really didn't care that much. My wife was probably the 

one dealing with a lot more of the problems that were coming up, because of the 

unusual circumstance of having-- having her father run. 

You know, look, you know, one thing with him is he's a very interesting guy, 

and he, you know, covers a lot of topics. So, you know, he would often ask me a 

lot of questions about my business, the deals I was doing. You know, I was very, 

very active in the market over the years prior. So we'd probably discuss my 

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business more than his business. 

But I knew what was going on broadly from my-- from my wife, because she 

had a very active role in that company. So, you know, that's what we talked about. 

So--

MR. SCHIFF: So, during the course of your relationship with your wife 

before you got married, after you got married, you would have-- how would you 

characterize it-- frequent conversations with both your wife and Donald Trump 

about his businesses? 

MR. KUSHNER: More with my wife. I mean, again with him, you know, I 

didn't spend as much time with him until the campaign. I mean, we'd go there for 

Thanksgiving. We'd go there for-- you know, we had a place next to each other in 

New Jersey, so we'd see him on the weekends. But, you know, I wouldn't say it 

was that extensive. And he called me different times. So -- but I wouldn't say it 

was that extensive. 

MR. SCHIFF: One of the allegations concerning Deutsche Bank is that 

there was a period of time when the President's properties were at risk of default 

and he had difficulty finding a bank that would lend to him. Are you familiar with 

that period of time? You've discussed that period of time with Mr. Trump? 

MR. KUSHNER: Is that like the nineties? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, you tell me. 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean, he's told me some fun stories from-- fun war 

stories from the nineties when he was in some financial trouble, yes. 

MR. SCHIFF: And during that period, was Deutsche Bank the bank of last 

report? Did Deutsche Bank provide him financial loans at a time when other banks 

would not do business with him? 

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MR. KUSHNER: I don't know the details of his holdings in that time. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know how long he's been doing business with 

Deutsche Bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

60 

MR. SCHIFF: The debt that's held by Deutsche Bank was arranged by 

someone who is not usually in the real estate lending business. Do you know how 

that came about? 

MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry? Say that again. The debt that was--

MR. SCHIFF: The debt that is held by Deutsche Bank in The Trump 

Organization properties, that financial transaction was arranged by someone at 

Deutsche Bank who does not generally handle real estate, who handles instead 

people with high net worth. Do you know how that relationship came about? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. I introduced him to her. 

MR. SCHIFF: And tell us who you introduced to whom. I'm not sure I 

follow. 

MR. KUSHNER: I introduced him to this woman Rosemary. 

MR. SCHIFF: You introduced Donald Trump to Rosemary? 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. SCHIFF: And when did that take place, and who is Rosemary? 

MR. KUSHNER: She is one of the biggest private wealth bankers in 

the-- probably in the world. Amazing banker, amazing woman. Very smart 

banker. And she -- she banked my family for a long time. 

He was buying a property in Florida and at the time, you know, was thinking 

about different things to finance. I said: You should talk to her. 

And she loved the property, and they did business together. So --

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MR. SCHIFF: And when did you make that introduction? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Can you give us any kind of a ballpark? 

61 

MR. KUSHNER: It was for Doral, so whenever they bought Dora I, you can 

look up the date. 

MR. SCHIFF: Are we talking about the 1990s, the 2000s? Can you give us 

any idea? 

MR. KUSHNER: You're talking about probably 5, 6 years ago. Actually, I 

can tell you, it was probably about 6 years ago, because I remember my wife went 

from right after she got out of the hospital, she got a call that they had a chance of 

buying that property. And she had to get permission from the doctor to go tour it. 

He said: Well, is it a small one? 

She said: No, it's only 800 acres. 

And so they asked her to use a golf cart because she had a baby like 3 days 

earlier. So I think it was around then, about 6 years ago. 

MR. SCHIFF: At the time, was Mr. Trump having difficulty finding banks that 

were willing to either finance his transactions or help secure the debt that he already 

had? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. They had a lot of options. But she's phenomenal to 

deal with and I thought that she'd be competitive, so--

MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of the allegation that Deutsche Bank was willing 

to lend at a time when other banks were not, can you tell us anything about that 

allegation? 

MR. KUSHNER: I can tell you that she had to be competitive to get the deal 

and she, you know, wanted to get the relationship. I mean, at the time, he was the 

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businessman Donald Trump, which was a very prestigious client for people in the 

banking business. He'd worked with Deutsche Bank prior, worked, had pretty 

extensive banking relationships all over the place. 

So I don't-- I don't know if you're -- if the underlying premise of your question 

is correct. From my knowledge of their business and dealing with my wife, I know 

they had a lot of banks that were doing business with them at the time. 

MR. SCHIFF: And, you know, quite separate and apart from the woman 

that you introduced to Mr. Trump, are you aware of a period of time at which 

Mr. Trump was having difficulty getting financing from an American bank? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think that was in the nineties. But he worked -- I think he 

actually ended up getting it. I don't know if he was having difficulty or not having 

difficulty. I remember him telling me he had some challenging times I think in the 

nineties, but he worked through those times. 

MR. SCHIFF: And with respect to Deutsche Bank financing or any other 

U.S. bank or foreign bank, are you aware of any circumstances in which that debt 

was, in turn, guaranteed by Russian nationals? 

MR. KUSHNER: I can't think of anything like that. 

MR. SCHIFF: There have also been allegations that the Russians may 

have laundered money through The Trump Organization. Are you aware of any 

money laundering that The Trump Organization was involved in? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any oligarchs or others using Trump 

properties as a way of laundering their money? 

MR. KUSHNER: I am not aware of that. 

MR. SCHIFF: One of the individuals that was present in the meeting that 

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you had with Don Junior, was someone named lvo -- Kaveladze. Do you know 

who I'm referring to? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

63 

MR. SCHIFF: I'm probably not pronouncing the name correctly. Have you 

seen the press reports of an individual present at the meeting who was the subject 

at one point of a GAO investigation into Russian money laundering? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I couldn't tell you if he was there or not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Let me change gears for a moment, if I could. What was 

your role in the campaign's digital operation? 

MR. KUSHNER: So, in November, so when the campaign first started, I 

was, you know, helping out with things I got called on to do. You know, I was doing 

research for different, you know, policies that the candidate wanted to speak about. 

It was a very, very, very thin staff. 

And then November, we were traveling to an event and we were talking 

about Facebook. I thought he was under-utilizing his Facebook. So he said: 

Okay, take it over; have fun with it. 

So I took this guy Dan Scavino, we went and we built a whole content plan. 

Then we really did his Facebook marketing. I don't have a Facebook account, so I 

went to a friend who did a lot of online marketing and got a tutorial on how to use 

their microtargeting, because they have a tremendous amount of data and 

capability. 

So, once we did that, we started spending a little bit of money, like $500 a 

week, to boost stories into some of the early voting States on topics that we thought 

were getting reception from the different voter groups. So we started doing that. 

Then we took over the online store, which we found that, by spending money 

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on Facebook, we were able to boost the sales from about $8,000 a day to about 

$80,000 a day, which was quite good for the campaign. We were able to use that 

money to do more digital marketing of the candidate's message into the different 

States. 

So I would say, throughout the course of the campaign, it was really just, you 

know, I got his lnstagram going, you know, doing his Facebook. We did some 

videos where, you know, I'd get a cameraman in for 30 minutes, and he would just 

talk to the camera, and we'd make different spots. We'd cut them, and we'd put 

them out. 

And then, when it got to the general election, we were going to do 

fundraising. I was very intrigued by what you could do for online fundraising. So I 

called a few people; I got advice on how to do it. And then we were able to build a 

digital operation in San Antonio, where we were able to -- to raise, I think, pretty 

substantial amounts of money from the grassroots donors, who were really 

enthusiastic in his campaign. I think we raised about $250 million in small donors 

over about a 4-month window. 

We had about 100 people working down there, different subcontractors, 

Facebook, Google, Twitter, all embedded teams down in the office. We went to 

K-Mart, bought air mattresses and told people, you know, you're staying here until 

the election. And the team really worked their tail off and did an amazing job. 

And then we used that same team that was doing the digital fund raising to do 

a lot of the different persuasion. But we had I think the guys told me almost 

100,000 different ads running. And then we would AV test, and we'd tweak 

different things, and then we would scale the ones that were working, and we'd pull 

back the ones that weren't. 

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And then we had a very robust polling operation where we were doing 

different kinds of polling, you know, less for, you know, message testing and 

whatnot, and more to determine how different voter blocs in different States were 

feeling at a different time. And then I used that to allocate the resources we were 

spending. So -- because a lot of our money was coming, a majority from the 

candidate and then, after that, from small donors, we felt a real obligation to make 

sure every dollar was spent as carefully as possible. 

So one cool thing I'm very proud about the campaign is nobody got rich on 

us. We really cut all the vendors very thin, and a lot of them were working because 

they really believed in the candidate. 

Then just to finish on that is that we used that data to determine kind of how 

we were doing in all the different States at different times, and then, off of that, we 

based where we were doing our digital advertising, where we were doing our TV 

advertising, where we were doing our door knocking, where we were doing our 

phone calls, where we needed to do events. And so everything was really, really 

well coordinated off our data, and we were able to see -- also to measure the impact 

of the different things we were doing to see if it was working or not working. 

MR. SCHIFF: And I want to ask you about that Data Analytica 

MR. ROONEY: Last question, then we've got to switch. 

MR. SCHIFF: Okay. Let me ask one last question then as a followup to my 

earlier set of questions, and I'll come back to the Data Analytica on our next 

opportunity. 

I had asked you about whether you were aware of any information that the 

Russians might be laundering money through The Trump Organization. Let me 

ask this more broadly in case there are individuals that you may not be aware 

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whether they were Russian nationals or not. Are you aware of any money 

laundering through The Trump Organization? 

66 

MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Because you're making it so broad -- and he's 

going to yell at me when I play the role of a lawyer -- you may want to define money 

laundering. 

MR. KUSHNER: Abbe, he asked a question do I know of anyone doing 

money laundering. I don't know of anyone doing money laundering through The 

Trump Organization. The answer is no. 

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. 

MR. KUSHNER: Is that okay? 

MR. LOWELL: That's great. 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean it's --

MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, I'll try to short-circuit the next line of questioning 

on social media. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle think that the 

Trump campaign coordinated, colluded, conspired with the Russians to target 

certain voters in certain swing States. We'll just cut kind of to the gravamen and 

save some time during the next 15-minute section. 

Are you aware of any coordination, collusion, conspiring with the Russians to 

target certain voters on behalf of the Trump campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. We did all of our targeting ourselves. Look, what 

outside groups like superPACs did, we did not have the ability to coordinate with 

them. So whatever anyone did on the outside they did on the outside. But we 

knew what we needed to do to win. We were relying on ourselves to get our 

message to the right people. I think we were very efficient and effective in doing 

that. 

