Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) said Tuesday that senior adviser to the President Jared Kushner had engaged in a “serious breach” of protocol when he reportedly sought to set up a communications backchannel with the Russian government using Russian facilities.
“Look, these guys, the administration, they’re not acting like people who have nothing to hide,” Franken said.
Franken’s remarks came in an appearance on CBS’ “This Morning.”
“He didn’t disclose a lot of his contacts with mainly, I guess, Russians,” Franken said, noting it was illegal not to list such meetings on a security clearance application. Kushner later amended his clearance application.
“And then there’s this peculiar one where he was trying to set up a thing within the Russian communications system so that our own intelligence couldn’t be part of it, which is very unusual,” Franken added. “Look, we have a special prosecutor. We’re going to be looking at this. This might come out to, you know, what did the President know, and when did his son-in-law tell him?”
The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials briefed on intercepted Russian conversations, that Kushner had discussed establishing a secret backchannel to the Kremlin, using equipment in Russian facilities in the United States, with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December.
CBS’ Charlie Rose asked Franken if he thought Kushner’s security clearance should be revoked.
“I think we should look at that,” Franken responded. “This is a pretty bad breach.”
Watch below via CBS:
Understated, but to the point. As always.
Well played , sir.
I’m glad Funny Al has finally been let off the leash.
Franken really nailed this. He was careful enough to say that we would look before judging but in the same breath basically said this doesn’t pass any reasonable person’s smell test and went further to indicate that JK likely acted on Trump’s orders. That’s the piece that is only starting to get into the MSM in the last 24 hours. There is no denial that Kushner met with the Russians or asked for this secret line. The questions are why would he do that, what did both sides get or expect to get out of that arrangement, and on whose orders?
Kushner should have his security clearance revoked. The most dangerous animal is a wounded animal.
I think at this point it’s incumbent upon the Dems to explain that not all “backchannels” are alike. That [expletive deleted] Conway went out on talk shows to say that other administrations had backchannels and that they’re common in the WH.
What Kushner did was to set up a secretive communication center on Russian facilities to have conversations with the Russians for the purposes of making those conversations secret.
That’s not common to any normal administration.