I did not collude with Russia, my actions were ‘proper’

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner speaks to members of the White House press following his appearance before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of their probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Washington, U.S. July 24, 2017.

Kushner, who worked closely with the Trump campaign and is now a senior White House advisor, has found himself in the thick of the Russia investigations.

The scrutiny has only increased after emails showed that a meeting, set up by Donald Trump Jr. and attended by Kushner, was arranged after the younger Trump was offered compromising information on then-candidate Hillary Clinton as part of Russia and its government’s support for then-candidate Donald Trump.

Kushner also has faced criticism for previously withholding pieces of information about his contacts with foreign nationals during the campaign.

In the written statement Monday, the president’s son-in-law said that he had not seen the email chain until recently. He also said that he asked his assistant to call him out of the meeting once he realized a Russian lawyer there wanted to talk about adoption policy.

Kushner also denied discussing establishing a secret back channel with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. He admitted to meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower in December, but said that the pair talked about Syria policy.