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And, again, if there were irregularities, I think I probably would have known 

about it. Again, I would get calls sometimes when we were having trouble getting 

our ads uploaded on Facebook. And they would call me. I'd call over to 

Facebook and I'd say: Hey, guys, what's going on? 

Or with Google, we had some problems at some point, and so I'd call Google 

and I'd say: Let's fix it. 

So, if there were problems, they would normally call me. And if something 

was going better than expected, where they were getting more bang for their buck, 

they probably would call me and brag about how smart they were too, so -- I didn't 

get too many of those, although they did call on good fund raising days and say how 

smart they were. But I could tell at that time that, you know, it made sense, right. 

Our yields were correct. We knew what we were spending to get the return and 

build our database. So--

MR. GOWDY: If I understand your statement correctly, you disclosed that 

June 2016 meeting with Mr. Donald Trump, Jr., before there were any media 

reports. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: That's a lousy way to keep something a secret is to disclose 

it ahead of time. Who did you disclose it to? 

MR. KUSHNER: To the FBI. 

MR. GOWDY: So let me make sure I understand this right. Before all of 

the wild-eyed reporting about a secret meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., and a 

Russian lawyer, you had already disclosed it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: Okay. There was a New York Times article which 

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then-Director Corney described as largely false. The most interesting part of the 

CNN website these days is the retraction section. You took exception to a Reuters 

report that had you making telephone calls to the Russian Ambassador during the 

course of the election. Would you like to comment on that report by Reuters? 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. So, first of all, you know, again, it's an honor to be 

able to do the job that I do, and I don't let this stuff distract, you know, from doing 

that job. We're making progress on a lot of really great fronts that I'm encouraged 

by. But we got a lot of calls and with different crazy allegations on all different 

things from anonymous sources. And, again, it takes a lot of time from people 

trying to swat these things down. But it's like, you know, you're always starting 1 0 

points behind with these reporters. You're having to disprove these things that are 

crazy allegations to begin with. 

This was a circumstance where we got calls from a bunch of different 

reporters. I guess somebody was shopping a story saying that apparently I had 

phone calls with the Russian Ambassador, and I had no recollection of having 

phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. You pointed out the email before where 

I said, "What's the guy's name," right after the election. If I had had phone calls 

with him, I would be happy to tell you about them, because, again, there was 

nothing wrong with having phone calls with the Russian Ambassador during the 

election, but I simply don't recall having those calls. 

So we asked Reuters to provide us with the numbers he called from or the 

dates so that I could go back through my records and try. They refused to do that 

and ran the story anyway, because I think they wanted to be part of the whole 

Russia media storm that kind of ensued. 

We still have asked them for that. I've on my own gone back and gone 

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through all of our phone records, looking at all, you know, 202 numbers or, you 

know, Russian area codes that we could find, and-- and went through phone 

records, and I have not been able to find anything that corroborates that I had those 

calls. 

So, again, it goes back to what you said before about all of the hype in the 

media. What I find is that the facts that I released yesterday and that I'm testifying 

to today often don't fit with the fantasies of what's kind of been created in the media. 

So, I mean, simply put, like I said, the candidate ran a great campaign. He 

had the right message. That's why he won. Whatever happened with some hacks 

of emails and what was released one way or the other, maybe it was determinative 

or not on the election results. We'll never know. But what I do know is that we 

responded to all the different things that happened to us during the campaign. We 

came in. We ran it the best we could. We did not collude, cooperate, whatever 

other C words you used, with any foreign governments. And, hopefully, that's why 

I'm eager to cooperate with this investigation and the investigation of the Senate, so 

I can help you have all of your questions answered and as many facts as you need 

to be able to come to what I believe is the true determination. 

MR. GOWPY: That's the really interesting part to me of congressional or 

political investigations. Anonymous witnesses are never used in the courtroom. 

I'm sure your attorney will share some stories with you over lunch of where he may 

have wished that he didn't have to call a witness or could have used an anonymous 

source. But the· right to confront witnesses, the right to cross-examine, the right to 

examine, which is what you are subjecting yourself to this morning, is the single 

best way to elucidate the truth. 

But when you have a campaign that is rooted in selective leaking of classified 

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information using anonymous sources where you cannot in any way, shape, or form 

examine their access to the information, whether they have an interest in the 

outcome, whether they have a bias, whether they, frankly, have any idea what the 

hell they're talking about, it's really tough to do with anonymous sources, like maybe 

impossible to do. So I feel your frustration. 

Back to the ambassadors. I think you testified that you met with a number of 

ambassadors during the campaign. Is that true? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: Are there any of them whose names you actually would have 

recalled on the morning of November 9th? 

MR. KUSHNER: I would have recalled Ambassador Ciu from China. I liked 

him. He was nice. We had a good -- a good rapport, and our discussions have 

since led to I think some good productive conversations between our countries. 

And the meeting in Mar-a-Lago, which we did which I think the meetings we had 

during the campaign's transition were instrumental to putting together. 

During the campaign --who else? I met with Yusif from the UAE. That was 

a great meeting. Also a really great guy. I may have met with a few more. 

Probably Germany, Wittig, he was a nice guy. I probably met with, you know, 

maybe seven or eight of them during the campaign. But keep in mind those were 

actual meetings in my office. With Russia, I did not do a meeting in my office 

during the campaign. They never reached out asking for one, and I never reached 

out to them asking for one. 

MR. GOWDY: Give me just one second. What is microtargeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Microtargeting is that you can -- I'm trying to think of the 

best way to describe. So, if you buy television advertising, right, you get the whole 

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bunch, right? So you buy a show, you get all of their viewers. One thing that 

Facebook and Google and a lot of the technology companies have the ability to do, 

because they have a lot of data on their customers, are able to pick and choose 

your data by all different kinds of information that you have about them, whether it's, 

you know, age, gender, you know, where they live, which county. So it's really, you 

know, using much more defined characteristics to be able to be much more efficient 

in delivering your desired message to the desired recipient. 

It's still not perfect. I mean, like I said, one of my friends worked at 

Coca-Cola, and they said they knew that, out of every dollar they spent on 

advertising, 50 cents was wasted. They just didn't know which 50 percent. So, 

you know, I think that with microtargeting, the goal is it costs a little bit more money, 

but you're trying to be much more efficient and effective with the dollars you spend. 

MR. GOWDY: Well, in addition to The New York Times article that Director 

Corney said was largely inaccurate, in addition to the stories that CNN has 

retracted, in addition to the stories in the Washington Post that have proven to be 

demonstrably false, to the extent that some of the questions on the other side are 

rooted, in fact, a lot of the questions on the other side are rooted in newspaper 

articles, in addition to the Reuters article, are there any other ones that have struck 

you as being particularly wrong? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'll be honest. I don't read a lot of that stuff. You know, 

one of the interesting things about the campaign is going through that storm, it gave 

me the ability to see where you get news from that's based on what I would call 

herd mentality and where you get news from that's much more rooted in what 

people are really feeling and seeing. 

And, you know, I'd have discussions almost every day with the candidate 

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saying, look: If The New York Times mattered, you'd be at 1 percent. 

So you just have to look to different places to find the news, and, look, some 

people get it right, some people get jt wrong. But I tried all the time to, you know, 

root any assumptions I'll make in fact. So, you know, you hear stories from the 

news, but a lot of the stuff that's been out there has been wrong, including most of 

the stuff that's been reported on me. 

And that's why, again, I'm very appreciative of the opportunity today to 

disclose-- answer all questions and give a full-- a full account of all the things that 

have been drip drip dripped out in the press, largely in inaccurate ways. But -- and 

people are saying, why didn't you put this out a long time ago? I said: Look, my 

job isn't to cooperate with the press; my job is to cooperate with the investigating 

bodies. And so that's why I chose to wait until the bodies were ready to speak 

today, and I've tried to be as cooperative as possible. 

MR. GOWDY: Well, in addition to the difficulty of examining or 

cross-examining anonymous sources, the dissemination of classified information 

also happens to be a crime. I know that you are not here in your capacity as a 

member of the current administration, but to the extent the dissemination of 

classified material -- I was struck by the number of questions that were posed to you 

this morning that are rooted in the felonious dissemination of classified material. 

So, to the extent that can get cleaned up before some surveillance programs are up 

for reauthorization this fall, that would be great. 

With that, I'll check with my boss from Texas. 

MR. CONAWAY: Adam. 

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. Just one last question on the financial issues. 

At some point, one of the President's sons reported that they had received a lot of 

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Russian money in the Trump businesses. Do you know what he was referring to? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Turning back to the digital operations, how did Brad Parscale 

and his firm fit into the digital operation? 

MR. KUSHNER: So when I was looking at doing microtargeting, I wanted to 

start figuring out how I could spend money. We did a call, a conference call with 

this guy from Texas who-- who I then realized I wasn't going to have to hire more 

staff, because he could do some of it on subcontract. And he had the ability to 

do -- keep in mind I was, you know, doing other jobs at that time. I was not full time 

on the campaign. And so Dan, who was, needed somebody to actually do a lot of 

the execution of what he was doing. 

So I met Brad over the phone. We became very close. I was thrilled to find 

somebody very competent and knowledgeable who could help us execute it so I 

didn't have to bring in more people. He -- he worked very, very hard for the 

campaign, and then his role kept expanding as we -- as we had more challenges. 

And, again, like a lot of my different responsibilities happened because there 

would be a problem somewhere, and then I would kind of get dropped in there to 

figure it out. And so a lot of the trusted, competent utility players like Brad took on 

a lot more responsibility with me as the campaign evolved. 

MR. SCHIFF: Who hired Cambridge Analytica? 

MR. KUSHNER: So we looked at them during the primaries. I wasn't 

involved really in the data then. I don't know if we did much data then, to be honest 

with you. When we were ramping up, they-- the Mercers asked us to meet with 

this guy Nix who's the CEO. So I met the guy, introduced him to Brad. I'm not 

necessarily qualified to judge whether their offering is technically as good as what 

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they claim it to be. So we said, look, let's give it a shot. We were using them for 

fundraising. 

At that point, we really weren't doing digital targeting of voters through data, 

so all of our spend was really towards fundraising. So the one thing about 

fund raising is you have yield metrics. So we said: Look, we'll be able to 

determine very quickly whether their data is useful or not. 

And so --so we started using them, and I think we had a good experience. 

I'd say out of the different data sets we used, I don't think they were the best, 

but-- but I think the guys had a decent experience with them. 

MR. SCHIFF: And who was the best of the data analytic firms that you 

used? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think the RNC data actually was the best data that we 

had. 

MR. SCHIFF: And who was part of the meeting you had with Mr. Nix? 

MR. KUSHNER: I believe I just met him -- I don't recall if anyone else was 

there. 

MR. SCHIFF: And did you refer him to Mr. Parscale? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Brad was the guy that did the digital stuff for me. 

So, you know, there's a lot of vendors coming in wanting to do different things, and 

we were trying to build-- keep in mind, most campaigns, A, have a team that's 

experienced at doing campaigns; B, have a list of vendors that they use. We were 

trying to scale an operation really from almost scratch, and so we had a lot of 

different vendors competing to do the work. And so, you know, I sent him to Brad 

and I guess he came to a deal with them. 

