1 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE EXECUTIVE SESSION PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERVIEW OF: JARED KUSHNER Tuesday, July 25,2017 Washington, D.C. The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol, commencing at 10:06 p.m. Present: Representatives Conaway, King, LoBiondo, Rooney, UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I"INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTTVE Ros-Lehtinen, Gowdy, Crawford, Stefanik, Hurd, Schiff, Himes, Sewell, Carson, Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck. Also Present: Representative Granger. UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE Appearances: FoT the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE FOT JARED KUSHNER: ABBE LOWELL KEITH ROSEN BENJAIV]IN D. BLEIBERG NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP 1200 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W Washington, D.C.20036 UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 5 4 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CONAWAY: Let's go ahead and get started. Mr. Kushner, good morning. Mike Conaway from Texas. Thank you very much for agreeing to come visit with us this morning. We've got some what, we think, are important questions to ask whether or not that's the case. you. The proof will be in the pudding of But we do appreciate your willingness to be here. With the lntelligence Committee, we don't have criminal authorities. We don't have criminal investigatory powers. We're simply looking at the questions of what did the Russians do or not do with respect to our elections and those campaigns and what did the transition teams and/or the Trump campaigns do or not do. And so that's the issue. We will issue a report at some point laying out what we find. And if we do come across criminal things, then that would, of course, be turned over to Robert Mueller. But our job is to just try to determine what happened. So, again, thank you very much for being here this morning. With that, I'll turn it over to I Yeah, just some opening remarks. Good morning. This is a transcribed interview of Jared Kushner. Thank you for speaking to us today. For the record, I tor" ".II majority at HPSCI, a staff member here. There's a lot of folks in the room, and we'll have the individuals identify themselves as they speak. Before we begin, I wanted to state a few things for the record. The questioning will be conducted by members and staff. During the course of this interview, members and staff may ask questions during their allotted time period. Some questions they seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 5 UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE facts and understand the situation. Please do not assume we know any facts you have previously disclosed as part of any other investigation or review. During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that you desire. There is a reporter making a record of these proceedings so we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers. The reporter may ask you to spell certain terms or unusual phrases you might use and may ask you to slow down or repeat your answers. We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions based on your best recollection. This entire hearing will be at the unclassified level. lf a question is unclear or you are uncertain in your response, please let us know, and if you do not know the answer to a question or can't remember, simply say so. You are entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview, though you're not required to. But I do see you brought counsel. At this time, would the counsel please state their names for the record? MR. LOWELL: My name is Abbe Lowell of the law firm of Norton, Rose, Fulbright, along with Keith Rosen and Ben Bleiberg. We are counselto Mr. Kushner. Thank you As I said, the interview will be transcribed. Because the court reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. lf you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to spell certain terms or unusual phrases. Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel, if you wish, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect the transcript of this UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES I]NCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 6 interview in order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed. The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. The committee also reserves the right to request your return for additional questions should the need arise. The process for the interview is as follows: The minority will be given 45 minutes to ask questions. Then the majority will be given 45 minutes to ask questions. lmmediately thereafter, the minority will be given rebuttal time, and the majority will be given equal rebuttaltime.. These time limits will be strictly adhered to by all sides. Time will be kept for each portion of the interview with warnings given by me at the S-minute and 1-minute mark, respectively. To ensure confidentiality we ask that you do not discuss the interview with anyone other than your attorneYs. Our record today will reflect that you have not been compelled to appear. You are reminded that it is unlawfulto deliberately provide false information to Members of Congress or staff. Lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily participating in this interview, which will be given under oath. Mr. Kushner, if you would raise your right hand to be sworn. Mr. Jared Kushner, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? MR. KUSHNER: I do. Thank you. And as a reminder, we are at the unclassified level, and also for those speaking, please tum on the microphones before speaking so that the recordings can be properly transcribed. Thank you. Mr. Rooney. MR. ROONEY: Adam. I,INCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCIJASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 7 MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kushner, welcome. Mr. Lowell, pleased to have you here today. We appreciate your willingness to volunteer to come in and testify today. Because of the time constraints, we're only going to be able to get to a fraction of the questions that we have for you. And I want to be quite open at the outset. They will be of a survey nature because of the time limits, and we'll fully expect that we're going to need to invite you back. There are also additional documents that we're going to need to request that we willfollow up with counselto make sure that you have those requests. It won't be necessary for you to restate the written statement that you presented the other day, but I would like to begin by asking you whether, to the best of your knowledge, all of the facts in that statement that you released, your written testimony, whether all the facts in that statement are true and accurate to the best of your knowledge? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SCHIFF: We will submit that document to the record of this interview. [The information follows:] ******** INSERT 1_1 ******** UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 8 UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Kushner, who else, apart from your counsel, did you discuss your proposed testimony with in order to prepare for it today? MR. KUSHNER: My counsel, my wife, but other than that, really just got ready to come tellyou guys what I know. MR. SCHIFF: Let me begin by asking you about a Washington Post report from April of this year that refers to a meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and his brother, the UAE National Security Advisor, with a respect to a meeting in the Seychelles with someone close to Vladimir Putin and Blackwater founder and Trump campaign supporter Erik Prince. ln that article, The Post reported that you had met separately in New York City in mid-Decemberwith the Crown Prince, Steve Bannon, and Mike Flynn. So want to begin by asking you about some of the facts that are alleged in that articte. Did you meet with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in mid-December, as alleged in that article? MR. KUSHNER: ln New York City? MR. SCHIFF: Yes. MR. KUSHNER: Yes, ldid. MR. SCHIFF: And when would. that meeting have taken place? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the specific date, but we met at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. MR. SCHIFF: And who arranged the meeting and who requested the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SCHIFF: Who accompanied you to the meeting? UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES I 9 TINCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: I went with Steve Bannon and General Flynn. MR, SCHIFF: Do you know whether it was Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn who had arranged the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Again, at that point in time, we had a lot of things going on. We were doing a lot of meetings. I can try to go back through my records, but I don't recall exactly how all the meetings got set up. MR. SCHIFF: And what did either Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn tellyou prior to the meeting about why the meeting was taking place? MR. KUSHNER: lt was a meeting with a foreign government that wanted to create a relationship with the incoming administration, discuss their views of the world, and to hear our views of the world. MR. SCHIFF: And was there an effort made to keep this meeting confidential? MR. KUSHNER: We weren't going out and publicizing the work we were doing, but it was conducted in the same normal course of the rest of the meetings that we conducted. MR. SCHIFF: Prior to your arriving at the meeting, did either Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn indicate to you in any way that there was an effort made to keep this meeting outside the knowledge of the then Obama administration? MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, this meeting was no different than all the other meetings we were having where we weren't calling people and telling them what we were and weren't doing. MR. SCHIFF: Did either Mr. Bannon or Mr. Flynn indicate, though, that they were making an effort, along with UAE, to keep the Obama administration from finding out that the meeting was taking place? UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 10 T]NCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. MR. SCHIFF: And were there any other parties at the meeting other than the representatives from the UAE, yourself, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Flynn? MR. KUSHNER: There was a lot of people in the room when we got there, so I don't know who every specific person was or what their roles were with the Crown Prince and the Deputy -- is it the Deputy Crown Prince as well, Sheikh Nahyun? What's his title? Whatever it was. So I knew the main players in the room. The rest of the people in the room I was not familiar with what their titles were MR. SCHIFF: Were there any other people present who were from the Trump campaign or associated with the Trump campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I do not believe so. MR. SCHIFF: And apart from the representatives from the UAE, were there any other third parties who were not from the UAE? MR. KUSHNER: I can recallone person, yes. MR. SCHIFF: And who was that? MR. KUSHNER: A guy Rick Gerson. MR. SCHIFF: And what was his status? Why was he at the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I think he's a friend of Sheikh Muhammad. MR. SCHIFF: So he came as part of the UAE delegation? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SCHIFF: And what was discussed at the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: They started the meeting by talking about their current relationship with America, some of their complaints with the way things were handled with the previous administration. And then we just went into discussing UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE 11 the situation in the Middle East and their views on what could be different and just generally speaking. MR. SCHIFF: During the meeting, was there any discussion of Russia? MR. KUSHNER: I don't believe so. MR. SCHIFF: So there's no mention of lifting sanctions against Russia? MR. KUSHNER: That would not have been the scope of what I recall. MR. SCHIFF: Was there discussion involving Russia as it pertained to Russia's involvement in Syria? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. lt was not -- we did not spend a lot of time on Syria. MR. SCHIFF: And how long was the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I think it was about probably an hour and a half or so. MR. SCHIFF: During the meeting, was there any discussion about having a followup meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. MR. SCHIFF: Was there any discussion at that time of a meeting in the Seychelles? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Was this meeting memorialized in any way; that is, was there any written record made of the meeting that you're aware of? MR, KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. SCI'{lFF: And what would the protocol, practice have been in the campaign when you had a meeting with foreign officials? Would someone be designated to write an email or otherwise record what took place so that the campaign would be aware of either what commitrnents had been made or what UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES t2 UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE followup was necessary? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Now being in government and understanding how -- the proper protocols that occur makes me understand why you're asking this question. But during the period of the transition, things were a little bit -- I wouldn't say chaotic, but we had a lot of things moving very quickly at a lot of different paces. And we were not necessarily following all the different protocols that you might expect us to have. MR. SCHIFF: Did you inform Donald Trump of the meeting either before or after the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Afterwards I let him know that I met with the gentleman. MR. SCHIFF: And what did you tell him about the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: That it was a great meeting. You know, he was excited about the opportunity for a change in America's relationship with the UAE. And he was hopeful that strong American leadership in the Middle East would hopefully reverse what he saw as very detrimental to the Middle East -- the last administration where a lot of our allies felt like America pulled back and lran was strengthened. MR. SCHIFF: Did anyone in the Trump transition team disclose this meeting to the Obama administration or anyone then in the U.S. Government? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of whether or not the UAE disclosed the meeting to anybody in the U.S. GovernmenP MR. KUSHNER: l'm pretty sure the Obama administration knew about the meeting. MR. SCHIFF: But did the UAE disclose that they were having this meeting to the administration, to your knowledge? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 13 MR. KUSHNER: I don't know what discussions occurred between the UAE and the Obama administration. MR. SCHIFF: Then on what basis do you state that you believe the Obama administration was aware of the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I recall conversations with them saying that the current administration knew they were there. MR. SCHIFF: You recall conversations that you had with the administration or -- MR. KUSHNER: No, not with the administration, with the Ambassador, Yusif. MR. SCHIFF: So the representatives of UAE, The Ambassador indicated that he believed the Obama administration was aware that they were meeting with you? MR. KUSHNER: Yes, which, by the way, was not relevant necessarily one way or the other. MR. SCHIFF: The Washington Post also reported on a meeting between the Russian Government through an either Russian Government official or an oligarch and an Arab prince that took place in the Seychelles as part of an effort to establish a back channel line of communication between Moscow and the President-elect. Do you have any personal knowledge of the Seychelles meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Has anyone ever discussed that Seychelles meeting and whether it took place with you? MR. KUSHNER: No. UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCI,ASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 74 MR. SCHIFF: What role did Erik Prince have, either with the campaign or on behalf of the campaign, to your knowledge? MR. KUSHNER: l'm pretty sure I'd never met him throughout the campaign I remember, before Steve Bannon was on board with the campaign, he tried to introduce me to Eric, but we weren't able to connect. MR. SCHIFF: And just to make certain I have this, when the Crown Prince visited during that meeting you described, there was no discussion of a follow-on meeting, either in the Seychelles or anywhere else? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: And so did you -- have you met Erik Prince then? MR. KUSHNER: I have subsequently met him since we've been in government. MR. SCHIFF: And in your discussions with Mr. Prince, has he ever indicated that he met with representatives of the Russian Government or oligarchs acting either on behalf of the Russian Government or acting independently? MR. KUSHNER: No. lwould note that !'ve shaken his hand. I have not had extensive discussions with him. MR. SCHIFF: Now, I don't want to assume that the reporting is accurate or that the meeting, if it took place, took place necessarily in the Seychelles. Are you aware of any meeting that Mr. Prince or anyone else affiliated with the Trump campaign or acting on behalf of the campaign had with representatives of the Russian Government or Russian oligarchs outside the United States as it pertained to the incoming administration? MR. KUSHNER: No, I have no knowledge. MR. SCHIFF: What was Michael Cohen's role in the campaign? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE IINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 15 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Can you say the name? I missed it. MR. SCHIFF: Michael Cohen. MR, KUSHNER: So Michael had been a lawyer with the Trump administration for a long time -- with The Trump Organization for a long time. And I guess he would get involved in different things here and there, and then there would be certain people trying to get him uninvolved with certain things here and there. So I would say he would go on TV sometimes, but in terms of the actual operations of the campaign, I would say virtually nonexistent. MR. SCHIFF: So he had no role in the campaign? MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry, Congressman. Do you mean other than what he just described as the role? MR. SCHIFF: Well, I think he just described virtually nonexistent. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. So Michael, again, I think he went on TV sometimes being a surrogate. But in terms of all the areas -- let me answer it to what I have knowledge of, in terms of all the different areas of operations that I was involved in the campaign, Michael Cohen was not involved in any of those areas. And the areas that I was involved in the campaign were fairly expansive. MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any internationaltravel by Michael Cohen during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: There have been allegations that Mr. Cohen met with representatives of the Russian Government or Russian oligarchs in Prague and other allegations that the meeting may have taken place in Budapest. Are you aware of any foreign meetings that Mr. Cohen undertook with any representatives of the Russian Government or any Russian citizens of Russia? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 16 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I'm not aware of that. I also do recall one of the press reports concluding that it was a different Michael Cohen, perhaps, but you probably know more about this than I do, so -MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any international travel during the campaign by Mr. Cohen? MR. KUSHNER: No, l'm not. MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any arrangements for cash payments to be made to hackers who worked in Europe or in Russia under Kremlin direction during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: There are several individuals who have been listed or referred to by then-candidate Trump as being part of his national security advisory committee. I'd like to ask you what you know about them and their role in the campaign. What can you tell us about Walid Phares and his role in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Sure. Before I go into the names, maybe l'll back up and give you a little bit of context on how that came about? MR. SCHIFF: You know, I'm not sure that we have time for that, but perhaps in our subsequent meeting. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. MR. LOWELL: Congressman, I don't want you to think you have -- you don't have limited time. lf you want to keep going, keep going. MR. KUSHNER: so I'm happy to - Yeah. I'm here to answer your questions, so I'll if you need more time, happy to play with MR. SCHIFF: that. So Okay. I appreciate that. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - - again, UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: But l'll stay with what you'd was introduced to the President from Roger like. Ailes. I think 17 So with Dr. Phares, he he was a FOX News contributor, and he was one of the few people who was actually willing to put their name out publicly and say they were giving advice to our campaign. MR. SCHIFF: And what was his role during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: He would - I think he maybe met with the candidate maybe once, and I think he would send emails with suggestions that probably a small fraction actually got to the candidate with regards to the policy. MR, SCHIFF; And who did he send those suggestions to? MR. KUSHNER: Either myself or lvanka or whoever else would take his emails. MR, SCHIFF: And are you aware of any international travel by Mr. Phares during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. MR. SCHIFF: What role did I\4r. Phares have during the Republican Convention? MR. KUSHNER: None that I know of. MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any knowledge or involvement in the debate over the Ukraine plank in the Russian -- in the Republican Convention? MR. KUSHNER: No, I was not involved in the platform. MR. SCHIFF: What was Joseph Schmitz' role in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know who that is, so I don't think it could have been very major or maybe one at all. MR. SCHIFF: And how about George Papadopoulos? MR. KUSHNER: Who? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 18 TINCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SCHIFF: George PaPadoPoulos. MR. KUSHNER: I don't know who that is. MR. SCHIFF: So you've never met him or spoken with him? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any conversations that -- from third parties that Mr. Phares had any contact with Russian nationals during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I'm aware of. MR. SCHIFF: Same question about Joseph Schmitz. , MR. KUSHNER: Again, I don't know who that is so -MR. SCHIFF: And same question about George Papadopoulos? MR. KUSHNER: Same answer. MR. SCHIFF: Lieutenant General Joseph Kellogg, what was his role in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: General Kellogg was introduced to us from General Flynn. He got involved and really was very, very helpful in terms of organizing a lot of retired military support for the President. You know, we had a time in the campaign where a lot of these people in Washington, perhaps in attempt to audition for working in another administration, were coming out signing letters. And what he was able to do was organize a lot of generals who were supportive of Trump and help us build that coalition. So he also helped us with some debate prep too. MR. SCHIFF: And are you aware of any meetings or discussions that General Kellogg had with Russian Government officials or Russian nationals during the course of the campaign? UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES L9 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: No, I'm not. MR. SCHIFF: What was J.D. Gordon's role in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I think he was one of the guys on that list; but I've never met him. And, again, the guys on that list, l'm not even sure if they even got a chance to meet the President, so I don't know. MR, SCHIFF: And you wouldn't be aware of what role he played at the convention either? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: . And I take it you're not aware of any international travel by J.D. Gordon during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Or any contact that Mr. Gordon may or may not have had with Russian officials or Russian nationals? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: What was Carter Page's role during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: He also was one of those guys who was on that list. But, again, we put together that list because we were getting a lot of pressure from the media to put out a list of foreign policy advisers. A lot of the people who the President was talking to were not willing to have their names publicly associated with that campaign - with our campaign, and so this was a list that Sam Clovis put together. And I don't know to what degree that those people even got the chance to meet the President, but I do know that the amount of interaction they had with the actual campaign or influence they had on anything that happened in the campaign was virtually nonexistent. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 20 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE MR. SCHIFF: So the individuals on that initial national security advisory committee were brought in by Mr. Clovis? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SCHIFF: And are you aware of any campaign travel or individual travel taken by Carter Page during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I know from press -- from my personal knowledge or from press reports? MR. SCHIFF: Well, let's start from personal knowledge. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, I had no knowledge of anything he did. MR. SCHIFF: There has beert a lot of public reporting about Mr. Page. Have you had discussions with other people during the course of the campaign or thereafter about the allegations invotving Carter Page? MR. KUSHNER: I mean, just to the extent where we would say, who was this guy? And, you know, it was somebody who nobody on the campaign really knew. MR. SCHIFF: So the only one who really knew him would have been the gentleman who brought him into the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Possibly, and I don't know to what degree that guy knew him either, so you'd have to ask him. MR. SCHIFF: lf he were to travel with the permission of the campaign or under the auspices of the campaign, who would have to approve that? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether J.D. Gordon approved his travel? MR. KUSHNER: I do not. MR. SCHIFF: Who have you discussed with the allegation that Mr. Page UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 21. met with individuals in Moscow that has been the subject of public discussion? MR. KUSHNER: I'll be honest; it's not been a topic of discussion internally because he was really not somebody who we were very involved with in any way. MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the allegations involving Mr. Page with Mr. Bannon? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the allegations involving Mr. Page with the President? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall, but, again, unlikely for both. MR. SCHIFF: Do you recall discussing the allegations involving Mr. Page with anyone? MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, this was not something that was of great -- the only way that it would have come up would be to almost laugh at the fact that people were trying to turn this into, you know, an extension of the campaign and something that was having any bearing on what we were doing. MR. SCHIFF: So you have no specific recollection of any conversation you have had regarding Mr. Page? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: When did you first meet General Flynn? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the specific time. I remember he came on our radar screen about the time we were vetting Vice Presidential candidates, and I believe he spoke at the convention. I don't think I met him there. Aftenryards, I heard he wanted to get involved in the campaign. We were thrilled to have somebody who was a former military person with some stature willing to be a surrogate for us. So lwas connected with him and we got him more UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 22 UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE involved in the campaign, and he did some great surrogacy work for us. MR. SCHIFF: And when he first became involved in the campaign, how often did you interact with him? MR. KUSHNER: lt really depended. I mean, if he had an issue or something he wanted to bring to my attention, he would call me or email me, but I wouldn't say that extensively. MR. SCHIFF: The now much publicized trip that he took to Moscow on behalf of RT, did you ever discuss that trip with him? MR, KUSHNER: NO. MR. SCHIFF: The reported conversation, the alleged conversation that General Flynn had with Ambassador Kislyak, conversationlconversations, have you had the opportunity to discuss his contacts with Ambassador Kislyak with General Flynn? MR. KUSHNER: The only thing I recall is I remember him saying that somebody -- and I don't remember the specifics but that somebody got killed in battle and maybe it was a friend of his or it was somebody else and he sent condolences. And so that's why they had a nice relationship because he - you know, that was one thing about General Flynn was that he was very personable. He did develop good relationships with people, and he would always go out of his way to try to do thoughtfulthings like that. MR. SCHIFF: And l'm not sure I'm following you. He had a good relationship with whom? With Ambassador Kislyak? MR. KUSHNER: I remember it wasn't - I wouldn't say extensive, but I remember at some point when Kislyak came up he said along the lines of, you UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 23 know, I reached out to him to wish condolences on somebody. I don't remember the whole context of the story. So -- and it was in a prior time. MR. SCHIFF: Well, tell me when that conversation took place, and when he's referring to a conversation he had with Kislyak that involved condolences, when would that conversation have taken place? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. Again, it's a very - it's like a bit of a memory. I don't know. I don't recall the context of it or even if it was actually even Kislyak, so maybe I probably shouldn't go into it. But I remember there was something along the lines of that, but I can't -- that's all l'm coming up with. MR. SCHIFF: The conversation, the alleged conversation between Michael Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak that led to General Flynn's removat from his position as National Security Advisor, what conversations did you have with General Flynn about that? MR. KUSHNER: None, really. MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever discuss with General Flynn his discussion with Ambassador Kislyak that was reported to have included the topic of sanctions or the removal of Russian personnelfrom diplomatic facilities in the United States? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: So that particutar alleged phone call you never discussed with General Flynn? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: Have you discussed reports about that callwith others in the administration? MR. KUSHNER: Can you say that again? MR. SCHIFF: Have you discussed reports of that call with other members UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 24 UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE of the administration? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I - nothing specific comes to mind that I recall. I mean, it's possible I did, but nothing memorable. MR. LOWELL: Congressman, just for creating a very accurate, specific record, this question refers to what would have happened after the administration took office? MR. SCHIFF: This - what I'm asking about is after the reported call or discussion or meeting between General Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak that resulted in his removal from office, did Mr. Kushner discuss this with other members of the administration? MR. LOWELL: So ljust need to make sure I'm understanding the parameters, as reading your May 9 letter and'talking to your staff. When you get into issues about what happened once the administration takes office as opposed to your described definition of what was the attempts to interfere with the election, l just want to be clear that I have told the White House Counsel's Office, for example, that things that might implicate them, they don't need to be here of because it's outside what I understand to be your parameters. So, when there's a conversation happening after lnauguration Day, if you identify that that's a question you're asking, that will help for the record, and that will help me decide whether I need to include anybody else that I haven't included in the conversation today. MR. SCHIFF: Well, that's the question l'm asking. And I will leave it to you how you want to advise your client. MR. LOWELL: Well, he's answered it, so -MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, I can answer that question. Again, at that point in UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 25 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE time, there were so many things happening. We were adjusting to a new administration. I don't recall anything specific with regards to that. MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever discuss with General Flynn any interactions that he had with representatives of the Russian Government? MR. KUSHNER: That's a very broad question, so let me try to think about - nothing is coming to my mind on that. MR. SCHIFF: Let me ask, if I could, how we're doing on time? When did we -We have 15 more minutes MR. SCHIFF: Fifteen more minutes, okay. MR. KUSHNER: And I don't know the rules of how you guys conduct this, but I'm available for more time. So don't feel crunched unless -- MR. CONAWAY: Each side has a certain amount of time, and we're altering back and forth. MR. KUSHNER: Just let me know what you need from me. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. Mr. Kushner, do you ever communicate with encrypted apps? MR. KUSHNER: I use WhatsApp. MR. SCHIFF: And did you use that throughout the campaign as well? MR. KUSHNER: The only thing I used it for during the campaign was we have a family WhatsApp group. That's why I downloaded WhatsApp. So my sisters upload pictures of their kids for my mom and my dad to see, and it's a good thing for the family to share messages and photos on and videos sometimes. MR. SCHIFF: And did you use that app purely for personal business, or did you also use it for campaign business? UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 26 UNCLASS]FIED; COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: No, purely personal. MR. SCHIFF: And what was your primary method of communication with respect to things pertaining to the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Emailand my personalcellphone. MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of your email, what provider do you use for your email? MR. KUSHNER: The main provider was my Kushner Companies and Observer emails. MR. SCHIFF: And that's a proprietary server? MR. LOWELL: Can you define what do you mean by "proprielary"? MR. SCHIFF: Well, in other words, you don't use a commercial provider for your email. You have your own through your business? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Yeah, my email - the business did it. I don't know -- I'm sure we were probably in the cloud somewhere who, you know, did the storage and whatnot. But, yeah, I mean, we have our own lT department and whatnot, and that's how I would do it. So -- MR. SCHIFF: And what cell phone carrier did you use? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SCHIFF: Okay. MR. KUSHNER: But I could get you that answer if you'd like. MR. SCHIFF: Okay. Thank you. Do you know who Porter Smith is? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: There have been newspaper reports that Porter Smith was doing opposition research for a quasi-independent committee or independent expenditure committee. Do you have any knowledge of the operations of the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 27 UNCLASSIFTED, COMMTTTEE SENSITTVE committee that he was affiliated with? MR. KUSHNER: l don't know who that is. What committee was he affiliated with? MR. SCHIFF: There are allegations that he sought to enlist the help of foreign hackers who may have possession of the Hillary Clinton emails and that he had a relationship with the Flynns or others on the campaign. But you're not familiar with Porter Smith or any of the facts underlying those allegations? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, lhave no knowledge of that. MR. SCHIFF: Have you had any meetings with any Russian Government representatives or Russian nationals or dual Russian-American citizens that are not discussed in your written testimony? MR. KUSHNER: So I just want to be very clear, if you're saying - you know, my wife has a girlfriend who is Russian and, you know -- and, you know, we go to a kid's birthday party or something like that and we see her. ls that included in that as a Russian contact? MR. SCHIFF: Well, let me narrow it to any Russian nationals, Russian Government representatives, or others who have engaged you in conversation on any matters pertaining to U.S.iRussia relations or the campaign. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, then it's all covered in my statement, as far as I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: Who else in the Trump campaign, to your knowledge, had contact with Russian officials or their proxies or individuals acting on behalf of Russian interest during the course of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Let me say that the campaign was obviously a very different campaign, and I think different than - I mean, all of you have -- obviously, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 28 you're here, so you're pretty good at running campaigns and have been effective at it. We had a very different type of campaign than most. What I would say is there was a core team that actually got the work done, built out the operations, built out the ground game, did the digital effort, did all this stuff. Most of these people were just focused on how do we win Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or allthese different States. There may have been -- I know that Chris Christie got a few incoming calls from foreign governments, and I know that Jeff Sessions did. But other than that, that's all I have knowledge of. MR. SCHIFF: I'm going to come back to this, but at this point, I want to defer to one of my colleagues for some of his questions. I appreciate your willingness to stay beyond our initial estimate of how long you'd be here. And as my colleague made clear, the process, just to make sure that you understand, we will have 45 minutes for our first round and then the majority. And then we will go to 1S-minute rounds, where we will go back and forth as long as your time permits. MR. KUSHNER: Great. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Himes. MR. HIMES: Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Kushner, foi being here. I've got a series of questions that pertain to financialtransactions, financial relationships. And what I'd like to do - which maybe take 10, 15 minutes, if the time allows; if not, we'll come back to it -- is ask you a couple of specific questions about some specific entities and thdn close out hopefully in a way that will largely dispose of the questions with more categorica Iq uestions. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 29 UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE So let me start, my questions really stem from a statement you made in your written testimony: I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. l'd like to sort of color that in a little bit. And l'd like to start with the meeting that you reported in December of 2016 with Sergey Gorkov of VEB. You said in your testimony that he told me a little about his bank. Can you describe exactly what he told you about VEB in that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: He basically told me that they were a massive bank; they did a great job. I mean, it's funny, people asked me after, they said, did you know his bank was under sanctions? I said, talking to him, you would have thought his bank was the best bank in the they were world. So he was clearly selling what a great job doing. And I think he mentioned that they financed the Olympics, and that was really the extent of it. MR. HIMES: Okay. Had you heard of or had any sort of contact with VEB or people associated with VEB prior to that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: l'd never heard of it before. MR. HIMES: Berkowitz * Okay. I think you reported that your assistant, Avi is that correct -- also met with Mr. Gorkov in December 2016 shortly before that meeting took place - that your meeting took place. Were you aware of that meeting with Mr. Berkowitz, Mr. Gorkov? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if he had a meeting with him or if he brought him up to the meeting. I don't believe he had a meeting with Mr. Gorkov by himself. He may have escorted him into the meeting, but I don't think he had meeting. UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES a 30 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE MR. HIMES: Okay. So that was actually on the same day and Mr. Berkowitz simply met him and brought him to the meeting with you? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. As far as I know, but I'm pretty confident of that, MR. HIMES: Okay. So there was no separate meeting with Mr. Berkowitz? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. HIMES: Okay. Did Mr. Berkowitz tellyou anything about VEB or Mr. Gorkov prior to your meeting with him? MR. KUSHNER: All he told me was that the Russian Ambassador know, we had a pretty uneventful meeting with him a couple weeks - you earlier. He followed up, requested another meeting with me. I didn't really have interest in meeting with him again, because the first one wasn't - it wasn't a bad meeting; it just wasn't a productive meeting. And during the time of the transition, we had a lot going on, so I was trying to be judicious with my time. So I declined that meeting. He then was very insistent. He asked if my assistant Aviwould meet him. Avi, he's a Harvard law grad, so he's not a -- he's a smart kid. But Avi went and met with him, and he asked me to meet with this guy, Gorkov, who said could give him much more insight into what Putin's thoughts were on a potential new relationship. And so he asked if I could do it, said he was in town for, you know, a couple days. And so I don't want to be rude to the Russian Ambassador and then tell, you kngw, RUSsia, "Go Screw yourself; I'm too important "squeeze the guy in." MR. HIMES: tO take a meeting." So I said, So we took the meeting. Okay. ln your statement, you do say: At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transaction, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 31 UNCLASSTFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements. Did Mr. Gorkov mention the possibility of a future business relationship or make any sort of offer or suggestion for future business relationships of any kind -MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. HIMES: * in that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. My interpretation of the meeting was that end, is I wasn't sure quite what it was for. - at the But I did take the two gifts that he gave me, and I registered them with the transition. So I think that that shows that my intent at the time was that it was a meeting I was conducting in my capacity as a transition official. MR. HIMES: Okay. Were you asked by anyone to convey any sort of message or make any sort of offer or communicate anything in specific to Mr. Gorkov in that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. HIMES: Okay. So let's move on from VEB. I'm going to just mention a couple of companies to see if you have knowledge of or any relationship with. There's a Russian energy company by the name of Rosneft, which I guess at some point was run by lgor Sechin. Have you had any contact with Rosneft? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. HIMES: Alfa Bank, Russian bank. Have you had any contact of any kind with Alfa Bank? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. HIMES: Okay. There's a Russian bank WB. Any contact or knowledge of WB? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 32 MR. HIMES: Okay. As I mentioned, I'm going to sort of ask some categorical questions that hopefully will dispose of a lot of specific questions. And the question I'm going to ask you now is whether you -- you do make a point about your business financing. But l'm going to broaden that to say you, members of your family, Kushner businesses, corporations, partnerships, other businesses organizations, has that category of people and organizations ever purchased any sort of asset, and by "asset" I mean equity, that tangible assets, any sort of derivative assets from any Russian bank, Russian business, or Russian individual? That was a lot to do. Was I clear in -MR. KUSHNER: That is about as broad of a question as you could possible answer. So, look, l'll try to answer that in the best I can without, you know, putting myself in a "gotcha" situation where you can come back and say, "Your brother-in-law, you know, bought a share of stock from a guy whose brother may have known a Russian at some point," you know. So we have a fairly extensive holdings. Again, I did not design my life to go into politics. And, you know, we had a very, very growing business, very complicated. And what I did was I then went back when all of this Russia stuff came up, and I said: Look, do we have any Russian investors thatwe could find? Do we have any Russian financing that we could find? The answer is, is I couldn't find any. And, again, we have extensive banking relationships. A lot of our stuff we fund ourselves, but we also have a lot of partners and different things. A lot of them are all blue chip banks, blue chip partners. And I'm very proud of the companies we've built. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASS]F]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 33 And, you know, again, you know, could you find, you know, some guy who may -- like, one example is, in this business that I have, Cadre, which I wrote the business plan for, but there's another CEO who runs the business. He raised, you know, some money for the company in the first round of the financing. The company now has raised over $100 million. There's a guy who's Russian named Yuri Milner, who made a small angel investment in the company. He wanted to go bigger. We didn't have room in the deal because it was over subscribed by a lot of other people. Yuri is Russian, but I think he also is one of the most prestigious internet investors probably in the world. He invested in Facebook and other places. So I don't want to say, "Okay, I have no Russian investments anywhere," and then have people come out and say, "We gotcha." MR. HIMES: I understand. MR. KUSHNER: So - but my basic point is that we run a very clean business. We have fairly extensive holdings, but there is nothing I could find anywhere that shows that we've relied on Russian capital to finance our businesses, not during the campaign and not even prior. MR. HIMES: Okay. MR. KUSHNER: Does that answer? MR. HIMES: I think so. Thank you. MR. KUSHNER: With allthe "gotcha" caveats. MR. HIMES: I appreciate the complexity. I want to get away from the word "relied," though. And so I asked about the purchase of assets, and you alluded to this in your answer, but to your knowledge, have you personally, members of your family, or corporations, partnerships, associations that are associated with the Kushner Companies, have they borrowed or assumed any sort of material liability UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 34 UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE from a Russian person, bank, or business? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know again, your thing is so broad - of. You know, the one thing - because, is there was an article written in The Washington Post about a building I bought, I think it was in 2A14, from a guy Lev Leviev. So Lev, I think he's lsraeli, but he may have come from Russia originally. I never met him during the transaction. We paid $293 million for the building at the to write a first time. Actually, Blackstone had offer. They bid 265, so we overbid them. And, you know, it ended up being a successful transaction. But that's the only thing I could think of that had a Russian in any of our business dealings, and everything was totally arm's length. MR. HIMES: And just for clarity sake, what is the Russian connection in that purchase? MR. KUSHNER: I think that guy may be Russian. MR. HIMES: The individualwho runs the lsrael-Africa? MR. KUSHNER: lsrael-Africa, Yeah. MR. HIMES: OkaY. OkaY. MR. KUSHNER: So, again, I just don't want you to come back with "gotchas." MR. HIMES: Yeah. Understood. And let me come back to that. My last kind of categorical question, we talked about purchase of assets and assumption of liabilities, debt, loans. Same question: Have you, aS an individual, members of your family, or businesses, entered into any sort of partnership or joint venture, any sort of formal legal association with a Russian person, business, or bank? MR. KUSHNER: Not that comes to mind. UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 35 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. HIMES: Let's go back to that Deutsche Bank transaction, which you raised. lt was the subject of a Washington Post story. Other than what you mentioned, the individualwho was the head of, I guess, it's Africa lsrael, have you heard or learned anything else about Russian financial support or involvement in the securing of that Deutsche Bank loan? MR. KUSHNER: No, lhave not. MR. HIMES: Okay. MR, KUSHNER: I will say that they did retrade me and not in a good way after the loan was closed. So -MR. HIMES: Deutsche Bank retraded you, is that what you mean? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Yeah, they took away, I think, maybe it was like 30, 40 bps * the market moved after the election and they didn't want to eat the loss, so we locked in a good rate. It wasn't securitized. retraded us before finalsyndication. They went back and So: MR. ROONEY: Jim, we're going to have to move to our side and then -MR. HIMES: That's fine. I probably'have four more minutes, so we'll come back. MR, ROONEY: No, 53 was the end of 45 minutes. So do you need to use the restroom or anything? Are you good? Okay. Trey, go ahead. MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, our committee is essentially looking at four things: What did Russia do during the 2016 election cycle? With whom, if anyone, did they do it? What was the U.S. Government's response during the pendency of those attacks? And then the issue of leaks and unmaskings. My questions are going to focus on the first two prongs of that four-part UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE I"'NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENS]TTVE 36 jurisdiction. Other than what you cited in your 11-page written statement, did you meet in 2016 with anyone you knew or suspected to be connected with the Russian Government? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. GOWDY: Now, when you say not that you can recall, what duty do you believe you have to investigate and what steps did you undertake to make sure that your memory is exhausted? MR. LOWELL: Well, Congressman, hold on a second. You mean other than talking to counsel, right? MR. GOWDY: Yes. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah, so people went through my phone logs, my emails, my calendar. So we've done a pretty extensive search. I mean, there may be something in my memory that I ran into somebody somewhere, but, again, nothing that I can think of that is outside of those. MR. GOWDY: When did you learn the DNC server had been hacked? MR. KUSHNER: When it was reported in the news. MR. GOWDY: When did you learn that John Podesta's email had been hacked or compromised? MR. KUSHNER: When it was reported in the news. MR. GOWDY: Were you involved in any fashion with discussing or coordinating the public dissemination of information taken from the DNC seruer hack? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Were you involved in any fashion with discussing or coordinating the public dissemination of information taken from the John Podesta UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I-INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 37 UNCIJASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE email hack? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Did you meet with anyone connected with the Russian Government, to any degree, whatsoever connected with the Russian Government in an attempt to gather negative information about 2016 candidates in either the primary or the generalelection? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: There was a meeting on June 6, maybe off. June the 9th. There is an email from - my date may be - that was to Donald Trump, Jr. I think you are part of the tail end of that email string. Do you recall when you first read that email? MR. KUSHNER: The part of it to me or the entirety of the chain? MR. GOWDY: Both. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. The part to me that said the meeting is moved to 4 o'clock, I probably read that day quickly on my iPhone. I mean, I hope so, because I think I showed up at that meeting, maybe a little late. And the part with the email chain, when it was shown to me by my lawyers. MR. GOWDY: So, when you showed up in June of 2016, you did not realize that there had been email traffic back and forth about an attempt to gather negative information about Secretary Clinton? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Walk us through what steps you took to remove yourself from that meeting. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. So, first of all, even backing up further, it wasn't uncommon. We were all kind of hacking together a Presidential campaign, and we UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 38 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE were all working out of the same building, mostly jumping in and out of each other's meetings. So, you know, I'd tell Don to stop into my stuff or Eric to stop into my stutf. I would stop into their stuff. So it wasn't uncommon. for us to jump in and out of meetings. That meeting in particular, I showed up in the meeting. I saw a bunch of people sitting there. I remember I sat down. Someone was talking about Russian adoption and how it was something that Americans really wanted and it was a whole travesty that it wasn't allowed. I remember sitting there saying, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything that l'm working on. So I thought of what's a very polite way to - maybe the least rude way to excuse myself from the meeting. I didn't recall this fresh, but then I saw the emails when my lawyers were searching through where I sent a note to my assistant saying: Can one of you guys please call my cell? I've got to get out of a meeting. And I guess one of them called. I took the call and politely had to excuse myself, and I went back to my other jobs. MR. GOWDY: lt looked like you may have actually made two requests to people to get you out of the meeting. Am I reading that incorrectly? MR. KUSHNER: Yes, ldid. MR. GOWDY: Okay. So two separate times you wanted someone to give you an excuse to leave this meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. Well, the first time was to my assistant. She didn't callvery quickly so I assume maybe she wasn't at her computer. So I emailed the assistant that sits next to her. MR. GOWDY: How long were you in this meeting before you realized you didn't want to be there? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 39 MR. KUSHNER: lt was probably a couple -- I mean, just, again, you know, during the campaign, you do a thousand things, right, and everyone is asking you to meet with everybody. They say politics and sports are the two things that everyone can tellthe people who are doing it how to do it better. And so, you know, we just had a lot of people trying to offer ideas, perspective, advice. So, you know, you take a lot of meetings, but, you know, you also try to figure out how to not waste as much time as possible. So I got there, quickly realized that it wasn't my relationship. The people next to me could kind of suffer through it, and I was going to go back to, you know, my different responsibilities. MR. GOWDY: What's your best estimate on how long you were in the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Probably around 10 minutes or so. MR. GOWDY: Okay. I want to make reference to some matters that have been Bates stamped. Do you have the production that your - MR. LOWELL: We do, Congressman. MR. GOWDY: Bates stamp No. 3. What are we looking at? MR. KUSHNER: I guess this is the invite list that was put together for the speech we did at the Mayflower Hotel. MR. LOWELL: Congressman, just for the record, No. 3 would be an attachment to Nos. 1 and 2; 1 and 2 is the email. This is the attachment. MR. GOWDY: Okay. And that would be a speech -- if memory serves me correctly, and if it doesn't, you correct me, that was your first meeting with Ambassador Kislyak that you recall? MR. KUSHNER: lt was the first time I met Ambassador Kislyak. I wouldn't UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 40 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE call it a meeting. MR. GOWDY: All right. 'First time you met extent of that interaction, as you recall MR. KUSHNER: a - him. And describe the full it. Sure. So this was an event that we were able to get like I said before, you know, we were not the most popular people in Washington at that time. We were able to get this group, The National lnterest, to host the candidate at the time for a foreign policy address, which was going to be the first time he pulled together all the different things he'd been saying on foreign policy and really wove it into a theme. It was a really great speech. And in doing that, this guy Dimitri, who I'd met through a friend, he offered to host so he put together the event. I got to the event early just to make -- by "early" I mean before the President -- before the candidate, because I wanted to make sure everything was in good shape. It was his second time using a teleprompter, so I wanted to make sure the height was good, the room felt good. You know and, again, I was the one - it was my idea to do the event, and so I knew that, if things did not go well, I was the one who was going to get -- was going to be given crap for it. So I went there. Then there was a reception that Dimitri was having for his guests, and, you know, I stopped in there to thank him. And he introduced me to maybe 20,25 guests. I shook their hands. I said, I hope you'll enioy the speech and, you know, enjoy the candidate's, yorl know, fresh perspective on foreign policy. And one of those people that I met was the Russian Ambassador. MR. GOWDY: Were there other people in the room when you met the Russian Ambassador? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. UNCLASSIF'IED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 4t UNCI,ASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE MR. GOWDY: I was just noting from the invite list, if it were something you were trying to keep a secret, you did a lousy job with the invite list. Bloomberg News, Politico Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and U.S. Senate. So, if that was something you wanted to keep a secret, the attendee list belies that. Now, Bates No.9. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. And just so that I say it, I was not the one in charge of the invite list, but the goal of the event was not to keep it a secret. lt was to do a public speech and try to have the opportunity to meet with and project a speech to the foreign -- as much of the foreign policy establishment that would actually come and listen to us at that time. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 42 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE [11:05 a.m.] MR. GOWDY: No. 9 is an emailthat the Ambassador, who said they really want to be allies, but the current administration pays them no mind. That is April of 2016. What did you mean by "really want to be allies"? MR. KUSHNER: You know, so my thing I said to most of the guests at the event was I hope you'll enjoy, you know, the candidate's fresh approach to foreign policy. When I said that to the Russian Ambassador, he says: I like what Candidate Trump's saying. You know, there's no reason why Russia and America shouldn't be able to work on a lot of these problems together. We're not going to agree on everything, but, you know, if he wins, we're happy to have a dialogue. He then gave me his card, said they had the best Russian food at his Embassy, invited me for a lunch there. And I said thank you. And that was the extent of our conversation. And I never followed up with him on that generous offer. MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 24, August 26,2016. Was that you that sent an emailwith a single word response, "pass"? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: What were you passing on and why? MR. KUSHNER: I guess it was a luncheon I was invited to with the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations. Again, like I said, at that point in time, my focus was on how do we figure out how to run a ground game in the different States, and how do I raise money on the internet and how do we make sure we can made ads for television and how do I make sure I've got a schedule for the candidate where he's not going to kill me because I'm working him too hard and UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE 43 how do we make sure he can overnight in the right places. I mean, that was not the number one thing on my mind at the time. So - but I would get invited to a million things, and I would say either, you know, "Why?" or pass to my assistant. MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 29. This looks like it's after the election. November 9, 2016. MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: "Can you look into this? Don't want to get duped, but don't want to blow off Putin." What did you mean by that? MR. KUSHNER: That emailwas sent by Hope Hicks. Hope was an amazing person on the campaign who was with the President almost the whole time. I guess she got this emailwith an attached letter the day after the campaign And keep in mind, I mean, we won that very early in the morning, and, you know, we kind of built our campaign to go goal line plus an inch. You know, it was not something that was, you know, built out for longer than that. So we had a lot of incoming from all over the world, from all over the country, from anyone we'd ever known sending us congratulatory emails. She got this one from a guy Sergey Kuznetsov, I guess with an attached letter from Putin, and she just wanted to make sure that it was legit and not somebody screwing with us. So MR. GOWDY: Bates No. 32. Again, this looks like it may be the day after the election. lt's an emailfrom you -MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: : to Dimitri Simes. ls that how he pronounces his name? TINCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 44 MR. KUSHNER: Simes. MR. GOWDY: Simes? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: 'What is name of Russian Ambassador?" MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: Are you really struggling to recall the name of the Russian Ambassador? MR. KUSHNER: You know, I shook his hand at that event, but, again, l, over the course of the event, met so many people and had so many names. And I figured he would probably be the best person for us to contact to find out if the letter was authentic or not. And so I emailed Dimitri to figure out the guy's name so I could have somebody track him down. MR. GOWDY: And this is the morning after the election? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. Before this guy became famous, so -- MR. GOWDY: Before you became famous. MR. KUSHNER: That's true. MR. GOWDY: I want to ask you about one line in your statement, and it is going to be on page 11, last page. And it's bold on the copy that I have towards the end. lt may be bold on the copy that you have alSo. "l did not collude nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded with any foreign govern ment," I want to ask you if that statement is also true if I were to take out the word "campaign"? MR. KUSHNER: I'm sorry? MR. GOWDY: lf I were to take out the word "campaign," "l did not collude UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 45 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITTVE nor know of anyone else who colluded," is that statement also true? MR. KUSHNER: lt's still true, yeah. I don't know of anyone anywhere who colluded with the Russian Government on the campaign. Again, one of the things with me is, you know, I oversaw the data operation. And I saw over the last 10 days specifically, you know, every place we were sending door knocks, every place we were doing phone calls, every place we were doing our ads, every place we were sending the candidate, we knew where we were trending on a daily basis. We know why we won the election, and it was because we ran a great campaign, the candidate had the right message, and he worked like a horse. lt was unbelievable. So, yeah, I mean, nobody that I know of had anything to do with colluding with Russia in any way, shape, or form. MR. GOWDY: Which is why I ask. And that's one of the reasons people hate lawyers as much as they do is they have a tendency to hyper-focus on every word in a sentence, and l'm afraid perhaps some of our friends may focus on the phrase "in the campaign." And I want to make absolutely clear, whether someone was officially or unofficially connected with the campaign, no matter, you're not aware of anyone who colluded with the Russian Government with respect to the 2016 election? MR. KUSHNER: I am not. And thank you for clarifying that. And I will say too, I mean, we were talking before about a lot of marginal characters who the campaign did have a lot of hangers-oners in different ways. But, again, being as somebody who really was at the center of a lot of the substance of the operations and the execution and, you know, allthe problems came to me and all the opportunities came to me, at no point in time did anyone with the campaign or not UNCLASSTFTED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE IINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 46 UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE with the campaign bring me anything that had to do with coordinating with any foreign government on anything that would have helped us win. So I want to say it as definitively as possible. MR. GOWDY: Two more quick questions. My friend from California asked you about a cash payment to hackers. Again, under the heading that you got to pay attention to every word, are you aware of any payments, cash or othenruise, to any hackers? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: The June meeting with your brother-in-law and what's now been described as a Russian lawyer, did you tellthen-candidate Trump about the meeting, either before or after? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: With that, I would yield to the gentleman from Florida. MR. ROONEY: Thank you, sir. My questions have to do with where we are now. So, if you're not comfortable or if your counsel is not comfortable talking about since you've been in government, I totally understand. I mean, ! understand what you were saying before. But this committee's role is to write a report on what happened in the last election and to try to improve what our intelligence-gathering and our lntelligence Community can do to thwart such things in the future. So, speaking as best you can, and I understand if this is not your lane at all, but seeing that you have a prominent role in the White House, can you advise this committee or tell this committee of any Russian cyber activity -- and I'm reading directly now from what the parameters of what we're trying to do here are UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - what 47 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE Russian cyber activities you have come to learn, and what measures the White House has taken to protect our country and our allies moving forward? And if this is not part of your purview or if you don't know any of that, understand that. I I just wanted to go over what our exact parameters are and what we're trying to do with our report. This is not a criminal investigation - MR. KUSHNER: Of course. MR. ROONEY: - despite what some in the press might be alluding to. We are trying to make the lntelligence Community better. So now that you're part of the government, what have you come to learn with regard to Russia, and what is the government, as far as you know, doing about it? MR. LOWELL: Hold on, Congressman, just so that we are also very clear about this. Mr. Kushner, as a member of the government, may have learned things, in terms of briefings or conversations. I understand this to be an unclassified event. MR. ROONEY: Correct. MR. LOWELL: And so I don't think you want -- MR. ROONEY: Right, ldon't. MR. LOWELL: What's germane - let me say it this way. There are certainly questions you can ask Mr. Kushner, and ask away, about what he's learned now about events that occurred, as you have -MR. ROONEY: Right. MR. LOWELL: - in the campaign. lf you're asking what he has learned in real time about things that are part of his job or in the intelligence world -- MR. ROONEY: No. MR. LOWELL: - I don't know that you want to do that here. LINCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: I understand what he's 48 saying. I think it's a fair question. So the first order of priority really was to have a smooth transition of power and to make sure that, you know, as we came on board that no footballs were dropped, fumbled along the way, which I think we did a very good job of to date. The next thing that we've tried to do is really start identifying objectives and then working backwards to create strategies to then achieve those objectives. We largely inherited what I would call a strategy-free environment. And so what the team has done, really led by H.R. McMaster, who I think has done a fabulous job, is he's come up with the 16 or so principalobjectives that the President has and he's run a very extensive interagency processes to try and figure out what steps we need to be taking to try and achieve those objectives. I believe that cyber plays a role in many of those, in many of those scenarios, and will be addressed accordingly by allthe wondedul professionals in our government. Does that answer the question? MR. ROONEY: Yes. MR. KUSHNER: Without revealing any classified information. MR. LOWELL: You did good. MR. ROONEY: The other questions that I have also relate to what could possibly be classified as well, so I'll save that for another day. MR. GOWDY: Can you describe the alleged back channels after the election before the inauguration with the Russian Government? MR. KUSHNER: Sure. So, first of all, I'd want to say that hopefully the fact that, as one of the senior-most transition officials and also the person who is responsible for primary contacts with foreign governments during the campaign, the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 49 UNCLASSIFfED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE fact that we are going through the norrnal channels during the transition hopefully serves to show that there were no existing channels through the campaign. At the meeting that I had with the Russian Ambassador, which he requested, I guess it was on November 16th, it took me a couple weeks to get to it because we had a lot of other pressing matters at the time. One of the topics he raised was - you know, they thought that America's strategy in Syria was that we would like to a little bit misguided. Clearly, America and Russia had been not necessarily sync on what the right strategy was in in Syria. That's just what I gathered from reading the news reports over the prior period. He .