A group of Democratic lawmakers want to know if the President’s daughter knew about her husband’s meetings with Russian officials and concealed that information when applying for security clearance.
In a letter sent to FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, 22 House Democrats ask the agency to conduct a review of a “potentially serious issue” involving first daughter Ivanka Trump. In applying for her security clearance, Trump would have been required to disclose all of her foreign contacts, as well as those of her spouse and siblings.
Just last week, Donald Trump Jr. released of chain of emails that revealed he and Trump’s husband Jared Kushner met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer and several others last June for the purpose of receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The emails indicate the meeting would be part of the Russian government’s efforts to aid the President’s campaign. In his initial security clearance filing, Kushner failed to disclose this meeting and has since updated his Standard Form 86 (SF-86) multiple times to reveal contacts with over 100 foreign officials, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The group of House Democrats, led by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), want to know whether Trump knew about the meetings Kushner did not report and whether she disclosed them on her SF-86.
“We are concerned that Ivanka Trump may have engaged in similar deception. … Did she accurately disclose her own foreign contacts in her initial filing, which reports suggest may be numerous?” the letter said. “If in fact she did accurately disclose these meetings, who at the White House knew of Mr. Kushner’s and Mr. Trump Jr.’s multiple contacts with Russian officials before they were made public? And, most importantly, did she discuss any of these meetings with the President, and, if so, when?”
The House Democrats point to the “influential role” both Trump and Kushner play in President Donald Trump’s administration — both serve as advisers to the President — saying “Ms. Trump even took her father’s place at the head table with world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg.”
“Between them, the couple have been assigned expansive policy portfolios, even as they maintain a business empire that relies on foreign financing and manufacturing,” the letter said. “The juxtaposition of their public and private roles may be murky and confused, but her obligation to disclose her families’ and her foreign contacts is not.”
Read the letter from 22 Democratic Representatives below:
