Just back from visiting the Middle East and Europe, Trump on Sunday dismissed recent reports as "fake news".
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, when asked by reporters on Saturday if it would be wrong for someone to create a back-channel with Russian Federation, he replied: "No".
"Jared is doing a great job for the country", Trump said in a statement to The New York Times Sunday evening about one of his closest advisers.
"We have back-channel communications with any number of individual" countries, McMaster said. Kushner, Trump added, is "respected by virtually everyone" and "is a very good person".
News reports said Trump was meeting with attorneys at the White House on May 28 over matters related to Russian Federation, possibly to set up a so-called "war room" to respond to the controversy.
In addition, the source told Fox News the December meeting focused on Russia's contention the Obama administration's policy on Syria was deeply flawed. National security adviser H R McMaster told reporters on Saturday that so-called back-channeling was not unusual.
Schiff said he expects Kushner, who serves as a senior adviser to Trump, will soon be asked to testify before his House committee. "I don't trust this story as far as I can throw it", he said.
Trump spent Sunday meeting with attorneys at the White House, presumably to set strategy for dealing with the Russian Federation investigation that has largely sidetracked his legislative agenda.
UK premier strikes tentative deal with N Ireland party
The Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, did much better than most forecasters predicted, and has 261 seats at last count. She said she "obviously wanted a different result" and felt "sorry" for colleagues who lost their seats.
US President Donald Trump is sticking by his son-in-law and White House confidant Jared Kushner.
The President, who significantly curtailed his presence on Twitter during his first global tour - which took him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, The Vatican, Brussels and Sicily - could certainly be irritated at the revelations regarding Kushner published by The Washington Post last Friday in an article citing "US.officials briefed on intelligence reports".
Some Democrats are already asking for an investigation and even calling for Kushner's security clearance to be revoked. But he said on "Fox News Sunday" that "any channel of communications back or otherwise with a country like Russian Federation is a good thing". "So you know there's a lot of different ways to communicate - back-channel, publicly - with other countries".
Trump tweets that "it is my opinion that numerous leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies" from what he calls the "FakeNews media".
"You've got the ambassador to Russian Federation reporting back to Moscow on an open channel", Graham said.
Trump plans to make an announcement within the week on his climate position, the official said.
Schiff would neither confirm nor deny the reports about Kushner, but said if they are accurate, "it's obviously very concerning".
"My dashboard warning light was clearly on", Clapper said.
Comments