MR. SCHIFF: And what kind of work did Cambridge Analytica end up doing 

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for the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I believe they did data modeling. I think they also did 

some polling for us. But Brad would be -- I think he's going to -- I think he agreed 

to come talk to you guys. I think he'll be able to give you a more in-depth detailed 

version of what they did. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any further interactions with Cambridge 

Analytica after that initial meeting with Mr. Nix? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not really, other than I think they did a lot more -- they did 

a lot of press on what a great job they did, so-- in their opinion. 

MR. SCHIFF: And did they generate the targeting information, or was the 

targeting information supplied to Cambridge Analytica? 

MR. KUSHNER: You'll have to ask Brad that. 

MR. SCHIFF: And do you know whether Cambridge Analytica received any 

targeting information or any other information from outside parties? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether Cambridge Analytica had any 

relationship with foreign nationals that was utilized during the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether they received any targeting information 

from any Russian sources? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SCHIFF: And do you know whether there was any kind of coordination 

by Cambridge Analytica in the either targeting of voters or the dissemination of 

information, working in cooperation with Russian nationals? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. One thing I will say, though, is it sounds 

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very sophisticated, but what you're really doing is you're trying to parse apart the 

electorate. It's the same as if you're a consumer-based marketing company. 

76 

What you do is you look at all the different factors, people's ages, people's genders, 

and then what you do is we were running a lot of dynamic polling. And so, by 

doing that polling, you could then determine how these different segments of the 

population were feeling about your candidate and your message at different points 

in time and then you can do different messaging to them to help them understand 

your positions better. So, you know, we would find that for different segments, you 

know, you'd be able to -- like some people who were very into childcare tax credits 

per se; if we did an ad that was -- a digital ad that really just had facts and figures 

on it and it was a short 15-second video, that would be more effective in changing 

their perception when they actually knew the details of what we were saying as 

opposed to, you know, a rah-rah campaign speech or a high-level feel-good 

message. 

So what you do is you just kind of take the electorate and you kind of keep 

carving it up into different pieces. And I don't know if they actually --they gave us 

some different data sets maybe that they had. I don't know if Brad can say that, 

but I think that overall we had a full program that I think was fairly comprehensive 

and I think very effective. 

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[12:03 p.m.] 

MR. SCHIFF: But you're not aware of any foreign nationals providing any 

targeting information or negative stories to Cambridge Analytica for their use during 

the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I have no knowledge of that. 

MR. SCHIFF: And you're not aware of any foreign financing of Cambridge 

Analytica that was used to employ staff during the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I have no knowledge of that. 

MR. SCHIFF: During the campaign, did you have any contact-- I know you 

described the email you received from a Guccifer -- I can't remember what number 

of Guccifer that was allegedly, but did you have any contact during the campaign or 

thereafter with Guccifer 2.0? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any contact directly or indirectly with 

Wikileaks? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: During the campaign, did you own the New York Observer? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether any of the personnel at the New York 

Observer had any contact with Guccifer 2? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether they published any material obtained 

from Guccifer 2? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to the December 1 meeting that you had with 

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Ambassador Kislyak and Michael Flynn that you described in your written 

testimony. How many people were in attendance at that meeting? 

78 

MR. KUSHNER: It was myself, General Flynn, and Ambassador Kislyak, so 

three of us. 

MR. SCHIFF: And did you discuss the meeting with General Flynn or 

anyone else from the Trump transition or campaign before the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: By "discuss," I mean, Steve Bannon was going to join us 

for the meeting. He got held up with another transition responsibility, so he didn't 

join. But it was not a meeting we spent a lot of time talking about before and not a 

meeting we spent a lot of time talking about after. 

MR. SCHIFF: What was your understanding before you went to the meeting 

about the purpose of the meeting and who had organized it? 

MR. KUSHNER: So the Ambassador had reached out to my office to see if I 

could meet with him. I think the date that I have a record from is November 16. 

agreed to meet him. It took us a couple weeks to get it scheduled because my 

schedule was quite crazy with transition responsibilities. And, you know, we 

showed up at the meeting. 

But, again, at that point in time, I was doing meetings every 30 minutes 

so -- and starting very early, ending very late and, you know, running around with 

our hair on fire. So it was a hectic time. 

I don't recall exactly how it came together, but it was a --what I would say, 

the meeting was not any more or less memorable than any of the other introductory 

meetings that we had with a lot of foreign governments, where basically we would 

listen, you know. Like we discussed before, we would listen to their perspectives 

on their relationships with America, understand what they thought could be different, 

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should be different. We said we were hopeful. 

We basically had two foreign policy objectives: One was to create as much 

peace in the world, to stop as many conflicts; two was to create as much global 

GOP. Obviously, America First meant as much of that global GOP to be in our 

country as possible. 

But, you know, if there are ways that we could work together, we're open to 

doing it. We didn't want to-- and that was really the discussions that we had. So 

this was what I would call a very rudimentary meeting. 

One other thing I will say about that meeting was I'd been approached a 

week or two earlier by somebody who wanted us to inquire about Austin Tice in 

Syria. That's a journalist who has been captive there for a while. So they were 

trying to get me to get the President to send a letter to Assad. 

But before I brought it to the President, I wanted to do some research on 

what was actually going on with that. So part of my thinking was, because I'd read 

in the press how the Russian Government and the Syrian Government were 

working closely together, I brought with me to the meeting some information on Tice 

that I was thinking, if the Ambassador seemed like he was like a real guy, that I 

could say: Look, can you try to figure this out for me, what's going on there, and 

get me a read on what's happening in Syria, if they know about this or not? 

My determination from the meeting was that this was not a very high-level 

guy with not a lot of access to real decisionmakers. You know, he was a guy they 

stuck in Washington to, I guess, invite people to lunch and to do meetings and say 

nice things. But I ultimately did not ask him to try and figure out any information 

from me on that. So we really just followed the ordinary course of these meetings 

in that regard. 

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MR. SCHIFF: And this would have been the second time you were meeting 

Ambassador Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: It was the second time I met him. Keep in mind, the first 

time was a handshake with exchange of brief pleasantries. This is the first time we 

actually sat down and had a discussion. 

MR. SCHIFF: And prior to going into this December 1st meeting, did 

General Flynn tell you anything about Ambassador Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: Just I remember something along the lines of saying that, 

you know, that they'd known each other because he'd called him on something to 

wish condolences with something. So that's alii can recall with it. 

MR. SCHIFF: But General Flynn-- I know we talked about this a bit 

earlier-- never communicated to you whether he discussed more than condolences 

with Ambassador Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: So he didn't give you any indication whether they discussed 

sanctions or anything else? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did he -- did General Flynn indicate to you that Ambassador 

Kislyak might be working in concert with Russian intelligence? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you understand, as the chief diplomat here, that he would 

have relations with Russian intelligence? 

MR. KUSHNER: We just assumed that he was a representative of the 

Russian Government, which probably meant all parts of it. But, again, you know, 

what I learned from these different ambassadors is that they kind of come in all 

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shapes and forms. You know, some are, you know, trusted confidants, you know, 

of the leaders and plugged in, and some are just figure heads who they stick here 

for whatever reason it is. So, I mean --

MR. SCHIFF: What discussion did you have, if any, with Steve Bannon 

about the meeting before the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Hey, do you want to come? I mean, again, we were 

focused on a lot of different things at that point in time. 

MR. SCHIFF: And apart from what little conversation you've described with 

General Flynn, did anyone else in the transition team or campaign discuss the 

meeting that you were about to have with Ambassador Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you tell President-elect Trump that you were going to 

have the meeting before the meeting took place? 

MR. KUSHNER: I did not. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss it with him after the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I did not. 

MR. SCHIFF: During the course of the meeting, there's press reporting that 

you sought to set up a secure line of communication with Ambassador Kislyak in 

Russia. Was this an idea that you raised? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think I answered this whole question when Congressman 

Gowdy asked, but if you'd like, I can do it again. 

MR. SCHIFF: Yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. So I'll give you the whole context of the meeting in 

that particular point. The position that he put forward of the Russian Government 

was that they disagreed with the way that the American Government was handling 

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the situation in Syria. We did not have a fully formed view on what we wanted to 

do in Syria. 

So, in order to collect different opinions so that we can try to come up with a 

strategy to present to the President at some point in time, they offered to have their 

generals give their perspective to General Flynn. That's when he said: Look, I 

would like you to hear their side of what they think. 

This was information that they wanted to provide to us. They asked if we 

had a secure way to do that, to which General Flynn said no. First he said: Can ! 

maybe they come to America? But then he'd said it'd be too hassle for them to 

come to America, and so he said that they couldn't do that. 

Then, after that, you know, I said, well-- again, like I said, I'm a business 

guy. I said: Look, if you want to give us information, if you have a way to get 

information, then let us just use the way you get the information. 

And he says: Well, we shouldn't do that in our Embassy. 

And we said: No problem. 

So we said: Let's just wait until we're there. 

I probably 

would not have recalled that part of the conversation because it was not very 

significant. But I want to be very clear that I did not ask to set up a secure "bat 

phone" with Russia so that we could have secret communications on all types of 

things. 

They had information they wanted to give us with regards to Syria from their 

general to General Flynn to start a discussion, and we were just brainstorming ways 

to get that information in a way that they would be comfortable relaying it. 

MR. SCHIFF: And why would you--

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MR. CONAWAY: We're at 15. Trey. 

MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, one of the things this committee has been 

charged with doing is issuing a report. So, sometimes for purposes of writing a 

report, it is easier for the members to have yes/no answers, and then I'm not going 

to limit you in any way; if there's an explanation you want to give, you feel free to do 

so. 

But to the extent you can answer these questions yes or no, that would be 

great. And then any one that you want to extrapolate on, you're welcome to. And 

some of them, we're going to be replowing ground that we've already plowed. But 

I'll do it quickly because I see your lawyer's eyes cutting at me, so I'm going to do it 

quickly. 

Did you ever conspire, collude, or coordinate with Russian officials to impact, 

influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: To your knowledge, did anyone officially connected with the 

Donald Trump For President campaign collude, coordinate, or conspire with 

Russian officials to impact, influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: To your knowledge, did anyone not officially connected with 

the Trump For President campaign but perhaps loosely affiliated or affiliated in their 

own minds conspire, collude, or coordinate with Russian officials to impact, 

influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of, no. 

MR. GOWDY: Do you have any business dealings that influenced any part 

of the campaign or transition? 

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MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Did you ever, during the campaign or during the transition, 

establish any back channel communications with any person in the Russian 

Government? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Did you ever discuss policy or sanctions with Ambassador 

Kislyak before the inauguration? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Did you ever, during the campaign or transition, discuss 

policy or sanctions with any Russians not named Kislyak? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. 

MR. GOWDY: Did you ever offer or exchange in any quid pro quo with any 

Russian during the campaign or transition? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: Back to your security clearance form, SF-86. If memory 

serves me correctly, you inadvertently-- well, that's my word-- you omitted all 

contact with foreign governments, not just Russia? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. We omitted all foreign contacts. Then we told 

them we were going to submit that in the due course. 

MR. GOWDY: Right. So you did not submit all contacts other than Russia. 

You left that section -- I'll use the word --inadvertently blank. It was filed before it 

was supposed to be filed? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes, but then we immediately said that we would be 

providing all of our foreign contacts shortly. 

MR. GOWDY: All right. In your statement, you made reference to being 

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asked-- let me find the page for your attorney-- on page 2: My father-in-law 

asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries. 

85 

"A" suggests there may have been others. Were you a point or the point? 

MR. KUSHNER: I was -- I don't know if he asked anyone else to deal with 

anyone else as well, but I'm pretty sure that I was the point, but I do know that, at 

other times, other people were talking to different ambassadors in different 

countries. So-- but, again, all of the focus of the candidate and the campaign team 

was on how do we win the States. 

MR. GOWDY: And you described hundreds of-- or thousands of calls, 

letters, emails from people looking to talk or meet with you or presumably the 

candidate on any number of topics? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: The June 2016 meeting with Mr. Donald Trump, Jr., during 

the period -- I think we've established that you didn't read the email before you went 

to the meeting other than to change the time? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: Then, pretty shortly after you got in that meeting, you wished 

that you were anywhere else in the world other than in that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: There could have been worse places, but, yeah, it was not 

a place that I felt was a productive use of my time. 

MR. GOWDY: You contacted two different people in an effort to get yourself 

removed from the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: During the time that you were in the meeting and not trying 

to get yourself removed or otherwise distracted, did you hear anything about 

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negative information about Secretary Clinton? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: It was only when you or your attorneys located the email did 

you discover or read for the first time the part of the email not connected to the time 

change? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. CONAWAY: Let me follow up with that. How long had the meeting 

been going on before you got there? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. I got there. They were all seated and 

having discussion. 

MR. CONAWAY: The meeting had begun. They had already started 

business, so to speak? 

MR. KUSHNER: They started the discussion, yeah. 

MR. CONAWAY: Any sense of just 10 minutes, 15 minutes? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. Again, they could have started early. They 

could have started late. I just know that I got there and what I saw. 

MR. CONAWAY: Thank you. 

MR. KUSHNER: Sorry. 

MR. GOWDY: Do you have an estimate on how many representatives of 

foreign governments may have reached out to you during the pendency of the 

campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: During the campaign, it defines what you say reached out 

to. So, you know, like I shook four ambassador hands at that event. I don't 

consider that reach out to me. 

MR. GOWDY: I think some affirmative step to contact you, email, call. 

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MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I would say there was probably 10 to 15 people 

who -- 1 0 to 15 countries who reached out. I met with probably seven or eight of 

them or nine, in that range. 

MR. GOWDY: And in that email from November 9, the morning after the 

election, that was you that initiated and typed an email asking the name of the 

Russian Ambassador? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: That's alii would have, Mr. Chairman. 

Is there any other members on our side? That's alii have, Mr. Chairman. 

MR. CONAWAY: All right. We've been a couple of rounds. Adam, any 

estimate on what you guys --

MR. KUSHNER: I don't want him to be able to go out and say I have a lot 

more questions. I want to be able to say they answered all my questions, so --

MR. GOWDY: They're going to say that no matter what. 

MR. KUSHNER: I'm optimistic, so --

MR. SCHIFF: And I thank you, Mr. Kushner, for that willingness. We do 

have a lot more questions. 

MR. CONAWAY: Do we need a 5-minute break? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, I'm going to keep going until-- as long as you'd like. 

MR. SCHIFF: And we're welcome to give you a break if you'd like to, so just 

let us know at any time. 

MR. KUSHNER: Thank you. 

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. 

I want to get back into the discussion we left in terms of a secure line of 

communications. Why did you propose having a secure line of communications 

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outside the then-current government? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think that the basis of that question is insinuating, you 

know, a lot of things. I wasn't proposing it one way or the other. I was --we 

88 

were --you know, what you do in meetings when you're trying to solve a problem is 

you brainstorm situations, so people throw out different ideas. 

He had information he wanted to give us. They couldn't find a way to get 

that information. I suggested an idea, which we all then concluded was not a good 

idea. There's nothing wrong with giving an idea that is wrong, because, you know, 

if you do something that's wrong, then that's something that you have to look at. 

But putting out an idea and having a discussion is -- doesn't mean I was 

trying to subvert whatever conspiracy theory you're implying with that question. So 

the answer to that is that what I was trying to do is he wanted to give an overview of 

their perspective on Syria to the general so that he could start formulating his 

opinion on it, and we were just thinking of ways to do it. And we ultimately did not 

do it. 

MR. SCHIFF: But you did make a suggestion that there be a secure facility, 

a secure line of communications through a Russian diplomatic facility. That is 

accurate, isn't it? 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean, I think that that's a little bit of a stretch if that's how 

you're trying to classify it. I'm not sure you're classifying that correctly. 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, did you propose that you establish that line of 

communication at the Russian Embassy? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. What I said is, you know, if you want to get 

information that you're comfortable giving him, can he use your phone. And they 

said, no. And so we moved onto the next thing. So, again, it's a conversation. 

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MR. SCHIFF: So you were proposing that General Flynn be able to use a 

phone at the Russian Embassy for his communication with the Russian generals? 

MR. KUSHNER: I would say it was more, you know, you bring it up as a 

suggestion, and we ultimately decided that was not something that we wanted to 

do. 

MR. SCHIFF: I just want to make sure, though, was that the suggestion you 

were proposing? 

MR. KUSHNER: The suggestion was, was that they had information they 

wanted to relay. We did not have a way that they were comfortable relaying that 

information. I asked if they had a way that they were comfortable relaying that 

information. We could not come up with a means by which we all agreed on what 

would be appropriate, so we ultimately did not get that information. 

MR. SCHIFF: Why did you propose, though, that it be done at a Russian 

facility? Why not propose that it be done at the U.S. Embassy or through U.S. 

Government channels? 

MR. KUSHNER: I assume that, if we had a way-- if we had something that 

was available to us that General Flynn knew of, he would have said: Well, I have 

this suggestion for something that's available to us that I know of to be able to get 

the information. 

Since he didn't have a way to get the information that he knew of, I wasn't 

going to ask the Russian Ambassador if he knew of anything in our government that 

was appropriate for him to transmit the information to. So, if people had 

suggestions, they would have put them forward. But he seemed like he had no 

problem getting information from his people, and so I threw it out there. 

But, again, you have to keep in mind in the course of a 20-, 25-minute 

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meeting, this was a 3-second suggestion. It's like if you have a conversation with 

somebody and you're saying, "Well, how do we get this bill passed," and you say, 

"Well, what if I call this guy," and you say, "You know, why don't I call, you know, 

Congressman, you know, Himes," and you say Congressman Himes and then say, 

"Well, that's not a good idea," then, okay, was it a terrible thing that you brought up 

to say, "Let me call Congressman Himes"? It was just a quick suggestion. You 

dismissed it quickly and then moved on. 

MR. SCHIFF: This was a suggestion, though, to solve a problem and the 

problem was needing a secure communications. Who did it need to be secure 

from? That is, what was the problem the Russians were having in communicating 

that they needed a secure facility? 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, I think just the tone of your questioning is implying 

something I think a lot more nefarious than it is. And I think that, if you'll look at 

what-- they had information they wanted to convey. I don't know. If they were 

comfortable, you know, conveying it in another way, they would have said they 

would convey it another way. It wasn't my information that I was trying to protect. 

MR. SCHIFF: Was the goal to secure the information from the U.S. 

Government, that is, provide a channel in which the U.S. Government would be 

unaware of the communication? 

MR. KUSHNER: It could have been to keep it from the Chinese. It could 

have been to keep it from anyone else who listens to the calls. Again, at that point 

in time, I did not have a security clearance. I had not been briefed on secure 

communicating practices. 

I simply was doing like I did in a lot of the other functions that I did during the 

campaign, which was that-- and by the way, what I've done in my businesses and 

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I've done throughout my life-- which is that you have a situation. You know, this is 

the conclusion, right. I always start with the desired conclusion. And then you 

brainstorm different ways that you can work backwards to try and achieve that 

conclusion. 

So the conclusion that he wanted to achieve was to convey information from 

his generals on Syria to General Flynn. And so what we thought-- so we came up 

with different suggestions on how to do it and ultimately were not able to come up 

with one that was acceptable to all parties. But, again, it was his information that 

he was trying to relay. So I don't know who he was comfortable or not comfortable 

sharing it with. But if he was comfortable sharing it with the incoming U.S. 

Government, I have no reason to believe he wasn't comfortable sharing it with the 

existing U.S. Government. 

MR. SCHIFF: You suggested that perhaps the Russians were trying to keep 

this information from the Chinese. Did Ambassador Kislyak ever suggest that that 

was the case? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether General Flynn had any concern that 

his conversations with the Russian Ambassador might become known to the U.S. 

Government at the time, that is, the Obama administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question? 

MR. SCHIFF: Yes. Did you ever have a conversation with General Flynn 

in which he expressed a concern that his conversations with Ambassador Kislyak or 

other Russian nationals might be discovered by the Obama administration? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SCHIFF: When you disclosed the meeting in which this discussion took 

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place on your SF-86, was that before or after it had been reported in the press? 

MR. KUSHNER: Which meeting? 

MR. SCHIFF: The meeting we're discussing, the December 1st meeting. 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the time of the press report. 

92 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you recall, though, whether at the time you disclosed it, it 

was before or after it was a matter of public knowledge? 

MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, I hired some great lawyers to do the whole 

process. They were the ones collecting the information and dealing with the FBI. 

I don't know at what point they put forward the different amendments and whatnot 

that they were working on. 

But I know that iteratively they were showing me lists of this, and they would 

update lists, and they would find more stuff, and they'd put it together. I don't know 

what their process was for submission. 

But I do know that, under the ordinary course of the SF-86 process, you don't 

usually have public reporting on timing and what's disclosed and what's not 

disclosed and when it's disclosed. I believe it's an ongoing process where you 

have an exchange back and forth between the investigating bodies. You provide 

them information. You keep updating information as more things become 

available. But I don't think it's a normal practice to have different parts of the SF-86 

released to The New York Times. 

MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to Mr. Swalwell. 

MR. SWALWELL: Thank you. It's your testimony, Mr. Kushner, that you 

did not read the email chain setting up the June 9th meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: At the time that it was sent, yes. 

MR. SWALWELL: Had you read the email chain, would you have gone to 

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the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: It's very hard to look back and answer a hypothetical, so 

I'd rather not answer a hypothetical, if that's okay. [] 

MR. SWALWELL: Now, the day before, you had sent an email to Catherine 

Vargas saying: Let's try to get time this morning to map out how I can get my 

schedule back this week. Too many nonessential meetings, and I need time to do 

some things proactive. 

Do you remember sending that? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. SWALWELL: And you meant that the campaign was busy, right? 

MR. KUSHNER: I meant that my whole life was busy. 

MR. SWALWELL: And you wanted to best use your time? 

MR. KUSHNER: You know, I'll tell you, just over the course of, you know, 

my business career, I always would end up taking on more and more 

responsibilities in different areas. And I always characterize, you know, scheduling 

as master and slave, right. 

So are you a master where you're doing the things you want to do, or are you 

being a slave, and are you responding to all the different incoming that's of things 

people want you to do or need you for? 

And so the constant challenge of-- in my business was --with all the 

different responsibilities-- I had a bunch of companies, and I was getting more and 

more involved in the campaign --was figuring out how I could put myself in the 

position where I was doing the things that only I could do in the most efficient and 

effective way and anything else delegating to others who could do them 80 percent 

as well or sometimes 200 percent as well as I could have done them. 

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MR. SWALWELL: So that would have meant June 9th, you would have 

gone into that day, you would have woke up and you would have had a better 

sense, a better will to try and go to more essential meetings than you did on 

June 8th? 

MR. KUSHNER: No, it means that I was probably, again, at one of those 

chokepoints where I felt like I was doing more responding as opposed to being 

proactive towards the priorities that I was setting. 

MR. SWALWELL: You told Catherine Vargas--

94 

MR. KUSHNER: Which, by the way-- sorry to interrupt. But it was not an 

uncommon thing. I mean, every couple months or so, you know, you feel, and then 

you reset, you get control. And it's also as priorities change, right. So you have 

priorities. You spend time to accomplish those objectives, and then the priorities 

change. So you always have to be taking a fresh approach to everything you're 

doing. 

MR. SWALWELL: You said, on June 8th, to Catherine Vargas, "Discuss 

with me a 1:30 meeting today at Trump Tower and then a 3 p.m. tomorrow meeting 

with Don Junior," which at the time was a meeting that Don Junior later moved to 4 

o'clock. What did you discuss off email with Catherine about the 4 o'clock 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why you took that conversation off of email, 

rather than just correspond with Catherine back and forth on email? 

MR. KUSHNER: I hate doing scheduling on email. It's a total pain. 

MR. SWALWELL: But you do most of your scheduling on email? 

MR. KUSHNER: So she would hound me with different things, and I try to 

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give her yes/noes. But when it took more of a discussion to try to reorder days and 

then reorder priorities, it was better if she just call me and we have a quick 3-minute 

conversation. I think doing my schedule at that time was probably one of the 

hardest jobs on the planet, so --

MR. SWALWELL: The subject of the email was Russia, Clinton, private and 

confidential. Is that right? 

MR. KUSHNER: That's what I've been shown, yes. 

MR. SWALWELL: Clinton was who you at that time anticipated to be the 

general election opponent? 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. SWALWELL: And you would agree that any email that says "private 

and confidential" is one that kind of catches your attention? 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, so, you know, my email habits were that I do emails 

in the morning. I would do emails at night. And then, during the day, I would 

mostly just go over on my iPhone very quickly and let it build up and just try to do 

quick overviews as to what came in. 

On the iPhone, you see the pertinent message that comes up. Getting an 

email with a subject that says "Clinton," I mean, I was getting so many crazy emails 

on so many different things, so I can't say whether it would have caught my 

attention or not because I don't recall. 

MR. SWALWELL: But the October email that claimed it had your 

father-in-law's taxes, this was one that did catch your attention? 

MR. KUSHNER: Well, that was a different circumstance. When I was on 

the plane, I had my laptop computer. So I recall it being on my laptop and actually 

physically carrying my laptop. So, at that point, it was --June was really a 

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transition period, right. We were building the general -- I don't know if it was before 

or after the conVention. I don't recall when that was. 

But at that point, I was there probably in and out for a bunch of different 

things, and I had not kind of fully set up shop to be able to be as efficient as I would 

have liked on an hourly basis. 

MR. SWALWELL: But you would agree that October 30, 2016, you were 

probably a heck of a lot busier than you were on June 8, 2016? 

MR. KUSHNER: Actually, no. You know, one of the cool feelings I 

remember having in the campaign was probably about 10 days before the election. 

I kind of-- I went around to all the State directors, and I said: Look, I want your 

wish list. Like, what do you guys need to win? I've got a shopping list backlog you 

couldn't imagine with all these requests. 

I approved some of them, not a lot of them. And then-- like I said, I didn't 

want to, you know, lose Florida because I was too cheap to spend $2,500 on 

walkers in Broward County. So I got back a big list. I went through with the field 

guys. I made my final spending decisions. I got it approved by the candidate. 

And then I remember I did my final TV buys. And then I remember like a 

very odd feeling basically saying, you know, wow, like all of my decisions are 

basically made. So the last 10 days was really all about just being with the 

candidate and making sure that, you know, he was in the best spirits possible and 

just as focused as he could be on pushing forward a positive message. 

MR. SWALWELL: And speaking of the candidate, did you tell him about the 

June 9 meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: You did not. Now, you said that most of your 

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recollection, you said, "I don't remember it fresh," with respect to the June 9th 

meeting, comes from emails that your lawyers produced for you. Is that right? 

97 

MR. KUSHNER: So a lot of-- so what I'll tell you is like, again, I didn't recall, 

you know, emailing my assistant to get out. They found them and showed me. I 

said, "Okay, I'm not surprised," because I remembered the meeting being a fairly 

trivial meeting and, again, one that I probably wouldn't have thought-- I remember it 

being a trivial meeting about Russian adoption with a bunch of people. And I 

probably wouldn't have thought about it again had this email come up that in no way 

or shape resembled the meeting that I was a part of. 

MR. SWALWELL: But you did tell us earlier that you were there for no 

longer than 10 minutes. So I guess I'm wondering, if you don't remember asking 

twice to get help to get out of the meeting and you don't remember reading any part 

of the email chain, how can you tell us with clarity that you were there for 

10 minutes? 

MR. KUSHNER: Maybe I was there for 11 minutes. Again, I'm giving an 

approximate. I remember I came late. I left early. 

MR. SWALWELL: But we agreed the meeting started at 4 o'clock? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it started on time or not. 

MR. SWALWELL: It was calendared for 4. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. 

MR. SWALWELL: And at 4:28 is the first time you asked for help to get out 

of the meeting. Is that right? 

MR. KUSHNER: That's what the timestamp says, yeah. 

MR. SWALWELL: And then a minute later you send another one? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. 

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MR. SWALWELL: And so it was at least about 30 minutes from the time 

that the meeting was calendared to start until the meeting -- until the time you asked 

for help to get out? 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean, like I said, I don't know what time I showed up at 

the meeting. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember if help came right away or if 

help --yeah, sorry. 

MR. CONAWAY: Yeah. We're at the 15-minute mark. Finish off that 

question. 

MR. SWALWELL:- Sure. Actually, the next question was --

MR. CONAWAY: That was the next question. So--

MR. SWALWELL: Well, Chair--

MR. CONAWAY: It was a 15-minute break. You were going to finish that 

line of logic? 

MR. SWALWELL: Yeah. 

MR. CONAWAY: We'll go back to you. 

MR. KUSHNER: It's okay. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember if help came right away after you sent 

the second one, or did it take 5 more minutes or 1 0 more minutes or 20 more 

minutes? 

MR. KUSHNER: We could look at the phone record, but I think it came 

pretty quickly. So, again, one of the girls is always at their desk, and so, when I 

didn't get it right away, I saw that-- that's why I sent to the other one. So she 

called me up pretty quick. 

MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Thank you. 

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MR. CONAWAY: Pivoting to our side, just for the record, our agreement 

with Mr. Kushner and his lawyers was only two members on our side plus me would 

ask questions. Adam and I have a little different understanding, but the official 

position is that only two members of each side would ask questions. 

You guys are not doing that, I understand. You and I have a different 

agreement, but I just want to make sure the lawyer knows that the written 

agreement that we have is that that's the case. So their appearance here was in 

that regard. So I just want to get that on the record. 

MR. SCHIFF: Chairman, I would just mention, and our apologies if that was 

communicated to counsel because that wasn't the agreement we had reached. 

MR. CONAWAY: Right. So I just want to make that's clear because he did 

ask that question. 

Trey, do you have questions? 

It's our turn. If you want the break--

MR. LOWELL: We're fine. Just wanted to figure out something. 

MR. SCHIFF: Trey. 

MR. GOWDY: I want to make sure that we have this June meeting in proper 

perspective. You were invited by your brother-in-law to attend the meeting. You 

didn't have to travel very far to get to it. 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: So you needed a pretty good excuse to blow it off orelse 

you needed to attend. You got there, almost immediately lost interest, and began 

making plaintiff pleadings to your administrative aides to get you out. Does that 

about sum it up? 

MR. KUSHNER: That's a little more dramatic, but it's accurate, yes. 

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MR. GOWDY: Well, actually, I left out two facts: Number one, you had no 

idea what the meeting was about before you got there. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. 

MR. GOWDY: And number two, you're the one that disclosed the email. It 

wasn't media reporting. You did it. 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. GOWDY: All right. I want to compliment you and tell you how much I 

appreciate your willingness to stay until my friends run out of questions. But I also 

have to let you know: That's never going to happen. The longer you stay in here, 

the narrative will be how important and significant a witness you were, hence the 

fact that they kept you in here all day long. 

On the other hand, if you do what any reasonable person would do, which is 

say, at a certain point, these questions have become mundane and are off script 

and frankly outside the jurisdiction of what the committee has been asked to do, 

then they will say that you left before you answered all the questions. 

So I just want to make sure you understand you cannot win, regardless of 

what you do. And I really do appreciate your willingness to say you're going to 

stay. But unless you want to cancel your weekend plans, they're never going to 

run out of questions. 

MS. SEWELL: Point of clarity? 

MR. GOWDY: So I just want to remind you and everyone what the four 

lines of inquiry are, because with some of the questions, it's hard to remember what 

the four lines of inquiry are. What Russian cyber activity and other active 

measures were directed against the United States and its allies? Did the Russian 

active measures include links between Russia and individuals associated with 

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political campaigns or any other U.S. persons? What was the U.S. Government's 

response to these Russian active measures, and what do we need to do to protect 

ourselves and our allies in the future? What possible leaks of classified information 

took place related to the Intelligence Community assessment of these matters? 

Those are the four things that this committee has been asked to do. So it is 

between you and your counsel how many questions outside that you want to 

answer. But I do feel some obligation to let you know, despite your best efforts to 

stay here until they run out of questions, it's not about the questions; it's about how 

long they keep you in the room. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I'm starting to see that. Thank you. 

MR. GOWDY: Having said that, I think I have about 9 more minutes, and if 

you would like to take them to talking to your counsel or taking a break, you can use 

the 9 minutes however you want. 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, one thing I would say to all of you, 

Mr. Kushner doesn't have problems answering your questions. The only thing I 

would observe is-- and, again, Congressman, I appreciate your efforts to get all the 

information you want. 

