Jared Kushner, former President Trump’s son-in-law and ex-adviser, has revealed that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York allegedly told his mother’s friends that he was going to jail in connection with the 2016 election and alleged ties with Russia. Kushner shared this information during an appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast.
Kushner expressed his concern for his mother, noting that he had assured her that they hadn’t done anything wrong and that everything was fine. Nevertheless, he recounted that his mother would call him and say, “our friends on the Upper East Side were talking with Chuck Schumer who says Jared’s going to jail.”
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has consistently denied reports suggesting that he attempted to establish a “back-channel” line of communication between Russia and the Trump campaign in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
“My poor mom, I told her to stop, you know reading whatever, I said, ‘I promise you, we didn’t do anything wrong, it’s good,’” Kushner said on the Lex Fridman Podcast. “But you know, she’d call me say, well you know, ‘our friends were on the Upper East Side were talking with Chuck Schumer who says Jared’s going to jail.’”
He was notably present at the controversial meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and a Russian government lawyer who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. While Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report identified “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 election, it did not establish that anyone from Trump’s campaign was complicit in those efforts.
Kushner also had a meeting with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, shortly after Trump’s victory in the 2016 election. Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser, was present at this meeting as well. Reports indicated that they discussed establishing a secure communications line between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin.
During the podcast interview, Kushner admitted that he initially didn’t take the allegations too seriously, believing there were no underlying issues that would lead to accusations against him. He expressed his concern that such accusations could be used to try to catch him on a minor misrepresentation and potentially put him in jail.
Kushner’s interactions with various Senate committees investigating the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia led to more than 20 hours of testimony, along with significant personal expenses on legal fees. He emphasized the surreal nature of the situation, with a prominent senator like Schumer making such allegations when he was certain they were baseless.
