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Kushner to Appear Before Senate Intel Committee on Russia

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to question key advisor and son-in-law to the president, Jared Kushner.
Image: Bannon and Kushner
White House advisors Steve Bannon, left, and Jared Kushner attend a cabinet meeting at the White House on March 13, 2017.Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to question Jared Kushner, a key adviser to President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, two sources confirmed to NBC News Monday.

Kushner will appear as part of an ongoing Senate inquiry into possible ties between associates of Trump and Russian operatives.

"Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry," the committee said in a statement on Monday.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told NBC that Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, "doesn’t have anything to hide."

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed Monday that Kushner had volunteered to come forward and answer questions, but that he had not yet heard back from the Senate Intelligence Committee about if and when that happen.

As to why Kushner felt compelled to testify, Spicer said "based on the questions that surround this, he volunteered to go in and sit down with them and say 'hey I’m glad to talk about the role that I played and the individuals that I met with'."

Meeting with individuals from foreign government and the Trump transition was "part of his job," Spicer emphasized.

Kushner’s meetings included one with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower. That meeting drew scrutiny after former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was dismissed from his White House post for misleading high-level administration officials about the nature of his calls with Kislyak.

Kushner did not personally attend a second December meeting requested by Kislyak, according to The New York Times, which first reported Kushner's appearance before the Senate committee, but he did meet with Sergey N. Gorkov at Kisylayk’s request. Gorkov heads Vnesheconombank, a state-owned bank that was placed on a U.S. sanctions list after the annexation of Crimea by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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News of the Senate questioning comes as Kushner is taking on a new high-profile role in the White House.

Adding to his already wide-ranging portfolio, Kushner will now head a “SWAT team” that seeks to fix government problems with ideas from the business sector. The new White House Office of American Innovation will report directly to Trump, who promises that it will apply his well-known mantra of “ahead of schedule, under budget” to the problems of government. The official announcement is expected to come later Monday.