When you ask the same question over and over again and you ask it in five 

or six different ways, you're not going to get a different answer. You're just going to 

have five or six different questions answered the same way. We're here to answer 

your questions. If there comes a point where you just want to keep asking the 

same questions over again, you're not helping your record. 

MR. CONAWAY: Trey, are you done with questions? 

MR. GOWDY: Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. 

MR. CONAWAY: All right. 

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Adam. It's 12:39. 

MR. SCHIFF: I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing with my colleague. 

Mr. Kushner, while you're well represented, but you have two lawyers in the 

room tonight-- today, and it's really not our role to represent you, but we do have a 

lot of questions for you. And I don't think my colleague's characterization is 

accurate. 

If this were an ordinary deposition, it would probably go all day and maybe a 

matter of days, as Mr. Lowell can tell you. 

MR. LOWELL: Actually, the Federal rules have changed to prevent that 

from happening, but, please, keep going. 

MR. SCHIFF: So, in any event, we'll do our best to be respectful of your 

time and appreciate you being here. 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. SCHIFF: So I'm going to let Mr. Swalwell finish his line of questioning, 

and then I'll resume. 

MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Kushner, based on your personal recollection, not 

email production to you, who was at that June 9th meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I recall Don Junior, Paul Manafort, the Russian woman 

whose name I'm not going to try to pronounce. I'm not as good as you at doing 

that. And the other people, I couldn't tell you. 

MR. SWALWELL: Was an interpreter used? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SWALWELL: Had you ever met the Russian woman before that 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. 

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MR. SWALWELL: Have you talked to her since that meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

103 

MR. SWALWELL: Any other individuals, other than Don Junior and Paul 

Manafort, had you met them before the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: It's possible. Again, I don't know who was at the meeting, 

and so, if I'd seen one of them and shook a hand somewhere, I don't know. 

MR. SWALWELL: Have you spoken with any of them since the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. Not that I can recall. 

MR. SWALWELL: Was your father-in-law in the building at the time of the 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why Don Junior said, with respect to getting 

information on Hillary Clinton, "I love it"? Why would that have been the mindset or 

perspective of the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. You'd have to ask Don Junior why he said 

that. 

MR. SWALWELL: Who is Rob Goldstone? 

MR. LOWELL: Again, Congressman, you're asking what he knew at the 

time or what he's learned now? 

MR. SWALWELL: No, I said, who is Rob Goldstone? 

MR. LOWELL: I'm asking, are you asking what he knew at the time or what 

he knows now? 

MR. SWALWELL: You're familiar that Rob Goldstone is referenced in the 

email chain setting up the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Well, one second, answer his question because it just 

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depends which way you want me to answer the question. Did I know who Rob 

Goldstone was at the time? 

MR. SWALWELL: Sure, yes. 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you know who he is now? 

MR. KUSHNER: I've since learned, yes. 

MR. SWALWELL: Have you talked to him? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: Who is the Agalarov family, Emin and Aras? 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, are you asking me what I knew at the time? 

MR. SWALWELL: Did you know them at the time? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you know them now? 

MR. KUSHNER: I still don't know them but I know of them now. 

104 

MR. SWALWELL: Just minutes after the June 9th meeting, candidate 

Trump sent out a tweet-- at 4:40p.m., on June 9th, candidate Trump sent out a 

tweet: How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up, and where are 

your 33,000 emails that you deleted? 

Do you know why he sent out that tweet? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: You're smirking. Do you have just a thought on that or--

MR. KUSHNER: Again, he controls his Twitter, and it comes from what's on 

his mind at the time. 

MR. SWALWELL: And a couple days after the meeting was set up but 

2 days before the meeting occurred, candidate Trump gave a speech declaring: 

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I'm going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we're going 

to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think 

you're going to find it very informative and very interesting. 

Do you know why or have any knowledge as to why he made that 

statement? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: Was there a kids meeting that took place-- that was 

referred to as the kids meeting that took place every Monday during the -- as the 

week would start at 9:30a.m.? 

MR. KUSHNER: There were some. They did do those meetings. I don't 

know if it occurred that week or not. 

MR. SWALWELL: Do you know if one occurred the following week? 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, I'd have to look at schedules for what was booked, 

but I do know they got moved around a lot and sometimes canceled. 

MR. SWALWELL: A Rhona is referred to on the Goldstone-Don Junior 

exchange. Are you familiar with Rhona? 

MR. KUSHNER: Of course. 

MR. SWALWELL: Is that Rhona Graff? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. SWALWELL: Would she also assist the candidate at the time with 

campaign-related matters? 

MR. KUSHNER: More personal-related matters, whatever his inquiries 

were. 

MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever know her to assist the candidate, Donald 

Trump, with campaign-related matters? 

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MR. KUSHNER: She would assist him with whatever he needed assistance 

with. 

MR. SWALWELL: And that sometimes included campaign matters? 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. 

MR. SWALWELL: I mean, if you don't know, you can say you don't know. 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. That's good. Thank you. 

MR. SWALWELL: But, finally, with respect to the December UAE meeting 

that you referenced, you said that you did tell then-President-elect Donald Trump 

about that one and a half hour meeting. Is that right? 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. SWALWELL: So how would you decide whether you told Donald 

Trump about a meeting you had with a foreign representative and when you would 

not tell Donald Trump? And, for example, you said you didn't tell him about the 

meeting with the Russian Ambassador. 

MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. When something was memorable or actionable or 

something along those lines. But that was a great meeting. I mean, the meeting I 

had with Sheikh Muhammad was a great meeting. It was really, really informative. 

It made me very optimistic that we could do things differently in the region. 

And I also felt that, you know, I really enjoyed the meeting. So it was a 

meeting that I was happy to report back on. I thought it was worthwhile. 

MR. SWALWELL: Did you report back on the Gorkov meeting to Donald 

Trump? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. SWALWELL: And, Mr. Schiff, I'll yield back. 

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. 

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I wanted to follow up. I think you had mentioned in discussion with 

Mr. Swalwell that, prior to this June 9th meeting, that you had had a discussion with 

Catherine Vargas about how to simplify your schedule or prioritize your scheduling. 

Is that right? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do it frequently. 

MR. SCHIFF: And you had indicated, I think, in one of the documents that 

you provided that you wanted to discuss with her the 3 p.m. meeting with Don 

Junior. So this discussion would have taken place at a point in time after which 

you had talked with her about essentially confining your schedule to the most 

important meetings. Is that correct? 

MR. KUSHNER: Sorry. Can you repeat the question, please? 

MR. SCHIFF: Yeah. So you had the discussion with Catherine Vargas that 

you mentioned and answered my colleague's question about trying to prioritize your 

meetings so the most important ones would be the ones on your schedule. 

At a later point, you emailed Catherine Vargas to discuss two meetings, the 

1 :30 meeting and the Don Junior meeting. So that discussion would have taken 

place after you already told her you wanted to prioritize the important meetings on 

your schedule, correct? 

MR. KUSHNER: What I would say is that there is-- you have existing 

inventory and then you have new inventory. So I don't recall when the discussion 

happened, but, you know, it's not like you have the discussion and then you wave a 

magic wand and you get out of all your obligations that you have. So, again, I don't 

know in what context that happened or where that went. 

MR. SCHIFF: But from your email, is that an indication that you wanted to 

talk to her about these two meetings to determine whether they were worth your 

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time? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. It meant these were two meetings we had to get 

done, but going forward, let's come up with a strategy to make sure we're being as 

efficient and as effective as possible with our time. 

MR. SCHIFF: And when you discussed the 3 p.m. meeting with her, what 

did you discuss? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you ask her, why am I going to this meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, that's a good example. When he says he 

doesn't recall and then you ask four questions afterwards which basically ask him a 

different way something that he's already said he doesn't recall, all we're doing is 

taking time and you're not getting any information. 

MR. SCHIFF: Counsel, we're taking more time by your making objections. 

If you want to instruct your client not to answer --

MR. LOWELL: I'm not going to instruct him not to answer because I'm going 

to take Congressman G9wdy --

MR. SCHIFF: Then I would suggest--

MR. LOWELL: Let me just finish, please. I'm only going to point out for the 

record, because there is a record, the device you're using. Having said that, 

please ask away. But I'm going to take Congressman Gowdy's advice and advise 

my client that you are welcome to follow up and ask us substantive questions that 

are not repetitive, that would illuminate the four points that the Congress has asked 

you to look into. We will certainly respond. But this would be a good time for you 

to finish up. 

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MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, counsel. Your client is having some trouble 

remembering the details of these conversations. That's why I'm breaking it down. 

But I appreciate your comments. 

MR. KUSHNER: If it's helpful to you, I'm not going to-- again, Catherine 

and I spoke frequently on scheduling and all different types of things. I can't tell 

you that I have too many specific memories about those discussions. And on that 

day, you can ask me all the questions you want; I'm not going to come up with 

memories about how specific we characterized a certain meeting out of the 

thousands I was having. So, you know, again, in a cordial way, I think it's probably 

a useful suggestion to be efficient here. But you can keep asking the questions if 

you like, so--

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. So you have no recollection of what you 

discussed in that meeting with her? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. 

MR. SCHIFF: And you, also, I think, were asked to attend this meeting by 

Don Junior. Did you have a discussion with Don Junior prior to the meeting either 

orally or in writing about what the subject of meeting would be? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: And when you went into the meeting, they were discussing 

what? 

MR. KUSHNER: I sat down. I heard them talking about Russian adoptions 

and, again, just quickly was trying to figure out what the hell was-- sorry-- quickly 

was trying to figure out what was going on and, you know, then determined that this 

was not the best use of my time. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the meeting with Mr. Manafort either before 

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or after the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. We had a lot of more important and pressing things 

to discuss. 

MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever raise the question with either Don Junior or 

Mr. Manafort on why they bothered to take a meeting on adoptions at that point in 

the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: Don Junior and I basically laughed at how he wasted our 

times, so--

MR. SCHIFF: And did Don Junior, in that conversation where you were 

laughing about it being a waste of time, indicate to you that he thought the meeting 

would be productive for other reasons, that is, because he had hoped to get 

information about Hillary Clinton, as promised? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. His attitude was it happens. Look, you know, again, 

in the course of a campaign, you know, we're trying to use hindsight now to zoom in 

on a meeting which, by the way, was not impactful and was not particularly 

memorable and was not particularly noteworthy other than, you know, an email that, 

you know, we found and then provided that basically says something that is not 

indicative of what the meeting was. 

In the course of a campaign, you have all different kinds of people trying to 

get time with you. There's some people who are cold callers, and those 

people-- it's more rare you give them time. You have some people who are 

relationships who you know and who you don't want to be rude to and so you give 

them time. And then there are some people who are strong relationships. 

So my point is you have all different types of meetings. But, you know, look, 

in the course of the thousand meetings, I remember some more than others, some 

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less than others. But the general point is it was just another meeting. You know, 

we went in. I didn't waste too much time. And then you move forward to the 

10,000 other things you have to do. You've all been in campaigns, so--

MR. SCHIFF: Just so that we're precise, though, Don Junior never told you 

what he had hoped to get out of the meeting, that is, promised information about 

Hillary Clinton? 

MR. KUSHNER: It did not come up, as far as I can recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: And neither did you have any conversation of that nature with 

Mr. Manafort? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether the meeting was memorialized in 

writing in any way? Did anyone do a readout of what took place during the 

meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: I did not, and I don't know of others who did. 

MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to the April 27 foreign policy at the Mayflower 

Hotel. When you met Ambassador Kislyak at the event, was it in the main meeting 

room, or was it in a private reception? 

MR. KUSHNER: It was in the reception room. I don't know if there was a 

distinction. There was a main room where the speech was held, where all the 

press was. And then there was a buffet room where they were going to have 

lunch, which was empty. And then there was a reception room where they were 

having drinks and a whole bunch of people socializing. 

MR. SCHIFF: And was there a point prior to the candidate's arrival where 

people were seated in a VIP section in the main room who were then escorted into 

the private reception, to your knowledge? 

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MR. KUSHNER: Once the candidate arrived, I was spending time just 

making sure he was ready for the speech. So I don't know the logistics of how the 

event unfolded. 

MR. SCHIFF: And the private room or the reception, was that behind the 

stage? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. 

MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether there were any private meetings with 

the Ambassador that took place in the hotel that day separate and apart from the 

reception area? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I--

MR. LOWELL: With Mr. Kushner? 

MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry? 

MR. LOWELL: With Mr. Kushner? 

MR. KUSHNER: He's asking me in general. Not that I know of. I don't 

know of any meetings -- I don't know meetings with myself; I don't know meetings 

with others -- so not that I know of. 

MR. CONAWAY: All right. Adam, it's 15. Trey has got a couple 

questions. 

MR. GOWDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Kushner, this June meeting that we have spent about four times as long 

discussing as you attended, you told the FBI about-- you gave the FBI this email 

before there were any media reports on it. Do I have that correct? 

MR. LOWELL: Congressman, that wouldn't be correct. 

MR. KUSHNER: No. Yeah, we didn't give him the email. We disclosed 

the meeting to them. 

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MR. GOWDY: The meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

113 

MR. GOWDY: And the FBI has jurisdiction over the investigation of both 

criminal matters, and they have a counterintelligence component. And you're the 

one that told them about it? 

MR. KUSHNER: As far as I know, yes. 

MR. GOWDY: Well, the media didn't tell them about it. You told the 

Bureau before there were any media reports. 

MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. 

MR. GOWDY: Your conversation with your scheduler about better 

managing your time, something tells me you're not the only person in the room 

who's ha<;l that conversation with a scheduler about how to make better use of their 

time. I'm a little confused about the chronology. Did you have that conversation 

with your scheduler before the meeting or after the meeting? 

MR. KUSHNER: In different forms, I'm sure I've had it with her, both. 

mean, it's a conversation we had frequently. 

MR. GOWDY: It's an ongoing challenge to prioritize your time, particularly in 

the throes of a presidential campaign in addition to your business commitments? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: I think votes are coming soon, so I want to just do my best to 

have this in my head. No collusion, coordination, conspiracy between you and 

Russia before the election or during the transition? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes. 

MR. GOWDY: No collusion, coordination, conspiracy between members of 

the Trump campaign, to your knowledge? And let me digress for a second. There 

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was a Washington Post analysis of your statement~ Did you see that yesterday? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. GOWDY: I'm sure your attorney has read it. Under the general 

heading of this is kind of what you're up against, they noted that you had no 

collusion, coordination, conspiracy with the Russians. And they noted that you had 

no knowledge of anyone having collusion, coordination, or conspiring with the 

Russians. 

But they took you to task for not knowing what you don't know, whether 

anyone else did. So that's what you're up against, is, can you give an accounting 

for what everyone else may know? 

So, against that backdrop-- and that's why I say to the best of your 

knowledge --to the best of your knowledge, no member of the official Trump 

campaign colluded, conspired, coordinated with the Russian Government to impact, 

influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? 

MR. KUSHNER: So I think that that sums up very well. That's exactly right. 

It's funny; the only thing you said before that kind of had me thinking was you said 

somebody who in their head was associated with the campaign. I think that that 

kind of sums up there's a lot of people out there with different things in their mind. 

What I can say very affirmatively is that anybody who was actively involved in 

the campaign or who had a real connectivity with the campaign or who shared 

knowledge with the campaign was something that I would have known about, if 

there was something somewhat suspicious, something nefarious, something that 

had any of those C words that you discussed before involved. 

And I can affirmatively tell all of you -- and I appreciate you spending all this 

time on it to get the record right-- but as somebody who really oversaw, you know, 

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the finances, the scheduling, the digital operation, the-- you know, all the general 

problem solvings of the campaign, I can tell you that there is nothing that came up 

to us that would lead us to indicate that anyone on the campaign was doing 

anything inappropriate with regards to --you know, you also asked about the word 

"collude" before. 

I mean, I think what we were talking about is there's the hacking of the DNC 

and there's the hacking of Podesta's email and then the release of those things to 

Wikileaks, right. That's basically where the accusation is. Nobody is saying there 

was tinkering with voting boxes or anything like that. 

So, in terms of those two actions and how those em ails were ultimately 

hacked and then how they got to the sources that ultimately disclosed them, what I 

can tell you is that, to the best of my knowledge, as somebody who was actively 

involved in almost every aspect of the campaign, I had no knowledge of anybody 

who tried to take credit for it, who told me they were doing it, who told me they knew 

of it before it happened, or who was taking credit for it after it happened. 

So I want to be as broad as possible in that regard. I'm saying this under 

oath, that as somebody who was probably one of the most, if not the most senior 

person on the campaign, somebody who was a very trusted confidant of the 

candidate, I can tell you that we had no knowledge of anyone doing any of those 

things. 

So I can't say-- I guess my lawyers probably don't want me to say something 

so broad under oath, but I'm saying it so broad and under oath because, again, I 

think we did run a very good campaign. I think the candidate connected with the 

American people. He saw a lot of the issues that were very pressing, and he 

efficiently got his message out and people voted for him. And I think that that's 

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ultimately why he won the election. 

And so what happened with the hacking and then the Wikileaks and all that 

stuff, it's not something that I can say that the campaign knew about in advance or 

had anything to do in helping to facilitate coordination of it. And I'm saying that 

very affirmatively here on the record, hoping that it gives you more confidence in 

what we've been saying for a long time. So I hope that's helpful. 

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[1 :04 p.m.] 

MR. LOWELL: Mr. Conaway and everyone, I think we have plowed enough 

ground in 3 hours. I suspect we're going to plow old ground. I offer, again, the 

opportunity of the committee to provide us with additional questions if new things 

come up, but --

MR. CONAWAY: We've got votes at like 1:05. Could I impose on--

MR. LOWELL: Again, it makes perfect sense to do it that way. Please 

proceed. 

MR. CONAWAY: If we could impose on Mr. Kushner to stay until votes are 

called, your side will have all that time between now and then. And then, if there 

are additional questions that you want answered, you'll propose those to Mr. 

Kushner in writing and get those back. Is that fair? 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, I have a few more questions, and then I want to give my 

colleagues an opportunity to ask questions. We won't have that opportunity before 

votes. 

If you're willing to -- I imagine it's a short series of votes -- stay so we can 

complete the questions that we have for you today, we would appreciate it. 

MR. LOWELL: I think I, as I said, heard very clearly what Mr. Gowdy said 

and appreciate that there is a no-win situation. So, consequently, I think the best 

way to proceed to get the committee real new, not repeated, substantive information 

is to have you ask those if you find anything we haven't touched on today that's 

germane, and we will either write them or we will come back, if that's the way. But 

it seems to me now that we have only plowed old ground. So, if that's not enough 

time between now and the votes, let's call this--

MR. KUSHNER: Congressman, I can say as well, I mean, look, I know what 

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I know better than you know what I know, and I can tell you that you've basically 

covered anything that has to do or touches with-- you know, with the things that 

you're inquiring about. And so, if you have more questions, give them to us in 

writing. 

But I do think, you know, what I'm hearing is right, is that, again, I've given an 

hour longer than we agreed to come. We're here voluntarily. We've submitted 

documents voluntarily. We're not looking to run and hide from anything. And, you 

know, again, I think that, just to be productive, I think it's-- I think we've probably 

reached the end of what a useful session is. 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, I appreciate your opinion on where the end of a useful 

session is. We haven't reached the end of the questions that we have for you 

today. 

And I appreciate Mr. Gowdy's advocacy on your behalf. That's really not the 

role of the committee, though. 

MR. GOWDY: It's not advocacy on his behalf, Adam. 

MR. SCHIFF: Excuse me, Mr. Gowdy. 

MR. GOWDY: No, you're not going to make an allegation and then not let 

me respond to it. It's not advocacy on his behalf. It's called fundamental fairness. 

MR. CONAWAY: Gentlemen, gentlemen, both of you stop. We have 5 or6 

minutes before votes are called. If you'd like to use those productively to ask Mr. 

Kushner questions down the line, I would suggest let's do that, and then we'll have 

this conversation offline. So, with that, if you want to recognize somebody for 

questions, let's move forward. Otherwise, we'll go ahead and leave now. 

MR. SCHIFF: I do. 

MR. CONAWAY: Okay. 

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MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I also want to make it clear so there's no 

doubt--

MR. CONAWAY: Let's don't do that. 

119 

MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear we are not in 

agreement that we will merely submit questions for the record. It will be necessary 

to--

MR. CONAWAY: As I said, they've offered to come back. They've offered 

to take them in writing. Let's use the last few minutes productively while he's here 

to ask these questions, and maybe we get those out of the way so that they don't 

have to do that. Otherwise, we can just keep yapping back and forth, and that 

does no one any good. 

MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I just want our position to be very clear so that 

there is no misapprehension. 

MR. CONAWAY: He was very clear. 

MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry? 

MR. CONAWAY: The attorney was very clear. 

MR. SCHIFF: I'm not talking about his position. I'm talking about we are 

not in agreement that the written interrogatory is going to be a substitute for 

completing our interview of the witness. 

MR. CONAWAY: What I heard his lawyer say, Adam, is they'll do it that way 

or they will come back. Now, take a yes for an answer and let your folks ask the 

questions. 

MR. SCHIFF: If the answer is you'll come back, then that's great. 

MR. CONAWAY: That's what was said. 

MR. LOWELL: We will definitely meet, as we've done, in good faith with the 

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committee. 

I mean, Mr. Chairman, you probably know that it was Mr. Kushner who 

insisted that this committee go forward and asked that you do so when this 

committee postponed his interview. And it was only his doing that got us here 

today. So you can tell that he's not trying to avoid answering your questions. 

120 

And I think our offer stands, Mr. Schiff, but I also say to you, if it's to come 

back and answer again, after he has said I don't know, and you're going to ask him 

six questions about what he doesn't know, that's not a productive use of this 

committee's time. 

