WASHINGTON — President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia’s central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.
Kushner rebuffed the request after receiving a lengthy email exchange about it between a West Virginia man and Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn, the sources said.
Kushner also responded to the email by telling Dearborn and the handful of other Trump campaign officials on the email that they should not accept requests from people who pretend to have contacts with foreign officials to aggrandize themselves, according to one person familiar with the email. Dearborn currently serves as a deputy chief of staff in the White House.
While Kushner told Dearborn and other campaign officials on the email not to accept Torshin’s offer, Torshin was seated with the candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., during a private dinner on the sidelines of an NRA event during the convention in Louisville, according to an account Torshin gave to Bloomberg. Congressional investigators have no clear explanation for how that came to be, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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Spanish anti-corruption officials have identified Torshin as a “godfather” in the Russian mafia — something Torshin has denied.
The disclosure is the latest example of a senior Russian official seeking to make high level contacts with the Trump campaign.
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In last graf, NBC confirms @JennaMC_Laugh scoop from earlier: "Kushner denied, under oath, that he was familiar with any attempts by WikiLeaks to contact the campaign." https://t.co/CaEL97VDKA
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) November 17, 2017
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