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Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, may have provided key details to federal prosecutors investigating fundraising efforts in the wake of the 2020 election, experts have said.
Kushner is a former Trump White House senior adviser married to the Republican's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump. He is among several witnesses to have testified to a grand jury as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation, according to The New York Times.
During questioning, Kushner was asked about whether Trump privately admitted that he knew that he had lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden but carried on pushing the false claims that it was "rigged" due to widespread voter fraud.
As well as Kushner, other witnesses have appeared in front of a grand jury in recent weeks. They include Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House communications director, and former Trump aide Hope Hicks, reported CNN. The testimonies from key members of Trump's inner circle add strength to the report that Smith's election and January 6 work is coming to an end. The former president may be at further risk of being indicted again in a federal investigation.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in relation to the 2020 and January 6 investigations. He has said that Smith's probe is a "witch hunt" against him. The former president also still falsely states the last election was "stolen" from him. Newsweek has contacted Trump's and Kushner's offices via email for comment.
During his testimony, Kushner told the grand jury at the Washington D.C. courthouse in June that he thought Trump genuinely did believe that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, The Times reported.
However, legal experts have said that Kushner may still have provided key testimony as part of the Department of Justice [DOJ] probe into whether Trump and his team defrauded the American public while seeking donations from his supporters to challenge the election results via the courts. This may have been done all the while with them knowing that Trump lost fairly.
In a series of tweets, Lisa Rubin, an attorney and legal analyst for MSNBC, said that Kushner's testimony before a federal grand jury is "significant." She tweeted that it shows that the fundraising aspect of the federal investigation into Trump is "very much live."
"Other than Trump & [Trump adviser] Jason Miller, no one was more involved in post-election fundraising and related messaging than Jared. As ad guru Larry Weitzner told the 1/6 committee, the small circle working on post-election ads included Miller, [former Republican House Speaker] Newt Gingrich, Trump's pollster & Jared," Rubin tweeted.
The House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 attack previously obtained emails sent to Kushner, Gingrich, Miller and Weitzner in December 2020. These suggested that they sought to put out television adverts about the election results to "arouse the country's anger."
Rubin added that Weitzner testified to the January 6 panel last summer that Kushner wanted to characterize the adverts to state the last election was "stolen" in "very aggressive" terms.
Speaking to MSNBC, Timothy Heaphy, former lead investigator to the January 6 committee, said that Kushner is a potential key witnesses in the DOJ's probe. Trump's son-in-law was "directly involved" in the campaign fundraising that then became the 'Stop the steal' fundraising.
"The Trump campaign pivoted to a fundraising operation, and Jared Kushner was right in the center of the strategy of mining the false narrative for repeated cash contributions of up to $250 million after the election," Heaphy said. "So, to the extent Jack Smith is looking into campaign fundraising based on these false statements of election fraud, Jared Kushner would have information about that as well."
Kushner and Ivanka Trump were subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury by Smith's office in February, but the latter has not gone before it. The husband and wife did both testify to the January 6 House committee last year.
Neither Kushner or Ivanka Trump are involved in Trump's 2024 campaign.
Daniel Zelenko is a partner at the firm Crowell & Moring and a former federal prosecutor. He said prosecutors' attempts to get people on record to say that Trump knew he had lost the last election will be crucial for their case.
"Words are incredibly powerful in white-collar cases because, in a lot of them, you're not going to hear from a defendant, as they are seldom going to take the stand," Zelenko told The Times. "So, having those words put in front of a jury gives them more importance and makes them more consequential."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more