MR. SCHIFF: Well, you may feel that way, Mr. Lowell, but the fact of the 

matter is we're in the process of trying to find out what he knows. And it's our 

responsibility if we're going to do our job thoroughly to find out. But you're doing a 

good job of advocating. 

MR. KING: How many times does Mr. Lowell have to say that his client will 

come back? 

MR. SCHIFF: Then we have that commitment. 

MR. KING: We've had it like for the last 10 minutes. 

MR. SCHIFF: Fantastic. All right. In that case, I'll recognize Mr. Quigley. 

MR. QUIGLEY: For today's shortness, maybe this will be short. And I 

apologize. 

there? 

MR. CONAWAY: Pull the mike to you. 

MR. QUIGLEY: My apology. 

Did anyone catch you up on what was said in that meeting when you weren't 

MR. LOWELL: You mean the June 9th meeting? 

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MR. QUIGLEY: Yes. I'm sorry. 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. QUIGLEY: Thank you. That's all I have. 

MR. KUSHNER: I like his questions. 

MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier. 

MS. SPEIER: Thank you. 

121 

And, Mr. Kushner, let me say I think you have been particularly generous 

with your time and been responsive to our questions. So I think we all appreciate 

that. 

MR. KUSHNER: Thank you. 

MS. SPEIER: You talked strategy with your father-in-law during the 

campaign about Hillary Clinton, I presume, correct? 

MR. KUSHNER: We talked strategy on how best to win a campaign. 

mean, in terms of the-- again, I'm not very political, and, you know, having political 

instincts is not something that I necessarily would do. So, in terms of lines of 

attack or what would work well with people, I really would leave that up to him, and 

then I would show him data to suggest one way or the other. But he would really 

be the one who would drive the decisions on what to do with that. 

MS. SPEIER: So, when he was about to give a major speech, did you sit 

with him and help him decide what the talking points should be? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. What we would do is, before he'd do a major speech, 

is we'd work on a draft. So we actually did about 20 policy speeches during the 

campaign, and I'm very, very proud of that body of work. I mean, we did our first 

speech at AI PAC, which was a long teleprompter speech, which was the 

candidate's idea. After that, he really liked it. He wanted to do, you know, more 

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in-depth speeches. So, again, that's actually how I found Mr. Simes is I called a 

few people I knew who, you know, I thought would know something about helping 

me find people who could help me put together policies, policy ideas, that I could 

pitch the ideas to the candidate. Then I found a few speechwriters. 

And then this guy Stephen Miller ended up becoming kind of the spoke in the 

wheel and helping me pull it all together. What we would do is give him a draft of a 

speech, and then he would just rip it apart and make it his own. And the one thing 

about him is he has very strong opinions, very strong ideas, very good instincts. 

And, you know, ultimately, I could show him all the data in the world. Sometimes 

I'd be able to convince him, but a lot of the time he wanted to go with his gut. And 

that's I think what led him to be successful in the campaign. 

MS. SPEIER: So, after the June 9th meeting, when he spoke and said, "I'm 

about to give a major policy speech next week with a lot of dirt on Hillary," he was 

talking about a speech that was in process, and were you familiar with that speech? 

Did you know what he was talking about? 

MR. KUSHNER: The answer is I don't know. 

MS. SPEIER: So, if he was going to give a major policy speech, though, 

you would know about it, would you not? 

MR. KUSHNER: I mean, if we had-- sometimes also he would say, "I'm 

going to do this," and then that was the first time that the campaign would learn of 

his intentions to do that certain thing, and then we'd get to work on trying to make 

that become a reality. 

So that's not necessarily indicative of the fact that we had something in the 

works. It's possible, but I'm sure if it was in the works, we have all kinds of records 

on kind of what we were working on and when we were working on it. So that's 

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what I know. 

MS. SPIER: So how did Guccifer400 get your email? 

MR. KUSHNER: Probably the same way the hundreds of other people who 

I ended up having to block would get my email. It's just or 

MS. SPEIER: So we all know that the President is very reluctant to share 

his tax return with the American people. So here you had someone who was 

basically saying, "we've got your father-in-law's tax return; we're about to release it 

if you don't give us 50 bitcoin." So did you tell your father-in-law about this email? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. I didn't deem it to be credible. 

MS. SPEIER: You didn't deem it to be credible. And what was the basis of 

not deeming it to be credible? 

MR. KUSHNER: I got it. I showed it to the Secret Service guy. His advice 

was to ignore it. And then, you know, you also have to go through and say, look, if 

we did get it, you know, did I think that he would have the appetite to then try to go 

say: Oh, I'm going to pay off some, you know, some random person to keep my 

things private. 

I mean, I think that his attitude was more it will be what it will be, you know, 

generally on things. 

So, again, he had so many different things on his mind. My goal was to try 

to keep things that were not pertinent or related to what he needed to do off of his 

mind. So it didn't strike me as something that was necessarily actionable, so the 

decision I made was just to delete it and move on. 

MS. SPEIER: So you mentioned that this national security--

MR. CONAWAY: Jackie, we're into votes. So would you ask the last 

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question, then we'll have to break. 

MR. SCHIFF: If we have time, Mr. Chairman, before votes, I know 

Mr. Castro had a few questions as well. 

124 

MS. SPEIER: Okay. So this national security advisory committee you said 

was just a bunch of names, that you had never met them. 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it was called --

MR. LOWELL: That's not quite right. That's not what he said. 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it was called the national security advisory--

MS. SPEIER: Foreign policy list. 

MR. KUSHNER: I think it was -- I think what we were getting a lot of flak on 

was-- and, again, you are all very prestigious Congressmen and -women who know 

a lot of people in Washington. You know, to give you an idea with our campaign, 

the first time I tried to hire somebody to help us write a policy paper, they basically 

said to me, there's two conditions: The first condition is you can't tell anybody I 

worked on this, and the second condition is I'm going to charge you double. 

Because people in this town were being told that, if they worked on the Trump 

campaign, they would never get a job in politics again. So--

MS. SPEIER: Since I'm really running up against the clock, let me ask you 

this: Roger Stone was the campaign manager for a period of time. Did you 

recommend that he resign, or did he do that on his own accord? 

MR. KUSHNER: So, first of all, I don't know if he ever was actually the 

campaign manager. What I can tell you is I only met Roger Stone once. And, 

again, I've been around my father-in-law and I was probably the most active and 

longest term member of the campaign. I met him once, and it was during the 

transition. He stopped in the building. I shook his hand, said hi, and that was it. 

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MS. SPEIER: So you don't know if Roger Stone had communications with 

your father-in-law through email or telephone conversations during the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I would -- I'm not familiar with how often they 

communicated. 

MS. SPEIER: And Paul Manafort, did you recommend that he be 

terminated? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MS. SPEIER: So he resigned on his own accord? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. I think it came at the right time. There was a lot of 

news that was out there, and the decision was that it was time for him to resign. 

MS. SPEIER: Those gifts of art and dirt that you received from Mr. Gorkov, 

where are they now? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. I had my assistant give them to the 

transition and register them. So I assume the transition did something with them, 

but it was not a painting I wanted to hang in my apartment. It was nice, but--

MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier, can we allow Mr. Castro before--

MS. SPEIER: Yes, I'm finished. 

MR. CASTRO: The last name of Rosemary at Deutsche Bank that you 

introduced to your father-in-law? I don't think we got her last name for the record. 

MR. KUSHNER: Sure. Vrablic, V-r-a-b-1-i-c. Wonderful woman. 

MR. CASTRO: Okay. Have any of the assets of the Kushner Companies 

been used to pay off any debts of The Trump Organization or Trump companies? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can think of. 

MR. CASTRO: Okay. Can you provide a list of the hundred people who 

worked in the San Antonio operation and their titles and the duties that they 

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performed for you in that digital operation? 

MR. KUSHNER: I can try to pull that together. I think it was a lot of 

subcontractors. 

MR. CASTRO: Do you know who would have that list? 

MR. KUSHNER: Not me is the question -- is the answer. 

MR. CASTRO: Would Brad Parscale have that list? 

MR. KUSHNER: Brad might be able to try to figure out how to recreate 

something like that. 

MR. CASTRO: Did you visit the San Antonio operation? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

MR. CASTRO: You never visited? 

MR. KUSHNER: No. 

126 

MR. CASTRO: How many phones were you using during the campaign? 

MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry? 

MR. CASTRO: How many cell phones were you using during the 

campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I had a primary phone that I used. 

MR. CASTRO: Was that the only phone you used for campaign purposes? 

MR. KUSHNER: Again, there was-- you know, if people called, I'd take a. 

call on somebody else's phone. And then, you know; at one point I borrowed a 

phone from somebody else in my company just to use for speaking to the guy from 

Mexico. 

MR. CASTRO: Could you provide the numbers of those cell phones or land 

lines or whatever you used, as you just described? 

MR. KUSHNER: Yes, I could try to track it down. 

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MR. CASTRO: How many email addresses did you use for campaign 

purposes? 

MR. KUSHNER: I had --for campaign purposes, I used basically-- I'm 

thinking. So they gave me a campaign email, but I didn't really use it. 

MR. CASTRO: What was that? 

MR. KUSHNER: Probably or something like that 

127 

. I think they gave me a transition email. I didn't really use 

that. 

MR. CASTRO: What was that email? 

MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. I'm sure we could get it for you. I had a--

MR. CASTRO: If you would turn over the list of all emails you used during 

the campaign, that would satisfy my request. 

MR. KUSHNER: No problem. 

MR. CASTRO: Brad Parscale, you said you met him when you started 

working on the digital part of the campaign or overseeing the digital part of the 

campaign. Is that correct? 

MR. KUSHNER: In November, yeah. 

MR. CASTRO: Do you know whether he worked for The Trump 

Organization before that? 

MR. KUSHNER: I believe he did. 

MR. CASTRO: Do you know what duties he performed for The Trump 

Organization before that? 

MR. KUSHNER: I think he made websites and whatnot, but I'm not that 

familiar. 

MR. CASTRO: On the digital part itself, which program did you use? I'll 

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128 

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give you an example. Many of us use NGP VAN for keeping data to basically send 

out emails and so forth. Do you know what program was used in the campaign? 

MR. KUSHNER: I do not. If you gave me the name, I probably could know 

it, because I remember having to look at all the vendors and whatnot, but I --

MR. CASTRO: Well, I guess it just seems odd that you were overseeing 

this entire operation, but you also don't know your cell phone carrier and you don't 

know what was used to keep a data set. 

MR. KUSHNER: Okay. 

MR. CASTRO: Those are all the questions I have. 

MR. CONAWAY: All right. 

Mr. Kushner, thank you so very much for your extended visit, and we 

appreciate your candor and straightforward answers. And I guess we're adjourned. 

Thank you. 

MR. KUSHNER: Thank you very much. 

MR. LOWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you Members of Congress and staff. 

[Whereupon, at 1:19 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 

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