- so I was sitting there with General Flynn and the Ambassador. He suggested that -- that - that there - that they would like to give us, you know, their military's perspective on it, asked if there was a secure way to do have access to a secure line in the transition office in New so. And we didn't York. And so he -- so I said, what if we -- and again, I'm a business guy, so everything I want to get done yesterday, especially a situation like Syria where you -- it's one of I think the worst humanitarian disasters that, you know, l've seen in my lifetime, what's happening there. And so I said - I said, look, can we use your communication? Again, I did not have a security clearance communications go. I then. I did not have a brief on how secure figured if there was a way that he was comfortable getting us the information, that would be acceptable. He said, no, we shouldn't do that. Then we moved on and decided that if there was not a way that they were comfortable relaying to us that information, then we'd wait until after we were -- after inauguration and do it through the normal course. So there was no talk of how do we set up a secret back phone between UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 50 UNC],ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE countries or how do we have nefarious hidden conversations. The guy wanted to give us information that I thought was pertinent towards developing a strategy on one of -- one of the most dire situations that we were going to inherit. And the quicker we could get a leap on gathering the different perspectives from the different players who were credible and willing to give it, the better off I thought we would be. So - MR. GOWDY: Tell us about the inadvertent filing of the initial SF-86. MR. KUSHNER: Yes. So, first of all, the SF-86, from what I understand, when I went through that process, I hired WilmerHale, one of the best law firms in D.C., to assist me on doing all my papenrvork for all these different things that were now happening. I'd never done an SF-86 financial disclosure form. And so I figured form. I'd never done, you know, a I'd hire the best lawyers to help advise us through on how to do it. At that time, there was a lot happening. We were, you know, taking on the transition of the government. I was transitioning my family down to D.C. I was changing my kids' schools. I was filling out all my forms. So I had people in our family office working on doing different parts of the financial disclosures. They completed the part of my SF-86 form that has my financial questions on gave it to the assistant, said: This The assistant submitted said: that. They is good to submit. it. And then immediately my lawyer saw that and No, it's not ready. They contacted the transition that day and then the FBI the next day and said: Look, it's a submission, but we're going to be giving updates to the submission. And then we subsequently provided allthe different updates in the normal UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 51 T'NCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE corlrse, had a good dialogue with the investigators along the way, answered all their questions and provided all information they asked for. One thing that has been misreported in the press was to say that I left off these two meetings on my SF-86 form. That's maybe technically correct, but what happened was is when we submitted, we said, there are many foreign contacts that we'll be providing. I then went through -- think you're supposed to give 7 years. I was told to give 10 years. We went through my lravel records, went through my emails. We went through my calendar books, everything we can do, found as many as we could. We put together a list with over 100 foreign contacts that fit that definition, very broadly defined. And we submitted, you know, those contacts along with over 100 others at that time to the FBI before my interview. I got interviewed on all of it. Went back. They had more questions that they wanted me to find more answers on. I did that. We did one more submission, did my interview. And then that's all been submitted. So -MR. GOWDY: Last two questions. Back to your statement, page 11. The word "collude." What do you mean by the word "collude"? MR. KUSHNER: That's really just what the allegation is. So l'm saying we did not do what's been, you know, alleged. l'll be honest. Sometimes when I read these press reports and hear the accusations, I'm curious what they mean by "collude" as well. So - but what I can say affirmatively is we did not I know of knew anything about any * nobody that hacking. And nobody I knew of knew anything about, you know, how that information was getting to Wikileaks to be disseminated. MR. GOWDY: Let me try two other words that are more commonly used other than collude. "Coordinate." Would it be accurate if you had said, "l did not UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 52 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE coordinate nor know of anyone else who coordinated with any foreign government"? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: Let me try one other word that starts with C. "l did not conspire nor know of anyone else who conspired with any foreign government." MR. KUSHNER: The answer is we did not do that either. MR. GOWDY: So no matter what C word is inserted there, the answer is no? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: "l had no improper contacts." What did you mean by "improper"? MR. KUSHNER: I guess people were alleging maybe you took a meeting; you shouldn't have taken a meeting. I mean, I think, again, we had a very unusual campaign, a very unusual set of circumstances, and we navigated through the best we can I think we acted -- I think we acted -- I think we acted judiciously in the way we approached everything. Look, we figured out how to win. So we figured out how to, you know, put together a ground operation, a digital operation. We figured out how to, you know, do a transition where we did a smooth transfer of power. So, you know, look, people can, in hindsight, go back and try to nitpick should you have, you know, done this one thing or that thing, but you have to realize that it's part of a much broader canvas that has, you know, thousands of hours spent doing -- doing tons of tasks with -- you know, again, we talk about, you know, you know, "colluding." We had a hard enough time "colluding" with our field offices to try to get -- you know, try to get our people doing what they should have been doing, UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASS]FTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 53 so -- and that's really where our focus was at alltimes. MR. ROONEY: One of my colleagues would like me to ask another question. We have until 1 1:38 before our 45 minutes is up. Then if you'd like, we could take a break. Then we'll go back to the minority. But ! can say, as somebody as a young Army officer who had to do my own SF-86, you're lucky you had help. Try remembering your fraternity's address and having that kicked back four or five times because it's not right. Anyway, on page 5 - VOICE: Especially given what you were doing at the fraternity. MR. ROONEY: Exactly. lt's a blur. Could you please explain, on page 5, when you reference Guccifer400, what were you talking about there? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. So I included this even though it probably was a nonevent. ljust didn't want to have something, you know, "gotcha" come out later at some point. . So we found this email. lt's one I recall receiving when I was on the campaign plane on one of those high-tension, you know, $azy days, not that that was a specific day; that was all of them. And the email basically was saying that this guy had then-candidate Trump's tax returns and was going to release them unless we gave him 52 bitcoins, which I guess was about 35,000 euros at the time. It came out of at that time. nowhere. Again, I was getting crazy emails from all kinds of people I guess my emailwasn't that hard to find. And so I read it through. And, obviously, I knew the name Guccifer from news reports. I didn't know if this was the actual Guccifer or was just somebody doing some phishing on us. I took it to one of the Secret Service agents in the UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 54 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE back. I showed him. I said: What do you make of this? You know, it seemed like WaS real, I wasn't going to pay it. ls this real or not? - and I said -- look, you know, even if - even if it a ransom to some hacker anyway. So ljust deleted And sometimes when you delete emails, you know, it just - I flgured it was better than responding yes or no or,getting into a dialogue. So I deleted it. Never thought of it again until my lawyers found it when they were extensively going through all of my information to provide to the committees. So - MR, ROONEY: Are you good? Do you need a break or - MR. KUSHNER: I will keep going for as long as you would like. MR. ROONEY: Jim, you're back up for 15 minutes. MR. HIMES: Okay. Thank you, thanks, Tom, Just a couple remaining questions, Mr. Kushner. I asked you about your personal, your family, and various Kushner businesses, assets, liabilities, any joint ventures. Let me ask a similar series of questions with respect to your knowledge of Trump, President Trump, Trump family members, and Trump businesses. And let me start by asking you, do you have any sort of legal relationship with any business entity within The Trump Organization? By "legal relationship," I mean, any sort of managemenUfiduciary/board/investor relationship with any business within The Trump Organization. MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know license with their name in Jersey City. of. We have one property where we did a lt was a coincidence. I bought the debt on a piece of dirt that they were originally going to do, and so we built the tower, and they kept their name on it. But that's one of a ton of entities they have, and it was just a weird coincidence. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE L]NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 55 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITTVE MR. HIMES: Okay. So I'm cognizant of the fact that the questions asking you are about very I'm - you know not to -- anything, you know, fiduciary or formal business relationship, but are you aware of Mr. Trump, his family, or any of his businesses having purchased any sort of asset from a Russian bank, an individual, or a Russian business? MR. KUSHNER; Not that I know of. MR. HIMES: Okay. And that's to include equity, tangible assets. MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. HIMES: Okay. Are you aware of President Trump, family members, or his businesses having assumed any sort of liability, including loans, bonds, promissory notes made by any Russian bank, individual, or business? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. HIMES: Okay. The same question that I asked you. Are you aware of Mr. Trump, his family members or any of his businesses having entered into any sort of joint venture, partnership, or any other formal legal association with a Russian person, business, or bank? MR. KUSHNER: Now, that's a very broad one. So I know they did their Miss Universe thing in Russia. Again, l'm not an expert on what their holdings are, so -- but, again, nothing -- I guess I assume at this point, with the amount of scrutiny he's been under for the last couple of years, that, if there was something like that, it probably would have been written about in one of the newspapers, so -- but that's all I would know of, and there's nothing I know of that I'm not disclosing so MR. HIMES: - Okay. Let me just clean up a couple other specific questions. Back to that December 2016 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, we've covered it a little bit, but did the issue of sanctions generally or specific sanctions with respect to VEB UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 56 come up in that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. HIMES: You never raised anything related to sanctions specifically or generally? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR, HIMES: Okay. Were you aware in that meeting that VEB was a sanctioned entity? MR. KUSHNER: lwas not. MR. HIMES: So you learned that subsequently? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. HIMES: Okay. One last cleanup here. You brought up the Deutsche Bank loan, which was the subject of a Washington Post story. And that, as I understand it, was a refinancing of a property that you had purchased, I guess the old Times building? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. HIMES: What was the origin of the relationship with Deutsche Bank? MR. KUSHNER: I'd done business with them for years prior, so one of our larger banking relationships in New York. I know the people there very well. Actually, the guy who I think ran their thing I think I knew back from the time he was with Citi a long time earlier. So it was a CMBS debt, not a balance sheet. So, basically, the bank is just the issuer of it. So it was a very competitive process. We had a lot of banks wanting to do that piece of business, and I think we chose to give it to Deutsche probably because it was their turn as somebody for us to take care of. MR. HIMES: So they were the syndicator of the CMBS; they didn't actually UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 57 UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE hold the paper? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know what they did with it once they gave us the money, but I assume they syndicated it out. MR. HIMES: Do you know to whom they syndicated out the paper? MR. KUSHNER: No, ldo not. MR. HIMES: You don't know any of the investors in that particular CMBS? MR. KUSHNER: No, nor do I in any of our CMBS loans. I mean, it's not really -- that's why you use CMBS. They give you the money, and then they go and sell it off, and it's not your problem. MR. HIMES: You mentioned that they retraded the deal. I assume that they made an initial offer of where they could price the CMBS, and when the time came to actually execute the deal, they had a different price on the -MR. KUSHNER: They came back and said it was -- we made a good deal with them, I guess, on the rate or whatever it was. And then they came back and said it wasn't their job to lose money on the trade, because the markets had blown out. So they basically stretched us for, I don't remember how much, maybe around 30 basis points, which is a lot. So MR. HIMES: - Okay. Did you consider at the time under those circumstances shopping the dealto others? MR. KUSHNER: Honestly, you know, we are -- we take more of a long-term approach to these things. So, you know, we're "get it done, move on to the next." You know, it was just another significant than the loan. So it's not like there was one that was more next. lf you have a deal in hand, just take it and move on, and hopefully they make it up to you in the future. So that's kind of how it works. MR. HIMES: Okay. I think you answered this in my previous more UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 58 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE comprehensive questions, but are you aware of any banking relationship between Deutsche Bank and President Trump or his family? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. HIMES: Can you describe that relationship? MR. KUSHNER: I know he does business with them. Not currently. I know that his company has done business with Deutsche Bank. MR. HIMES: I think that's all I've got. I yield back to Mr. Schiff. Thank you. MR. KUSHNER: Of course. MR. SCHIFF: ljust want to follow up on Deutsche Bank, but let me begin by asking more generally, prior to becoming President, how often would the President, then candidate, or even prior to being a candidate, how often would he discuss his business with you? MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Period of time? I mean, from the time that he met his daughter? From ever? MR, SCHIFF: Yes. MR. KUSHNER: What lwould say is that, once he got into the campaign, the interest, you know, his business was not that -- I mean, he wasn't focused on the business anymore. He really didn't care that much. My wife was probably the one dealing with a lot more of the problems that were coming up, because of the unusual circumstance of having -- having her father run. You know, look, you know, one thing with him is he's a very interesting guy, and he, you know, covers a lot of topics. So, you know, he would often ask me a lot of questions about my business, the deals I was very active in the market over the years prior. doing. You know, I was very, So we'd probably discuss my UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE 59 business more than his business. But I knew what was going on broadly from my -- from my wife, because she had a very active role in that company. So, you know, that's what we talked about. SoMR. SCHIFF: So, during the course of your relationship with your wife before you got married, after you got married, you would have -- how would you characterize it -- frequent conversations with both your wife and Donald Trump about his businesses? MR. KUSHNER: More with my wife. l mean, again with him, you know, I didn't spend as much time with him untilthe campaign. I mean, we'd go there for Thanksgiving. We'd go there for -- you know, we had a place next to each other in New Jersey, so we'd see him on the weekends. But, you know, I wouldn't say it was that extensive. And he called me different times. So -- but I wouldn't say it was that extensive. MR. SCHIFF: One of the allegations concerning Deutsche Bank is that there was a period of time when the President's properties were at risk of default and he had difficulty finding a bank that would lend to him. Are you familiar with that period of time? You've discussed that period of time with Mr. Trump? MR. KUSHNER: ls that like the nineties? MR. SCHIFF: Well, you tell me. MR. KUSHNER: I mean, he's told me some fun stories from -- fun war stories from the nineties when he was in some financial trouble, yes. MR. SCHIFF; And during that period, was Deutsche Bank the bank of last report? Did Deutsche Bank provide him financial loans at a time when other banks would not do business with him? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 60 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: I don't know the details of his holdings in that time. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know how long he's been doing business with Deutsche Bank? MR. KUSHNER: ldo not. MR. SCHIFF: The debt that's held by Deutsche Bank was arranged by someone who is not usually in the real estate lending business. Do you know how that came about? MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry? Say that again. The debt that was - MR. SCHIFF: The debt that is held by Deutsche Bank in The Trump Organization properties, that financial transaction was arranged by someone at Deutsche Bank who does not generally handle real estate, who handles instead people with high net worth. Do you know how that relationship came about? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. I introduced him to her. MR. SCHIFF: And tell us who you introduced to whom. I'm not sure I follow. MR. KUSHNER: I introduced him to this woman Rosemary. MR. SCHIFF: You introduced Donald Trump to Rosemary? MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. MR. SCHIFF: And when did that take place, and who is Rosemary? MR. KUSHNER: She is one of the biggest private wealth bankers in the - probably in the world. Amazing banker, amazing woman. Very smart banker. And she - she banked my family for a long time. He was buying a property in Florida and at the time, you know, was thinking about different things to finance. I said: You should talk to her. And she loved the property, and they did business together. So -UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 61 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SCHIFF: And when did you make that introduction? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR, SCHIFF: Can you give us any kind of a ballpark? MR. KUSHNER: lt was for Doral, so whenever they bought Doral, you can look up the date. MR. SCHIFF: Are we talking about the 1990s, the 2000s? Can you give us any idea? MR. KUSHNER: You're talking about probably 5, 6 years ago. Actually, I can tell you, it was probably about 6 years ago, because I remember my wife went from right after she got out of the hospital, she got a call that they had a chance of buying that property. And she had to get permission from the doctor to go tour it. He said: Well, is it a smallone? She said: No, it's only 800 acres. And so they asked her to use a golf cart because she had a baby like 3 days earlier. So I think it was around then, about 6 years ago. MR. SCHIFF: At the time, was Mr. Trump having difficulty finding banks that were willing to either finance his transactions or help secure the debt that he already had? MR. KUSHNER: No. They had a lot of options. But she's phenomenal to dealwith and I thought that she'd be competitive, so -MR. SCHlFF: And in terms of the allegation that Deutsche Bank was willing to lend at a time when other banks were not, can you tell us anything about that allegation? MR. KUSHNER: I can tell you that she had to be competitive to get the deal and she, you know, wanted to get the relationship. I mean, at the time, he was the UNCLASSIFTED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 62 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE businessman Donald Trump, which was a very prestigious client for people in the banking business. He'd worked with Deutsche Bank prior, worked, had pretty extensive banking relationships all over the place. So I don't -- I don't know if you're -- if the underlying premise of your question is correct. From my knowledge of their business and dealing with my wife, I know they had a lot of banks that were doing business with them at the time. MR. SCHIFF: And, you know, quite separate and apart from the woman that you introduced to Mr. Trump, are you aware of a period of time at which Mr. Trump was having difficulty getting financing from an American bank? MR. KUSHNER: I think that was in the nineties. But he worked -- I think he actually ended up getting it. I don't know if he was having difficulty or not having difficulty. I remember him telling me he had some challenging times I think in the nineties, but he worked through those times. MR. SCHIFF: And with respect to Deutsche Bank financing or any other U.S. bank or foreign bank, are you aware of any circumstances in which that debt was, in turn, guaranteed by Russian nationals? MR. KUSHNER: I can't think of anything like that. MR. SCHIFF: There have also been allegations that the Russians may have laundered money through The Trump Organization. Are you aware of any money laundering that The Trump Organization was involved in? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any oligarchs or others using Trump properties as a way of laundering their money? MR. KUSHNER: I am not aware of that. MR. SCHIFF: One of the individuals that was present in the meeting that UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 63 UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE you had with Don Junior, was someone named lvo -- Kaveladze. Do you know who I'm referring to? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: I'm probably not pronouncing the name correctly. Have you seen the press reports of an individual present at the meeting who was the subject at one point of a GAO investigation into Russian money laundering? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I couldn't tell you if he was there or not. MR. SCHIFF: Let me change gears for a moment, if I could. What was your role in the campaign's digital operation? MR. KUSHNER: So, in November, so when the campaign first started, was, you know, helping out with things I got called on to do. I You know, I was doing research for different, you know, policies that the candidate wanted to speak about. It was a very, very, very thin staff. And then November, we were traveling to an event and we were talking about Facebook. I thought he was under-utilizing his Facebook. So he said: Okay, take it over; have fun with it. So I took this guy Dan Scavino, we went and we built a whole content plan. Then we really did his Facebook marketing. I don't have a Facebook account, so I went to a friend who did a lot of online marketing and got a tutorial on how to use their microtargeting, because they have a tremendous amount of data and capability. So, once we did that, we started spending a little bit of money, like $500 a week, to boost stories into some of the early voting States on topics that we thought were getting reception from the different voter groups. So we started doing that. Then we took over the online store, which we found that, by spending money UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 64 on Facebook, we were able to boost the sales from about $8,000 a day to about $80,000 a day, which was quite good for the campaign. We were able to use that money to do more digital marketing of the candidate's message into the different States. So I would say, throughout the course of the campaign, it was really just, you know, I got his lnstagram going, you know, doing his Facebook. We did some videos where, you know, I'd get a cameraman in for 30 minutes, and he would just talk to the camera, and we'd make different spots. We'd cut them, and we'd put them out. And then, when it got to the general election, we were going to do fundraising. I was very intrigued by what you could do for online fundraising. So I called a few people; I got advice on how to do it. And then we were able to build a digital operation in San Antonio, where we were able to -- to raise, I think, pretty substantial amounts of money from the grassroots donors, who were really enthusiastic in his campaign. I thinkwe raised about $250 million in smalldonors over about a 4-month window. We had about 100 people working down there, different subcontractors, Facebook, Google, Twitter, all embedded teams down in the office. We went to K-Mart, bought air mattresses and told people, you know, you're staying here until the election. And the team really worked their tail off and did an amazing job. And then we used that same team that was doing the digital fundraising to do a lot of the different persuasion. But we had I think the guys told me almost 100,000 different ads running. And then we would AV test, and we'd tweak different things, and then we would scale the ones that were working, and we'd pull back the ones that weren't. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNC],ASS]FIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE 65 And then we had a very robust polling operation where we were doing different kinds of polling, you know, less for, you know, message testing and whatnot, and more to determine how different voter blocs in different States were feeling at a different time. And then I used that to allocate the resources we were spending. So -- because a lot of our money was coming, a majority from the candidate and then, after that, from small donors, we felt a real obligation to make sure every dollar was spent as carefully as possible. So one cool thing I'm very proud about the campaign is nobody got rich on us. We really cut allthe vendors very thin, and a lot of them were working because they really believed in the candidate. Then just to finish on that is that we used that data to determine kind of how we were doing in all the different States at different times, and then, off of that, we based where we were doing our digital advertising, where we were doing our TV advertising, where we were doing our door knocking, where we were doing our phone calls, where we needed to do events. And so everything was really, really well coordinated off our data, and we were able to see -- also to measure the impact of the different things we were doing to see if it was working or not working. MR. SCHIFF: And I want to ask you about that Data Analytica MR. ROONEY: Last question, then we've got to switch. MR. SCHIFF: Okay. Let me ask one last question then as a followup to my earlier set of questions, and l'll come back to the Data Analytica on our next opportunity. I had asked you about whether you were aware of any information that the Russians might be laundering money through The Trump Organization. Let me ask this more broadly in case there are individuals that you may not be aware UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 66 UNCI,ASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE whether they were Russian nationals or not. Are you aware of any money laundering through The Trump Organization? MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry. Because you're making it so broad -- and he's going to yell at me when I play the role of a lawyer -- you may want to define money laundering. MR. KUSHNER: Abbe, he asked a question do I know of anyone doing money laundering. I don't know of anyone doing money laundering through The Trump Organization. The answer is no. MR. SCHIFF: Thank You. MR. KUSHNER: ls that okay? MR. LOWELL: That's great. MR. KUSHNER: I mean it's -MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, I'll try to short-circuit the next line of questioning on social media. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle think that the Trump campaign coordinated, colluded, conspired with the Russians to target certain voters in certain swing States. We'lljust cut kind of to the gravamen and save some time during the next 1S-minute section. Are you aware of any coordination, collusion, conspiring with the Russians to target certain voters on behalf of the Trump campaign? MR. KUSHNER: No. We did all of our targeting ourselves. Look, what outside groups like superPACs did, we did not have the ability to coordinate with them. So whatever anyone did on the outside they did on the outside. But we knew what we needed to do to message to the right win. We were relying on ourselves to get our people. I think we were very efficient and effective that. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES in doing 67 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE And, again, if there were irregularities, I think I probably would have known about it. Again, I would get calls sometimes when we were having trouble getting our ads uploaded on Facebook. And they would call Facebook and I'd say: me. l'd call over to Hey, guys, what's going on? Or with Google, we had some problems at some point, and so l'd call Google say: and l'd Let's fix it. So, if there were problems, they would normally call me. And if something was going better than expected, where they were getting more bang for their buck, they probably would call me and brag about how smart they were too, so -- I didn't get too many of those, although they did call on good fundraising days and say how smart they were. But I could tell at that time that, you know, it made sense, right. Our yields were correct. We knew what we were spending to get the return and build our database. So - MR. GOWDY: lf I understand your statement correctly, you disclosed that June 2016 meeting with Mr. Donald Trump, Jr., before there were any media reports. MR. KUSHNER: Yes, MR. GOWDY: That's a lousy way to keep something a secret is to disclose it ahead of time. Who did you disclose it to? MR. KUSHNER: To the FBl. MR. GOWDY: So let me make sure I understand this right. Before allof the wild-eyed reporting about a secret meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., and a Russian lawyer, you had already disclosed it to the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: Okay. There was a New York Times article which UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF'THE I.INITED S]ATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 68 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE then-Director Comey described as largely false. The most interesting part of the CNN website these days is the retraction section. You took exception to a Reuters report that had you making telephone calls to the Russian Ambassador during the course of the election. Would you like to comment on that report by Reuters? MR. KUSHNER: Sure. So, first of all, you know, again, it's an honor to be able to do the job that I do, and I don't let this stuff distract, you know, from doing that by. job. We're making progress on a lot of really great fronts that I'm encouraged But we got a lot of calls and with different crazy allegations on all different things from anonymous sources. And, again, it takes a lot of time from people trying to swat these things down, But it's like, you know, you're always starting 10 points behind with these reporters. You're having to disprove these things that are crazy allegations to begin with. This was a circumstance where we got calls from a bunch of different reporters. I guess somebody was shopping a story saying that apparently I had phone calls with the Russian Ambassador, and I had no recollection of having phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. You pointed out the email before where I said, "What's the guy's name," right after the election. lf I had had phone calls with him, I would be happy to tell you about them, because, again, there was nothing wrong with having phone calls with the Russian Ambassador during the election, but I simply don't recall having those calls. So we asked Reuters to provide us with the numbers he called from or the dates so that I could go back through my records and try. They refused to do that and ran the story anyway, because I think they wanted to be part of the whole Russia media storm that kind of ensued. We still have asked them for that. I've on my own gone back and gone UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCIJASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE 69 through all of our phone records, looking at all, you know, 202 numbers or, you know, Russian area codes that we could find, and -- and went through phone records, and I have not been able to find anything that corroborates that I had those calls. So, again, it goes back to what you said before about all of the hype in the media. What I find is that the facts that I released yesterday and that l'm testifying to today often don't fit with the fantasies of what's kind of been created in the media. So, I mean, simply put, like I said, the candidate ran a great campaign. He had the right message. That's why he won. Whatever happened with some hacks of emails and what was released one way or the other, maybe it was determinative or not on the election results. We'll never know. But what I do know is that we responded to all the different things that happened to us during the campaign. We came in. We ran it the best we could. We did not collude, cooperate, whatever other C words you used, with any foreign governments. And, hopefully, that's why I'm eager to cooperate with this investigation and the investigation of the Senate, so I can help you have all of your questions answered and as many facts as you need to be able to come to what I believe is the true determination. MR. GOWDY: That's the really interesting part to me of congressionalor political investigations. Anonymous witnesses are never used in the courtroom. I'm sure your attorney will share some stories with you over lunch of where he may have wished that he didn't have to call a witness or could have used an anonymous source. But the'right to confront witnesses, the right to cross-examine, the right to examine, which is what you are subjecting yourself to this morning, is the single best way to elucidate the truth. But when you have a campaign that is rooted in selective leaking of classified I.INCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 70 information using anonymous sources where you cannot in any way, shape, or form examine their access to the information, whether they have an interest in the outcome, whether they have a bias, whether they, frankly, have any idea what the heltthey're talking about, it's really tough to do with anonymous sources, like maybe impossible to do. So I feel your frustration. Back to the ambassadors. I think you testified that you met with a number of ambassadors during the campaign. ls that true? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: Are there any of them whose names you actually would have recalled on the morning of November 9th? MR. KUSHNER: lwould have recalled Ambassador Ciu from China. I liked him. He was nice. We had a good - a good rapport, and our discussions have since led to I think some good productive conversations between our countries. And the meeting in Mar-a-Lago, which we did which I think the meetings we had during the campaign's transition were instrumentalto putting together. During the campaign - who else? I met with Yusif from the UAE. That was a great meeting. Also a really great guy. Probably Germany, Wittig, he was a nice I may have met with a few more. guy. I probably met with, you know, maybe seven or eight of them during the campaign. But keep in mind those were actual meetings in my office. With Russia, I did not do a meeting in my office during the campaign. They never reached out asking for one, and I never reached out to them asking for one. MR. GOWDY: Give me just one second. What is microtargeting? MR. KUSHNER: Microtargeting is that you can -- I'm trying to think of the best way to describe. So, if you buy television advertising, right, you get the whole UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 71 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE bunch, right? So you buy a show, you get all of their viewers. One thing that Facebook and Google and a lot of the technology companies have the ability to do, because they have a lot of data on their customers, are able to pick and choose your data by alt different kinds of information that you have about them, whether it's, you know, age, gender, you know, where they live, which county. So it's really, you know, using much more defined characteristics to be able to be much more efiicient in delivering your desired message to the desired recipient. It's still not perfect. I mean, like I said, one of my friends worked at Coca-Cola, and they said they knew that, out of every dollar they spent on advertising, 50 cents was wasted. They just didn't know which 50 percent. So, you know, I think that with microtargeting, the goal is it costs a little bit more money, but you're trying to be much more efficient and effective with the dollars you spend. liIR. GOWDY: Well, in addition to The New York Times article that Director Comey said was largely inaccurate, in addition to the stories that CNN has retracted, in addition to the stories in the Washington Post that have proven to be demonstrably false, to the extent that some of the questions on the other side are rooted, in fact, a lot of the questions on the other side are rooted in newspaper articles, in addition to the Reuters article, are there any other ones that have struck you as being particularly wrong? MR. KUSHNER: I'll be honest. I don't read a lot of that stuff. You know, one of the interesting things about the campaign is going through that storm, it gave me the ability to see where you get news from that's based on what I would call herd mentality and where you get news from that's much more rooted in what people are really feeling and seeing. And, you know, I'd have discussions almost every day with the candidate UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 72 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE saying, look: lf The New York Times mattered, you'd be at 1 percent. So you just have to look to different places to find the news, and, look, some people get it right, some people get jt wrong. But I tried allthe time to, you know, root any assumptions l'll make in fact. So, you know, you hear stories from the news, but a lot of the stuff that's been out there has been wrong, including most of the stuff that's been reported on me. And that's why, again, I'm very appreciative of the opportunity today to disclose -- answer all questions and give a full -- a full account of allthe things that have been drip drip dripped out in the press, largely in inaccurate people are saying, why didn't you put this out a long time ways. But - and ago? I said: Look, my job isn't to cooperate with the press; my job is to cooperate with the investigating bodies. And so that's why I chose to wait untilthe bodies were ready to speak today, and I've tried to be as cooperative as possible. MR. GOWDY: Well, in addition to the difficulty of examining or cross-examining anonymous sources, the dissemination of classified information also happens to be a crime. I know that you are not here in your capacity as a member of the current administration, but to the extent the dissemination of classified material -- I was struck by the number of questions that were posed to you this morning that are rooted in the felonious dissemination of classified material. So, to the extent that can get cleaned up before some surveillance programs are up for reauthorization this fall, that would be great. With that, l'll check with my boss from Texas. MR. CONAWAY: Adam. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. Just one last question on the financial issues. At some point, one of the President's sons reported that they had received a lot of UNCI,ASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 73 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE Russian money in the Trump businesses. Do you know what he was referring to? MR. KUSHNER: ldo not. MR. SCHIFF: Turning back to the digital operations, how did Brad Parscale and his firm fit into the digitaloperation? MR. KUSHNER: So when I was looking at doing microtargeting, I wanted to start figuring out how I could spend money. We did a call, a conference callwith this guy from Texas who -- who I then realized I wasn't going to have to hire more staff, because he could do some of it on subcontract. And he had the ability to do -- keep in mind I was, you know, doing other jobs at that time. I was not full time on the campaign. And so Dan, who was, needed somebody to actually do a lot of the execution of what he was doing. So I met Brad over the phone. We became very close. I was thrilled to find somebody very competent and knowledgeable who could help us execute it so didn't have to bring in more people. He - I he worked very, very hard for the campaign, and then his role kept expanding as we -- as we had more challenges. And, again, like a lot of my different responsibilities happened because there would be a problem somewhere, and then I would kind of get dropped in there to figure it out. And so a lot of the trusted, competent utility players like Brad took on a lot more responsibility with me as the campaign evolved. MR. SCHIFF: Who hired Cambridge Anatytica? MR. KUSHNER: So we looked at them during the primaries. I wasn't involved really in the data with then. ldon't know if we did much data then, to be honest you. When we were ramping up, they - the Mercers asked us to meet with this guy Nix who's the CEO. So I met the guy, introduced him to Brad. I'm not necessarily qualified to judge whether their offering is technically as good as what UNCLASSTFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSTTTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 74 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE they claim it to be. So we said, look, let's give it a shot. We were using them for fundraising. At that point, we really weren't doing digital targeting of voters through data, so all of our spend was really towards fundraising. So the one thing about fundraising is you have yield metrics. So we said: Look, we'll be able to determine very quickly whether their data is useful or not. And so -- so we started using them, and lthink we had a good experience. I'd say out of the different data sets we used, I don't think they were the best, but -- but I think the guys had a decent experience with them. MR. SCHIFF: And who was the best of the data analytic firms that you used? MR. KUSHNER: I think the RNC data actually was the best data that we had. MR. SCHIFF: And who was part of the meeting you had with Mr. Nix? MR. KUSHNER: I believe ljust met hirn - I don't recall if anyone else was there. MR. SCHIFF: And did you refer him to Mr. Parscale? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. Brad was the guy that did the digital stuff for me. So, you know, there's a lot of vendors coming in wanting to do different things, and we were trying to build - keep in mind, most campaigns, A, have a team that's experienced at doing campaigns; B, have a list of vendors that they use. We were trying to scate an operation really from almost scratch, and so we had a lot of different vendors competing to do the work. And so, you know, I sent him to Brad and I guess he came to a dealwith them. MR. SCHIFF: And what kind of work did Cambridge Analytica end up doing UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 75 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMfTTEE SENSITfVE for the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I believe they did data modeling. I think they also did some polling for us. But Brad would be - I think he's going to - I think he agreed to come talk to you guys. I think he'll be able to give you a more indepth detailed version of what they did. MR. SCHIFF: Did you have any further interactions with Cambridge Analytica after that initial meeting with Mr. Nix? MR. KUSHNER: Not really, other than I think they did a lot more -- they did a lot of press on what a great job they did, so - in their opinion. MR. SCHIFF: And did they generate the targeting information, or was the targeting information supplied to Cambridge Analytica? MR. KUSHNER: You'll have to ask Brad that. MR. SCHIFF: And do you know whether Cambridge Analytica received any targeting information or any other information from outside parties? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether Cambridge Analytica had any relationship with foreign nationals that was utilized during the campaign? MR, KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether they received any targeting information from any Russian sources? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SCHIFF: And do you know whether there was any kind of coordination by Cambridge Analytica in the either targeting of voters or the dissemination of information, working in cooperation with Russian nationals? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. One thing lwillsay, though, is it sounds UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 76 very sophisticated, but what you're really doing is you're trying to parse apart the electorate. lt's the Same as if you're a consumer-based marketing company. What you do is you look at all the different factors, people's ages, people's genders, and then what you do is we were running a lot of dynamic polling. And so, by doing that polling, you could then determine how these different segments of the population were feeling about your candidate and your message at different points in time and then you can do different messaging to them to help them understand your positions better. So, you know, we would find that for different segments, you know, you'd be able to: like some people who were very into childcare tax credits per se; if we did an ad that was - a digital ad that really just had facts and figures on it and it was a short 1S-second video, that would be more effective in changing their perception when they actually knew the details of what we were saying as opposed to, you know, a rah-rah campaign speech or a high-levelfeel-good message. So what you do is you just kind of take the electorate and you kind of keep carving it up into different pieces, And I don't know if they actually -- they gave us some different data sets maybe that they had. I don't know if Brad can say that, but I think that overallwe had a full program that t think was fairly comprehensive and I think very effective. TINCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TTVE 77 [12:03 p.m.] MR. SCHIFF: But you're not aware of any foreign nationals providing any targeting information or negative stories to Cambridge Analytica for their use during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: lhave no knowledge of that. MR. SCHIFF: And you're not aware of any foreign financing of Cambridge Analytica that was used to employ staff during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: lhave no knowledge of that. MR. SCHIFF: During the campaign, did you have any contact -- I know you described the email you received from a Guccifer -- I can't remember what number of Guccifer that was allegedly, but did you have any contact during the campaign or thereafter with Guccifer 2.0? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR, SCHIFF: Did you have any contact directly or indirectly with WikiLeaks? MR, KUSHNER: No. MR, SCHIFF: During the campaign, did you own the New York Observer? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether any of the personnel at the New York Observer had any contact with Guccifer 2? MR. KUSHNER: ldo not. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether they published any material obtained from Guccifer 2? MR. KUSHNER: ldo not. MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to the December 1 meeting that you had with UNCIJASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 78 UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE Ambassador Kislyak and Michael Flynn that you described in your written testimony. How many people were in attendance at that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: lt was myself, General Flynn, and Ambassador Kislyak, so three of us. MR. SCHIFF: And did you discuss the meeting with General Flynn or anyone else from the Trump transition or campaign before the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: By "discuss," I mean, Steve Bannon was going to join us for the meeting. He got held up with another transition responsibility, so he didn't join. But it was not a meeting we spent a lot of time talking about before and not a meeting we spent a lot of time talking about after. MR. SCHIFF: What was your understanding before you went to the meeting about the purpose of the meeting and who had organized il? MR. KUSHNER: So the Ambassador had reached out to my office to see if 16. could meet with him. I think the date that I have a record from is November agreed to meet him. lt took us a couple weeks to get it scheduled because my I I schedule was quite qazy with transition responsibilities. And, you know, we showed up at the meeting. But, dgain, at that point in time, I was doing meetings every 30 minutes so -- and starting very early, ending very late and, you know, running around with our hair on fire. So it was a hectic time. I don't recall exactly how it came together, but it was a * what I would say, the meeting was not any more or less memorable than any of the other introductory meetings that we had with a lot of foreign governments, where basically we would listen, you know. Like we discussed before, we would listen to their perspectives on their relationships with America, understand what they thought could be different, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 79 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE should be different. We said we were hopeful. We basically had two foreign policy objectives: One was to create as much peace in the world, to stop as many conflicts; two was to create as much global GDP. Obviously, America First meant as much of that global GDP to be in our country as possible. But, you know, if there are ways that we could work together, we're open to doing it. We didn't want to - and that was really the discussions that we had. So this was what I would call a very rudimentary meeting. One other thing I will say about that meeting was I'd been approached a week or two earlier by somebody who wanted us to inquire about Austin Tice in Syria. That's a journalist who has been captive there for a while. So they were trying to get me to get the President to send a letter to Assad. But before I brought it to the President, I wanted to do some research on what was actually going on with that. So part of my thinking was, because I'd read in the press how the Russian Government and the Syrian Government were working closely together, I brought with me to the meeting some information on Tice that I was thinking, if the Ambassador seemed like he was like a real guy, that could say: I Look, can you try to figure this out for me, what's going on there, and get me a read on what's happening in Syria, if they know about this or not? My determination from the meeting was that this was not a very high-level guy with not a lot of access to real decisionmakers. You know, he was a guy they stuck in Washington to, I guess, invite people to lunch and to do meetings and say nice things. But I ultimately did not ask him to try and figure out any information from me on that. So we really just followed the ordinary course of these meetings in that regard. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 80 MR. SCHIFF: And this would have been the second time you were meeting Ambassador Kislyak? MR. KUSFINER: lt was the second time I met him. Keep in mind, the first time was a handshake with exchange of brief pleasantries. This is the first time we actually sat down and had a discussion. MR. SCHIFF: And prior to going into this December 1st meeting, did General Flynn tell you anything about Ambassador Kislyak? MR. KUSHNER: Just ! remember something along the lines of saying that, you know, that they'd known each other because he'd called him on something to wish condolences with something. So that's all I can recall with it. MR. SCHIFF: But General Flynn earlier - I know we talked about this a bit - never communicated to you whether he discussed more than condolences with Ambassador Kislyak? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: So he didn't give you any indication whether they discussed sanctions or anything else? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Did he -- did General Flynn indicate to you that Ambassador Kislyak might be working in concert with Russian intelligence? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Did you understand, as the chief diplomat here, that he would have relations with Russian intelligence? MR. KUSHNER: We just assumed that he was a representative of the Russian Government, which probably meant all parts of it. But, again, you know, what I learned from these different ambassadors is that they kind of come in all UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFTED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE 8L shapes and forms. You know, some are, you know, trusted confidants, you know, of the leaders and plugged in, and some are just figure heads who they stick here for whatever reason it is. So, I mean -- MR. SCHIFF: What discussion did you have, if any, with Steve Bannon about the meeting before the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Hey, do you want to come? I mean, again, we were focused on a lot of different things at that point in time. MR. SCHIFF: And apart from what little conversation you've described with General Flynn, did anyone else in the transition team or campaign discuss the meeting that you were about to have with Ambassador Kislyak? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. MR. SCHIFF: Did you tell President-elect Trump that you were going to have the meeting before the meeting took place? MR. KUSHNER: ldid not. MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss it with him after the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: ldid not. MR. SCHIFF: During the course of the meeting, there's press reporting that you sought to set up a secure line of communication with Ambassador Kislyak in Russia. Was this an idea that you raised? MR. KUSHNER: I think I answered this whole question when Congressman Gowdy asked, but if you'd like, I can do it again. MR. SCHIFF: Yes. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. So I'll give you the whole context of the meeting in that particular point. The position that he put forward of the Russian Government was that they disagreed with the way that the American Government was handling UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 82 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE the situation in Syria. We did not have a fully formed view on what we wanted to do in Syria. So, in order to collect different opinions so that we can try to come up with a strategy to present to the President at some point in time, they offered to have their generals give their perspective to General Flynn. That's when he said: Look, I would like you to hear their side of what they think. This was information that they wanted to provide to had a secure way to do that, to which General Flynn said us. no. They asked if we First he said: Can , maybe they come.to America? But then he'd said it'd be too hassle for them to come to America, and so he said that they couldn't do that. Then, after that, you know, I said, well -- again, like I said, l'm a business guy. I said: Look, if you want to give us information, if you have a way to get information, then let us just use the way you get the information. And he says: Well, we shouldn't do that in our Embassy. And we So we said: said: No problem. Let's just wait untilwe're there. I probably would not have recalled that part of the conversation because it was not very significant. But I want to be very clear that I did not ask to set up a secure "bat phone" with Russia so that we could have secret communications on all types of things. They had information they wanted to give us with regards to Syria from their general to General Flynn to start a discussion, and we were just brainstorming ways to get that information in a way that they would be comfortable relaying it. MR. SCHIFF: And why would you -- UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITfVE MR. CONAWAY: We're at 83 15. Trey. MR. GOWDY: Mr. Kushner, one of the things this committee has been charged with doing is issuing a report. So, sometimes for purposes of writing a report, it is easier for the members to have yes/no answers, and then l'm not going to limit you in any way; if there's an explanation you want to give, you feel free to do so. But to the extent you can answer these questions yes or no, that would be great. And then any one that you want to extrapolate on, you're welcome to. And some of them, we're going to be replowing ground that we've already plowed. But I'll do it quickly because I see your lawyer's eyes cutting at me, so l'm going to do it quickly. Did you ever conspire, collude, or coordinate with Russian officials to impact, influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? MR. KUSHNER: No, MR. GOWDY: To your knowledge, did anyone officially connected with the Donald Trump For President campaign collude, coordinate, or conspire with Russian officials to impact, influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: To your knowledge, did anyone not officially connected with '/ the Trump For President campaign but perhaps loosely affiliated or affiliated in their own minds conspire, collude, or coordinate with Russian officials to impact, influence, or interfere with the 2016 etection cycle? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of, no, MR. GOWDY: Do you have any business dealings that influenced any part of the campaign or transition? UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 84 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Did you ever, during the campaign or during the transition, establish any back channel communications with any person in the Russian Government? ttlR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Did you ever discuss policy or sanctions with Ambassador Kislyak before the inauguration? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Did you ever, during the campaign or transition, discuss policy or sanctions with any Russians not named Kislyak? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I recall. MR. GOWDY: Did you ever offer or exchange in any quid pro quo with any Russian during the campaign or transition? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: Back to your security clearance form, SerVeS me correctly, you inadvertently - well, that's my word SF-86. lf memory - you omitted all contact with foreign governments, not iust Russia? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. We omitted allforeign contacts. Then we told them we were going to submit that in the due course. MR. GOWDY: Right. So you did not submit all contacts other than Russia. You left that section -- I'll use the word - inadvertently blank. lt was filed before it was supposed to be filed? MR. KUSHNER: Yes, but then we immediately said that we would be providing all of our foreign contacts shortly. MR. GOWDY: All right. ln your statement, you made reference to being UNC],ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE asked -- let me find the page for your attorney -- on page 2: 85 My father-in-law asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries. "A" suggests there may have been others. Were you a point or the point? MR. KUSHNER: I was -- I don't know if he asked anyone else to dealwith anyone else as well, but I'm pretty sure that I was the point, but I do know that, at other times, other people were talking to different ambassadors in different countries. So -- but, again, all of the focus of the candidate and the campaign team was on how do we win the States. MR. GOWDY: And you described hundreds of -- or thousands of calls, letters, emails from people looking to talk or meet with you or presumably the candidate on any number of topics? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: The June 2016 meeting with Mr. Donald Trump, Jr., during the period - I think we've established that you didn't read the email before you went to the meeting other than to change the time? MR, KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: Then, pretty shortly after you got in that meeting, you wished that you were anywhere else in the world other than in that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: There could have been worse places, but, yeah, it was not a place that I felt was a productive use of my time. MR. GOWDY: You contacted two different people in an effort to get yourself removed from the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: During the time that you were in the meeting and not trying to get yourself removed or othenruise distracted, did you hear anything about t]NCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 86 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE negative information about Secretary Clinton? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: lt was only when you or your attorneys located the email did you discover or read for the first time the part of the email not connected to the time change? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. CONAWAY: Let me follow up with that. How long had the meeting been going on before you got there? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. I got there. They were all seated and having discussion. MR. CONAWAY: The meeting had begun. They had already started business, so to speak? MR. KUSHNER: They started the discussion, yeah. MR. CONAWAY: Any sense of just 10 minutes, 15 minutes? MR. KUSHNER: I don't could have started know. Again, they could have started early. They late. I just know that I got there and what I saw. MR. CONAWAY: Thank you. MR. KUSHNER: Sorry. MR. GOWDY: Do you have an estimate on how many representatives of foreign governments may have reached out to you during the pendency of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: During the campaign, it defines what you say reached out to. So, you know, like I shook four ambassador hands at that event. I don't consider that reach out to me. MR. GOWDY: I think some affirmative step to contact you, email, call. I]NCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 87 MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I would say there was probably 10 to 15 people who - 10 to 15 countries who reached out. I met with probably seven or eight of them or nine, in that range. MR. GOWDY: And in that email from November 9, the morning after the election, that was you that initiated and typed an emailasking the name of the Russian Ambassador? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: That's all I would have, Mr. Chairman. ls there any other members on our MR. CONAWAY: All estimate on what you guys side? That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. right. We've been a couple of rounds. Adam, any - MR. KUSHNER: I don't want him to be able to go out and say I have a lot more questions. lwant to be able to say they answered all my questions, so -MR. GOWDY: They're going to say that no matter what. MR. KUSHNER: I'm optimistic, so -MR. SCHIFF: And I thank you, Mr. Kushner, for that willingness. We do have a lot more questions. MR. CONAWAY: Do we need a S-minute break? MR. KUSHNER: No, l'm going to keep going until - as long as you'd like. MR. SCHIFF: And we're welcome to give you a break if you'd like to, so just let us know at any time. MR, KUSHNER: Thank you. MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. I want to get back into the discussion we left in terms of a secure line of communications. Why did you propose having a secure line of communications UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSTTTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 88 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE outside the then-current government? MR. KUSHNER: I think that the basis of that question is insinuating, you know, a lot of things. I wasn't proposing it one way or the other. I was - we were -- you know, what you do in meetings when you're trying to solve a problem is you brainstorm situations, so people throw out different ideas. He had information he wanted to give us. They couldn't find a way to get that information. I suggested an idea, which we allthen concluded was not a good idea. There's nothing wrong with giving an idea that is wrong, because, you know, if you do something that's wrong, then that's something that you have to look at. But putting out an idea and having a discussion is -- doesn't mean I was trying to subvert whatever conspiracy theory you're implying with that question. So the answer to that is that what I was trying to do is he wanted to give an overview of their perspective on Syria to the general so that he could start formulating his opinion on it, and we were just thinking of ways to do it. And we ultimately did not do it. MR. SCHIFF: But you did make a suggestion that there be a secure facility, a secure line of communications through a Russian diplomatic facility. That is accurate, isn't it? MR. KUSHNER: I mean, I think that that's a little bit of a stretch if that's how you're trying to classify it. l'm not sure you're classifying that correctly. MR. SCHIFF: Well, did you propose that you establish that line of communication at the Russian Embassy? MR. KUSHNER: No. What I said is, you know, if you want to get information that you're comfortable giving him, can he use your phone. And they said, no. And so we moved onto the next thing. So, again, it's a conversation. UNCLASS]FTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 89 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE MR. SCHIFF: So you were proposing that General Flynn be able to use a phone at the Russian Embassy for his communication with the Russian generals? MR. KUSHNER: I would say it was more, you know, you bring it up as a suggestion, and we ultimately decided that was not something that we wanted to do. MR. SCHIFF: ljust want to make sure, though, was that the suggestion you were proposing? MR. KUSHNER: The suggestion was, was that they had information they wanted to relay. We did not have a way that they were comfortable relaying that information. I asked if they had a way that they were comfortable relaying that information. We could not come up with a means by which we all agreed on what would be appropriate, so we ultimately did not get that information. MR. SCHIFF: Why did you propose, though, that it be done at a Russian facility? Why not propose that it be done at the U.S. Embassy or through U.S. Government channels? MR. KUSHNER: I assume that, if we had a way -- if we had something that was available to us that General Flynn knew of, he would have said: Well, I have this suggestion for something that's available to us that I know of to be able to get the information. Since he didn't have a way to get the information that he knew of, I wasn't going to ask the Russian Ambassador if he knew of anything in our government that was appropriate for him to transmit the information to. So, if people had suggestions, they would have put them fonvard. But he seemed like he had no problem getting information from his people, and so I threw it out there. But, again, you have to keep in mind in the course of a 2O-,2S-minute UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE 90 meeting, this was a 3-second suggestion. lt's like if you have a conversation with somebody and you're saying, "Well, how do we get this bill passed," and you say, "Well, what if I callthis guy," and you say, "You know, why don't I call, you know, Congressman, you know, Himes," and you say Congressman Himes and then say, "Well, that's not a good idea," then, okay, was it a terrible thing that you brought up to say, "Let me call Congressman Himes"? lt was just a quick suggestion. You dismissed it quickly and then moved on. MR. SCHIFF: This was a suggestion, though, to solve a problem and the problem was needing a secure communications. Who did it need to be secure from? That is, what was the problem the Russians were having in communicating that they needed a secure facilitY? MR. KUSHNER: Again, I think just the tone of your questioning is implying something I think a lot more nefarious than it what - they had information is. And I think that, if you'll look at they wanted to convey. I don't know. lf they were comfortable, you know, conveying it in another way, they would have said they would convey it another way. lt wasn't my information that I was trying to protect. MR. SCHIFF: Was the goalto secure the information from the U.S. Government, that is, provide a channel in which the U.S. Government would be unaware of the communication? MR. KUSHNER: lt could have been to keep it from the Chinese. lt could have been to keep it from anyone else who listens to the calls. Again, at that point in time, I did not have a security clearance. I had not been briefed on secure communicating practices. I simply was doing like I did in a lot of the other functions that I did during the campaign, which was that -- and by the way, what l've done in my businesses and IINCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 91 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE l've done throughout my life the conclusion, right. - which is that you have a situation. I always start with the desired You know, this is conclusion. And then you brainstorm different ways that you can work backwards to try and achieve that conclusion. So the conclusion that he wanted to achieve was to convey information from his generals on Syria to General Flynn. And so what we thought -- so we came up with different suggestions on how to do it and ultimately were not able to come up with one that was acceptable to all parties. But, again, it was his information that he was trying to relay. So I don't know who he was comfortable or not comfortable sharing it with. But if he was comfortable sharing it with the incoming U.S. Government, I have no reason to believe he wasn't comfortable sharing it with the existing U.S. Government. MR. SCHIFF: You suggested that perhaps the Russians were trying to keep this information from the Chinese. Did Ambassador Kislyak ever suggest that that was the case? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether General Flynn had any concern that his conversations with the Russian Ambassador might become known to the U.S. Government at the time, that is, the Obama administration? MR. KUSHNER: I'm MR. SCHIFF: sorry. Could you repeat the question? Yes. Did you ever have a conversation with General Flynn in which he expressed a concern that his conversations with Ambassador Kislyak or other Russian nationals might be discovered by the Obama administration? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SCHIFF: When you disclosed the meetlng in which this discussion took UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I-INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE 92 place on your SF-86, was that before or after it had been reported in the press? MR. KUSHNER: Which meeting? MR. SCHIFF: The meeting we're discussing, the December 1st meeting. MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall the time of the press report. MR. SCHIFF: Do you recall, though, whether at the time you disclosed it, it was before or after it was a matter of public knowledge? MR. KUSHNER: Like I said, I hired some great lawyers to do the whole process. They were the ones collecting the information and dealing with the FBl. I don't know at what point they put forward the different amendments and whatnot that they were working on. But I know that iteratively they were showing me lists of this, and they would update lists, and they would find more stuff, and they'd put it together. I don't know what their process was for submission. But I do know that, under the ordinary course of the SF-86 process, you don't usually have public reporting on timing and what's disclosed and what's not disclosed and when it's disclosed. I believe it's an ongoing process where you have an exchange back and forth between the investigating bodies. You provide them information. You keep updating information as more things become available. But I don't think it's a normal practice to have different parts of the SF-86 released to The New York Times. MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to Mr. Swalwell. MR. SWALWELL: Thank you. lt's your testimony, Mr. Kushner, that you did not read the emailchain setting up the June 9th meeting? MR. KUSHNER: At the time that it was sent, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Had you read the email chain, would you have gone to UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE 93 the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: lfs very hard to look back and answer a hypothetical, so I'd rather not answer a hypothetical, if that's okay. I MR. SWALWELL: Now, the day before, you had sent an emailto Catherine Vargas saying: Let's try to get time this morning to map out how I can get my schedule back this week. Too many nonessential meetings, and I need time to do some things proactive. Do you remember sending that? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: And you meant that the campaign was busy, right? MR. KUSHNER: I meant that my whole life was busy. MR. SWALWELL: And you wanted to best use your time? MR. KUSHNER: You know, I'll tell you, just over the course of, you know, my business career, I always would end up taking on more and more responsibilities in different areas. And I always characterize, you know, scheduling as master and slave, right. So are you a master where you're doing the things you want to do, or are you being a slave, and are you responding to all the different incoming that's of things people want you to do or need you for? And so the constant challenge of -- in my business was different responsibilities - with all the - I had a bunch of companies, and I was getting more and more involved in the campaign -- was figuring out how I could put myself in the position where I was doing the things that only I could do in the most efficient and effective way and anything else delegating to others who could do them 80 percent as well or sometimes 200 percent as well as I could have done them, UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 94 UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SWALWELL: So that would have meant June 9th, you would have gone into that day, you would have woke up and you would have had a better sense, a better will to try and go to more essential meetings than you did on June 8th? MR. KUSHNER: No, it means that I was probably, again, at one of those chokepoints where lfelt like I was doing more responding as opposed to being proactive towards the priorities that I was setting. MR. SWALWELL: You told Catherine Vargas - MR. KUSHNER: Which, by the way -- sorry to interrupt. But it was not an uncommon thing. I mean, every couple months or so, you know, you feel, and then you reset, you get control. .And it's also as priorities change, right. So you have priorities. You spend time to accomplish those objectives, and then the priorities change. So you always have to be taking a fresh approach to everything you're doing. MR. SWALWELL: You said, on June 8th, to Catherine Vargas, "Discuss with me a 1:30 meeting today at Trump Tower and then a 3 p.m. tomorrow meeting with Don Junior," which at the time was a meeting that Don Junior later moved to 4 o'clock. What did you discuss off email with Catherine about the 4 o'clock meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why you took that conversation off of email, rather than just correspond with Catherine back and forth on email? MR. KUSHNER: I hate doing scheduling on email. lt's a total pain. MR. SWALWELL: But you do most of your scheduling on email? MR. KUSHNER: So she would hound me with different things, and I try to UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.,rNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 95 UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE give her yes/noes, But when it took more of a discussion to try to reorder days and then reorder priorities, it was better if she just call me and we have a quick 3-minute conversation. I think doing my schedule at that time was probably one of the hardest jobs on the planet, so -MR. SWALWELL: The subject of the email was Russia, Clinton, private and confidential. ls that right? MR. KUSHNER: That's what I've been shown, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Clinton was who you at that time anticipated to be the general election opponent? MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: And you would agree that any emailthat says "private and confidential" is one that kind of catches your attention? MR. KUSHNER: Again, so, you know, my email habits were that I do emails in the morning. lwould do emails at night. And then, during the day, I would mostly just go over on my iPhone very quickly and let it build up and just try to do quick overviews as to what came in. On the iPhone, you see the pertinent message that comes up. Getting an emailwith a subject that says "Clinton," I mean, I was getting so many crazy emails on so many different things, so I can't say whether it would have caught my attention or not because I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: But the October email that claimed it had your father-in-law's taxes, this was one that did catch your attention? MR. KUSHNER: Well, that was a different circumstance. When lwas on the plane, I had my laptop computer. So I recall it being on my laptop and actually physically carrying my laptop. So, at that point, it was -- June was really a UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 96 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE transition period, right. We were building the general - I don't know if it was before or after the convention. I don't recallwhen that was. But at that point, I was there probably in and out for a bunch of different things, and I had not kind of fully set up shop to be able to be as efficient as I would have liked on an hourly basis. MR. SWALWELL: But you would agree that October 30, 2016, you were probably a heck of a lot busier than you were on June 8, 2016? MR. KUSHNER: Actually, no, You know, one of the cool feelings I remember having in the campaign was probably about 10 days before the election. I kind of -- I went around to all the State directors, and I wish list. Like, what do you guys need to win? said: Look, I want your I've got a shopping list backlog you couldn't imagine with allthese requests, I approved some of them, not a lot of them. And then -- like I said, I didn't want to, you know, lose Florida because I was too cheap to spend $2,500 on walkers in Broward County. So I got back a big guys. I made my final spending tist. I went through with the field decisions. I got it approved by the candidate. And then I remember I did my finalTV buys. And then I remember like a very odd feeling basically saying, you know, wow, like all of my decisions are basically made. So the last 10 days was really allabout just being with the candidate and making sure that, you know, he was in the best spirits possible and just as focused as he could be on pushing forward a positive message. MR. SWALWELL: And speaking of the candidate, did you tell him about the June I meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: You did not. Now, you said that most of your UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 97 UNCLASSTFIED, COMMTTTEE SENS]TIVE recollection, you said, "l don't remember it fresh," with respect to the June 9th meeting, comes from emails that your lawyers produced for you. ls that right? MR. KUSHNER: So a lot of -- so what I'll tell you is like, again, I didn't recall, you know, emailing my assistant to get out. They found them and showed me. I said, "Okay, I'm not surprised," because I remembered the meeting being a fairly trivial meeting and, again, one that I probably wouldn't have thought - I remember it being a trivial meeting about Russian adoption with a bunch of people. And I probably wouldn't have thought about it again had this email come up that in no way or shape resembled the meeting that I was a part of. MR. SWALWELL: But you did tell us earlier that you were there for no longer than 10 minutes. So I guess I'm wondering, if you don't remember asking twice to get help to get out of the meeting and you don't remember reading any part of the email chain, how can you tell us with clarity that you were there for 10 minutes? MR. KUSHNER: Maybe I was there for 11 minutes. Again, I'm giving an approximate. I remember I came late. I left early. MR. SWALWELL: But we agreed the meeting started at 4 o'clock? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it started on time or not. MR. SWALWELL: lt was calendared for 4. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. MR. SWALWELL: And at 4:28 is the first time you asked for help to get out of the meeting, ls that right? MR. KUSHNER: That's what the timestamp says, yeah. MR. SWALWELL: And then a minute later you send another one? MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. TINCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 98 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. SWALWELL: And so it was at least about 30 minutes from the time that the meeting was calendared to start until the meeting - until the time you asked for help to get out? MR. KUSHNER: I mean, like I said, I don't know what time I showed up at the meeting. MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember if help came right away or if help -- yeah, sorry. MR. CONAWAY' Yeah. We're at the 1S-minute mark. Finlsh off that question. MR. SWALWELL:. Sure. Actually, the next question was -- MR. CONAWAY: That was the next question. So MR. SWALWELL: Well, Chair - * MR. CONAWAY: lt was a 1S-minute break. You were going to finish that line of logic? MR. SWALWELL: Yeah. MR. CONAWAY: We'll go back to you. MR. KUSHNER: lt's okay. MR. SWALWELL: Do you remember if help came right away after you sent the second one, or did it take 5 more minutes or 10 more minutes or 20 more minutes? MR. KUSHNER: We could look at the phone record, but I think it came pretty quickly. So, again, one of the girls is always at their desk, and so, when didn't get it right away, I saw that -- that's why I sent to the other one. called me up pretty quick. MR. SWALWELL: Okay. Thank you. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES So she I 99 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CONAWAY: Pivoting to our side, just for the record, our agreement with Mr. Kushner and his lawyers was only two members on our side plus me would ask questions. Adam and I have a little different understanding, but the official position is that only two members of each side would ask questions. You guys are not doing that, I understand. You and I have a different agreement, but ljust want to make sure the lawyer knows that the written agreement that we have is that that's the case. So their appearance here was in that regard. So ljust want to get that on the record. MR. SCHIFF: Chairman, I would just mention, and our apologies if that was communicated to counsel because that wasn't the agreement we had reached. MR, CONAWAY: Right. So ljust want to make that's clear because he did ask that question. Trey, do you have questions? It's our turn. lf you want the break MR. LOWELL: We're fine. - Just wanted to figure out something. MR. SCHIFF: Trey. MR. GOWDY: I want to make sure that we have this June meeting in proper perspective. You were invited by your brother-in-law to attend the meeting. You didn't have to travel very far to get to it. MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: So you needed a pretty good excuse to blow it off or.else you needed to attend. You got there, almost immediately lost interest, and began making plaintiff pleadings to your administrative aides to get you out. Does that about sum it up? MR. KUSHNER: That's a little more dramatic, but it's accurate, yes. UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSTT]VE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 100 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE MR. GOWDY: Well, actually, I left out two facts: Number one, you had no idea what the meeting was about before you got there. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. MR. GOWDY: And number two, you're the one that disclosed the email. lt wasn't media reporting. You did it. MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh, MR. GOWDY: All right. I want to compliment you and tellyou how much I appreciate your willingness to stay until my friends run out of questions. But I also have to let you know: That's never going to happen. The longer you stay in here, the narrative will be how important and significant a witness you were, hence the fact that they kept you in here all day long. On the other hand, if you do what any reasonable person would do, which is say, at a certain point, these questions have become mundane and are off script and frankly outside the jurisdiction of what the committee has been asked to do, then they will say that you left before you answered all the questions. So I just want to make sure you understand you cannot win, regardless of what you stay. do. And I really do appreciate your willingness to say you're going to But unless you want to cancel your weekend plans, they're never going to run out of questions. MS. SEWELL: Point of clarity? MR. GOWDY: So ljust want to remind you and everyone what the four lines of inquiry are, because with some of the questions, it's hard to remember what the four lines of inquiry are. What Russian cyber activity and other active measures were directed against the United States and its allies? Did the Russian active measures include links between Russia and individuals associated with UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 101 UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE political campaigns or any other U.S. persons? What was the U.S. Government's response to these Russian active measures, and what do we need to do to protect ourselves and our allies in the future? What possible leaks of classified information took place retated to the lntelligence Community assessment of these matters? Those are the four things that this committee has been asked to do. So it is between you and your counsel how many questions outside that you want to answer. But I do feel some obligation to let you know, despite your best efforts to stay here until they run out of questions, it's not about the questions; it's about how long they keep you in the room. MR. KUSHNER: Yeah. I'm starting to see that. Thank you. MR. GOWDY: Having said that, I think I have about g more minutes, and if you would like to take them to talking to your counsel or taking a break, you can use the 9 minutes however you want. MR. LOWELL: Congressman, one thing I would say to all of you, Mr. Kushner doesn't have problems answering your questions. The only thing I would observe is -- and, again, Congressman, I appreciate your efforts to get allthe information you want. When you ask the same question over and over again and you ask it in five or six different ways, you're not going to get a different answer. You're just going to have five or six different questions answered the same way. We're here to answer your questions. lf there comes a point where you just want to keep asking the same questions over again, you're not helping your record. MR. CONAWAY: Trey, are you done with questions? MR. GOWDY: Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. MR. CONAWAY: All right. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 702 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE Adam. lt's 12:39. MR. SCHIFF: I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing with my colleague. Mr. Kushner, while you're well represented, but you have two lawyers in the room tonight - today, and it's really not our role to represent lot of questions for you, but we do have a you. And I don't think my colleague's characterization is accurate. lf this were an ordinary deposition, it would probably go all day and maybe a matter of days, as Mr. Lowell can tell you. MR. LOWELL: Actually, the Federal rules have changed to prevent that from happening, but, please, keep going. MR. SCHIFF: So, in any event, we'll do our best to be respectful of your time and appreciate you being here. MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. MR. SCHIFF: So I'm going to let Mr. Swalwell finish his line of questioning, and then I'll resume. MR. SWALWELL: Mr. Kushner, based on your personal recollection, not email production to you, who was at that June 9th meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I recall Don Junior, Paul Manafort, the Russian woman whose name I'm not going to try to pronounce. l'm not as good as you at doing that. And the other people, I couldn't tell you. MR. SWALWELL: Was an interpreter used? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SWALWELL: Had you ever met the Russian woman before that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.'NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE 103 MR. SWALWELL: Have you talked to her since that meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: Any other individuals, other than Don Junior and Paul Manafort, had you met them before the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: lt's possible. Again, I don't know who was at the meeting, and so, if l'd seen one of them and shook a hand somewhere, I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: Have you spoken with any of them since the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I know of. Not that I can recall. MR. SWALWELL: Was your father-in-law in the building at the time of the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know why Don Junior said, with respect to getting information on Hillary Clinton, "l love it"? Why would that have been the mindset or perspective of the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. You'd have to ask Don Junior why he said that. MR. SWALWELL: Who is Rob Goldstone? MR. LOWELL: Again, Congressman, you're asking what he knew at the time or what he's learned now? MR. SWALWELL: No, I said, who is Rob Goldstone? MR. LOWELL: I'm asking, are you asking what he knew at the time or what he knows now? MR. SWALWELL: You're familiar that Rob Goldstone is referenced in the email chain setting up the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Well, one second, answer his question because it just UNCLASSTFfED, COMMITTEE SENSfTTVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE !04 depends which way you want me to answer the question. Did I know who Rob Goldstone was at the time? MR. SWALWELL: Sure, yes. MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know who he is now? MR. KUSHNER: I've since learned, yes. MR. SWALWELL: Have you talked to him? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: Who is the Agalarov family, Emin and Aras? MR. KUSHNER: Again, are you asking me what I knew at the time? MR. SWALWELL: Did you know them at the time? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know them now? MR. KUSHNER: I still don't know them but I know of them now. MR. SWALWELL: Just minutes after the June 9th meeting, candidate Trump sent out a tweet tweet: - at 4:40 p.m., on June 9th, candidate Trump sent out a How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up, and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted? Do you know why he sent out that tweet? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: You're smirking. Do you have just a thought on that or - MR. KUSHNER: Again, he controls his Twitter, and it comes from what's on his mind at the time. MR. SWALWELL: And a couple days after the meeting was set up but 2 days before the meeting occurred, candidate Trump gave a speech declaring: UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 105 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE I'm going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you're going to find it very informative and very interesting. Do you know why or have any knowledge as to why he made that statement? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: Was there a kids meeting that took place -- that was referred to as the kids meeting that took place every Monday during the : as the week would start at 9:30 a.m.? MR. KUSHNER: There were some. They did do those meetings. I don't know if it occurred that week or not. MR. SWALWELL: Do you know if one occurred the foltowing week? MR. KUSHNER: Again, l'd have to look at schedules for what was booked, but I do know they got moved around a lot and sometimes canceled. MR. SWALWELL: A Rhona is referred to on the Goldstone-Don Junior exchange. Are you familiar with Rhona? MR. KUSHNER: Of course. MR. SWALWELL: ls that Rhona Graft? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. SWALWELL: Would she also assist the candidate at the time with campa ig n-related matters? MR. KUSHNER: More personal-related matters, whatever his inquiries were. MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever know her to assist the candidate, Donald Trump, with campaign-related matters? UNCI,ASSfFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 106 UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE MR. KUSHNER: She would assist him with whatever he needed assistance with. MR. SWALWELL: And that sometimes included campaign matters? MR. KUSHNER: Sure. MR. SWALWELL: I mean, if you don't know, you can say you don't know. MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. That's good. Thank you. MR. SWALWELL: But, finally, with respect to the December UAE meeting that you referenced, you said that you did tell then-President-elect Donald Trump about that one and a half hour meeting. ls that right? MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. MR. SWALWELL: So how would you decide whether you told Donald Trump about a meeting you had with a foreign representative and when you would not tell Donald Trump? And, for example, you said you didn't telt him about the meeting with the Russian Ambassador. MR. KUSHNER: something along those Yeah. When something was memorable or actionable or lines. But that was a great meeting. I mean, the meeting had with Sheikh Muhammad was a great meeting. lt was really, really informative. It made me very optimistic that we could do things differently in the region. And I also felt that, you know, I really enioyed the meeting. So it was a meeting that I was happy to report back on. I thought it was worthwhile. MR. SWALWELL: Did you report back on the Gorkov meeting to Donald Trump? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. SWALWELL: And, Mr. Schiff, I'llyield back. MR. SCHIFF: Thank You. UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF TI{E UNTTED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES I 107 UNCIJASSTFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE I wanted to follow up. I think you had mentioned in discussion with Mr. Swalwell that, prior to this June 9th meeting, that you had had a discussion with Catherine Vargas about how to simplify your schedule or prioritize your scheduling. ls that right? MR. KUSHNER: I do it frequently. MR. SCHIFF: And you had indicated, I think, in one of the documents that you provided that you wanted to discuss with her the 3 p.m. meeting with Don Junior. So this discussion would have taken place at a point in time after which you had talked with her about essentially confining your schedule to the most important meetings. ls that correct? MR. KUSHNER: Sorry. Can you repeat the question, please? MR. SCHIFF: Yeah. So you had the discussion with Catherine Vargas that you mentioned and answered my colleague's question about trying to prioritize your meetings so the most important ones would be the ones on your schedule. At a later point, you emailed Catherine Vargas to discuss two meetings, the 1:30 meeting and the Don Junior meeting. So that discussion would have taken place after you already told her you wanted to prioritize the important meetings on your schedule, correct? MR. KUSHNER: What I would say is that there is -- you have existing inventory and then you have new inventory. So I don't recallwhen the discussion happened, but, you know, it's not like you have the discussion and then you wave a magic wand and you get out of all your obligations that you have. So, again, I don't know in what context that happened or where that went. MR. SCHIFF: But from your email, is that an indication that you wanted to talk to her about these two meetings to determine whether they were worth your UNCLASSIF'IED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 108 time? MR. KUSHNER: No. lt meant these were two meetings we had to get done, but going forurlard, let's come up with a strategy to make sure we're being as efficient and as effective as possible with our time. MR. SCHIFF: And when you discussed the 3 p.m.meeting with her, what did you discuss? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SCHIFF: Did you ask her, why am I going to this meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. LOWELL: Congressman, that's a good example. When he says he doesn't recall and then you ask four questions afterwards which basically ask him a different way something that he's already said he doesn't recall, allwe're doing is taking time and you're not getting any information. MR. SCHIFF: Counsel, we're taking more time by your making objections. lf you want to instruct your client not to answer -- MR. LOWELL: I'm not going to instruct him not to answer because I'm going to take Congressman Gowdy - MR. SCHIFF: Then I would suggest -MR. LOWELL: Let me just finish, please. I'm only going to point out for the record, because there is a record, the device you're using. Having said that, please ask away. But I'm going to take Congressman Gowdy's advice and advise my client that you are welcome to follow up and ask us substantive questions that are not repetitive, that would illuminate the four points that the Congress has asked you to look into. We will certainly respond. But this would be a good time for you to finish up. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 109 MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, counsel. Your client is having some trouble remembering the details of these conversations. That's why I'm breaking it down. But I appreciate your comments. MR. KUSHNER: lf it's helpful to you, I'm not going to -- again, Catherine and I spoke frequently on scheduling and all different types of things. I can't tell you that I have too many specific memories about those discussions. And on that day, you can ask me all the questions you want; I'm not going to come up with memories about how specific we characterized a certain meeting out of the thousands I was having. So, you know, again, in a cordialway, I think it's probably a useful suggestion to be efficient here. But you can keep asking the questions if you like, so -MR. SCHIFF: Thank you. So you have no recollection of what you discussed in that meeting with her? MR. KUSHNER: I do not. MR. SCHIFF: And you, also, I think, were asked to attend this meeting by Don Junior. Did you have a discussion with Don Junior prior to the meeting either orally or in writing about what the subject of meeting would be? MR, KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: And when you went into the meeting, they were discussing what? MR. KUSHNER: I sat down. I heard them talking about Russian adoptions and, again, just quickly was trying to figure out what the hell was -- sorry -- quickly was trying to figure out what was golng on and, you know, then determined that this was not the best use of my time. MR. SCHIFF: Did you discuss the meeting with Mr. Manafort either before UNCLASSfFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 110 or after the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: No. We had a lot of more important and pressing things to discuss. MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever raise the question with either Don Junior or Mr. Manafort on why they bothered to take a meeting on adoptions at that point in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: Don Junior and I basically laughed at how he wasted our times, so -MR. SCHIFF: And did Don Junior, in that conversation where you were laughing about it being a waste of time, indicate to you that he thought the meeting would be productive for other reasons, that is, because he had hoped to get information about Hillary Clinton, as promised? MR. KUSHNER: No. His attitude was it happens. Look, you know, again, in the course of a campaign, you know, we're trying to use hindsight now to zoom in on a meeting which, by the way, was not impactful and was not particularly memorable and was not particularly noteworthy other than, you know, an email that, you know, we found and then provided that basically says something that is not indicative of what the meeting was. ln the course of a campaign, you have all different kinds of people trying to get time with you. There's some people who are cold callers, and those people -- it's more rare you give them time. You have some people who are relationships who you know and who you don't want to be rude to and so you give them time. And then there are some people who are strong relationships. So my point is you have all different types of meetings. But, you know, look, in the course of the thousand meetings, I remember some more than others, some UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE less than we went others. But the general point is it was just another L11 meeting. You know, in. I didn't waste too much time. And then you move fonuard to the 10,000 other things you have to do. You've all been in campaigns, so -- MR. SCHIFF: Just so that we're precise, though, Don Junior never told you what he had hoped to get out of the meeting, that is, promised information about Hillary Clinton? MR. KUSHNER: lt did not come up, as far as I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: And neither did you have any conversation of that nature with Mr. Manafort? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can recall. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether the meeting was memorialized in writing in any way? Did anyone do a readout of what took place during the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: I did not, and I don't know of others who did. MR. SCHIFF: Let me turn to the April 27 ioreign policy at the Mayflower Hotel. When you met Ambassador Kislyak at the event, was it in the main meeting room, or was it in a private reception? MR. KUSHNER: lt was in the reception room. I don't know if there was a distinction. There was a main room where the speech was held, where allthe press was. And then there was a buffet room where they were going to have lunch, which was empty. And then there was a reception room where they were having drinks and a whole bunch of people socializing. MR. SCHIFF: And was there a point prior to the candidate's arrival where people were seated in a VIP section in the main room who were then escorted into the private reception, to your knowledge? UNCI,ASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LL2 UNCIJASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. KUSHNER: Once the candidate arrived, I was spending time just making sure he was ready for the speech. So I don't know the logistics of how the event unfolded. MR. SCHIFF: And the private room or the reception, was that behind the stage? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. MR. SCHIFF: Do you know whether there were any private meetings with the Ambassador that took place in the hotel that day separate and apart from the reception area? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I - MR. LOWELL: With Mr. Kushner? MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry? MR. LOWELL: With Mr. Kushner? MR, KUSHNER: He's asking me in general. Not that I know of. I don't know of any meetings -- I don't know meetings with myself; I don't know meetings with others -- so not that I know of. MR. CONAWAY: All right. Adam, it's 15. Trey has got a couple questions. MR. GOWDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kushner, this June meeting that we have spent about four times as long discussing as you attended, you told the FBI about before there were any media reports on - you gave the FBI this email it. Do I have that correct? MR. LOWELL: Congressman, that wouldn't be correct. MR. KUSHNER: No. Yeah, we didn't give him the email. We disclosed the meeting to them. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 113 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE MR. GOWDY: The meeting? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: And the FBI has jurisdiction over the investigation of both criminal matters, and they have a counterintelligence component. And you're the one that told them about it? MR, KUSHNER: As far as I know, yes. MR. GOWDY: Well, the media didn't tellthem about it. You told the Bureau before there were any media reports. MR. KUSHNER: Uh-huh. MR. GOWDY: Your conversation with your scheduler about better managing your time, something tells me you're not the only person in the room who's had that conversation with a scheduler about how to make better use of their time. l'm a little confused about the chronology. Did you have that conversation with your scheduler before the meeting or after the meeting? MR. KUSHNER: ln different forms, I'm sure I've had it with her, both. I mean, it's a conversation we had frequently. MR. GOWDY: lt's an ongoing challenge to prioritize your time, particularly in the throes of a presidential campaign in addition to your business commitments? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: I think votes are coming soon, so I want to just do my best to have this in my head. No collusion, coordination, conspiracy between you and Russia before the election or during the transition? MR. KUSHNER: Yes. MR. GOWDY: No collusion, coordination, conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign, to your knowledge? And let me digress for a second. There UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENS]TTVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LL4 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE was a Washington Post analysis of your statement. Did you see that yesterday? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. GOWDY: I'm sure your attorney has read it. Under the general heading of this is kind of what you're up against, they noted that you had no collusion, coordination, conspiracy with the Russians. And they noted that you had no knowledge of anyone having collusion, coordination, or conspiring with the Russians. But they took you to task for not knowing what you don't know, whether anyone else for: did. So that's what you're up against, is, can you give an accounting what everyone else maY know? So, against that backdrop knowledge - and that's why I say to the best of your - to the best of your knowledge, no member of the official Trump campaign colluded, conspired, coordinated with the Russian Government to impact, influence, or interfere with the 2016 election cycle? MR. KUSHNER: So I think that that sums up very well. That's exactly right. It's funny; the only thing you said before that kind of had me thinking was you said somebody who in their head was associated with the campaign. I think that that kind of sums up there's a tot of peopte out there with different things in their mind. What I can say very affirmatively is that anybody who was actively involved in the campaign or who had a real connectivity with the campaign or who shared knowledge with the campaign was something that lwould have known about, if there was something somewhat suspicious, something nefarious, something that had any of those C words that you discussed before involved. And I can affirmatively tell all of you -- and I appreciate you spending all this time on it to get the record right - but as somebody who really oversaw, you know, UNC],ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES L15 UNCLASS]FTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE the finances, the scheduling, the digital operation, the .. you know, allthe general problem solvings of the campaign, I can tell you that there is nothing that came up to us that would lead us to indicate that anyone on the campaign was doing anything inappropriate with regards to - you know, you also asked about the word "collude" before. I mean, I think what we were talking about is there's the hacking of the DNC and there's the hacking of Podesta's email and then the release of those things to Wikileaks, right. That's basically where the accusation is. Nobody is saying there was tinkering with voting boxes or anything like that. So, in terms of those two actions and how those emails were ultimately hacked and then how they got to the sources that ultimately disclosed them, what I can tell you is that, to the best of my knowledge, as somebody who was actively involved in almost every aspect of the campaign, I had no knowledge of anybody who tried to take credit for it, who told me they were doing it, who told me they knew of it before it happened, or who was taking credit for it after it happened. So I want to be as broad as possible in that regard. I'm saying this under oath, that as somebody who was probably one of the most, if not the most senior person on the campaign, somebody who was a very trusted confidant of the candidate, I can tell you that we had no knowledge of anyone doing any of those things. So I can't say - I guess my lawyers probably don't want me to say something so broad under oath, but I'm saying it so broad and under oath because, again, I think we did run a very good campaign. I think the candidate connected with the American people. He saw a lot of the issues that were very pressing, and he efficiently got his message out and people voted for him. And I think UNCi,ASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.'NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES that that's UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 116 ultimately why he won the election. And so what happened with the hacking and then the Wikileaks and all that stuff, it's not something that I can say that the campaign knew about in advance or had anything to do in helping to facilitate coordination of it. And l'm saying that very affirmatively here on the record, hoping that it gives you more confidence in what we've been saying for a long time. So I hope that's helpful. UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES tL7 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE [1:04 p.m.] MR. LOWELL: Mr. Conaway and everyone, I think we have plowed enough ground in 3 hours. I suspect we're going to plow old ground. I offer, again, the opportunity of the committee to provide us with additional questions if new things come up, but -MR. CONAWAY: We've got votes at like 1:05. Could I impose on MR. LOWELL: Again, it makes perfect sense to do it that way. - Please proceed. MR. CONAWAY: lf we could impose on Mr. Kushner to stay untilvotes are called, your side will have all that time between now and then. And then, if there are additional questions that you want answered, you'll propose those to Mr. Kushner in writing and get those back. ls that fair? MR. SCHIFF: Well, I have a few more questions, and then I want to give my colleagues an opportunity to ask questions. We won't have that opportunity before votes. lf you're willing to -- I imagine it's a short series of votes -- stay so we can complete the questions that we have for you today, we would appreciate it. MR. LOWELL: I think l, as I said, heard very clearly what Mr. Gowdy said and appreciate that there is a no-win situation. So, consequently, I think the best way to proceed to get the committee real new, not repeated, substantive information is to have you ask those if you find anything we haven't touched on today that's germane, and we will either write them or we will come back, if that's the it seems to me now that we have only plowed old way. But ground. So, if that's not enough time between now and the votes, let's callthis -MR, KUSHNER: Congressman, I can say as well, I mean, look, I know what UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 118 UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSTT]VE I know better than you know what I know, and I can covered anything that has to do or touches with tellyou that you've basically - you know, with the things that you're inquiring about. And so, if you have more questions, give them to us in writing. But I do think, you know, what l'm hearing is right, is that, again, l've given an hour longer than we agreed to come. We're here voluntarily. We've submitted documents voluntarily. We're not looking to run and hide from anything. And, you know, again, I think that, just to be productive, I think it's - I think we've probably reached the end of what a useful session is. MR. SCHIFF: Well, I appreciate your opinion on where the end of a useful session is. We haven't reached the end of the questions that we have for you today. And I appreciate Mr. Gowdy's advocacy on your behalf. That's really not the role of the committee, though. MR. GOWDY: lt's not advocacy on his behalf, Adam. MR. SCHIFF: Excuse me, Mr. Gowdy. MR. GOWDY: No, you're not going to make an allegation and then not let me respond to it. lt's not advocacy on his behalf. lt's called fundamentalfairness. MR. CONAWAY: Gentlemen, gentlemen, both of you stop. We have 5 or 6 minutes before votes are called. lf you'd like to use those productively to ask Mr. Kushner questions down the line, I would suggest let's do that, and then we'll have this conversation offline. So, with that, if you want to recognize somebody for questions, let's move forward. Othenruise, we'll go ahead and leave now. tIIR. SCHIFF: IdO. MR. CONAWAY: Okay. UNCIJASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE I.INITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESE,NTATIVES UNCLASS]F]ED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE 119 MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I also want to make it clear so there's no doubt MR. CONAWAY: Let's don't do that. MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear we are not in agreement that we will merely submit questions for the record. lt will be necessary to -MR. CONAWAY: As I said, they've offered to come back. They've offered to take them in writing. Let's use the last few minutes productively while he's here to ask these questions, and maybe we get those out of the way so that they don't have to do that. Otherwise, we can just keep yapping back and forth, and that does no one any good, MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Chairman, I just want our position to be very clear so that there is no misapprehension. MR. CONAWAY: He was very clear, MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry? MR. CONAWAY: The attorney was very clear. MR. SCHIFF: l'm not talking about his position. I'm talking about we are not in agreement that the written interrogatory is going to be a substitute for completing our interview of the witness. MR. CONAWAY: What I heard his lawyer say, Adam, is they'll do it that way or they will come back. Now, take a yes for an answer and let your folks ask the questions. MR. SCHIFF: lf the answer is you'll come back, then that's great. MR. CONAWAY: That's what was said. MR. LOWELL: We will definitely meet, as we've done, in good faith with the UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 120 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE committee. I mean, Mr. Chairman, you probably know that it was Mr. Kushner who insisted that this committee go forward and asked that you do so when this committee postponed his interview. And it was only his doing that got us here today. So you can tell that he's not trying to avoid answering your questions. And I think our offer stands, Mr. Schiff, but I also say to you, if it's to come back and answer again, after he has said I don't know, and you're going to ask him six questions about what he doesn't know, that's not a productive use of this committee's time. MR. SCHIFF: Well, you may feelthat way, Mr. Lowell, but the fact of the matter is we're in the process of trying to find out what he knows. And it's our responsibility if we're going to do our job thoroughly to find out. But you're doing a good job of advocating. MR. KING: How many times does Mr. Lowell have to say that his client will come back? MR. SCHIFF: Then we have that commitment. MR. KING: We've had it like for the last 10 minutes. MR. SCHIFF: Fantastic. All right. ln that case, l'll recognize Mr. Quigley. MR. QUIGLEY: For today's shortness, maybe this will be short. And I apologize. MR. CONAWAY: Pullthe mike to you. MR. QUIGLEY: My apology. Did anyone catch you up on what was said in that meeting when you weren't there? MR. LOWELL: You mean the June 9th meeting? UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF TTM LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 127 IINCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE MR. QUIGLEY: Yes. I'm sorry. MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. QUIGLEY: Thank you. That's all I have. MR. KUSHNER: I like his questions. MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier. MS. SPEIER: Thank you. And, Mr. Kushner, let me say I think you have been particularly generous with your time and been responsive to our questions. So I think we all appreciate that. MR. KUSHNER: Thankyou. MS. SPEIER: You talked strategy with your father-in-law during the campaign about Hillary Clinton, I presume, correct? MR. KUSHNER: We talked strategy on how best to win a campaign. I mean, in terms of the -- again, I'm not very political, and, you know, having political instincts is not something that I necessarily would do. So, in terms of lines of attack or what would work well with people, I really would leave that up to him, and then I would show him data to suggest one way or the other. But he would really be the one who would drive the decisions on what to do with that. MS. SPEIER: So, when he was about to give a major speech, did you sit with him and help him decide what the talking points should be? MR. KUSHNER: is we'd work on a draft. No. What we would do is, before he'd do a major speech, So we actually did about 20 policy speeches during the campaign, and I'm very, very proud of that body of work. I mean, we did our first speech at AIPAC, which was a long teleprompter speech, which was the candidate's idea. After that, he really liked it. He wanted to do, you know, more UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES t22 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE in-depth speeches. So, again, that's actually how I found Mr. Simes is I called a few people I knew who, you know, I thought would know something about helping me find people who could help me put together policies, policy ideas, that I could pitch the ideas to the candidate. Then I found a few speechwriters. And then this guy Stephen Miller ended up becoming kind of the spoke in the wheel and helping me pull it all together, What we would do is give him a draft of a speech, and then he would just rip it apart and make it his own. And the one thing about him is he has very strong opinions, very strong ideas, very good instincts. And, you know, ultimately, I could show him all the data in the world. Sometimes I'd be able to Convince him, but a lot of the time he wanted to go with his gut. And that's I think what led him to be successful in the campaign. MS. SPEIER: So, after the June 9th meeting, when he spoke and said, "l'm about to give a major policy speech next week with a lot of dirt on Hillary," he was talking about a speech that was in process, and were you familiar with that speech? Did you know what he was talking about? MR. KUSHNER: The answer is I don't know. MS. SPEIER: So, if he was going to give a major policy speech, though, you would know about it, would you not? MR. KUSHNER: I mean, if we had -- sometimes also he would say, "l'm going to do this," and then that was the first time that the campaign would learn of his intentions to do that certain thing, and then we'd get to work on trying to make that become a reality. So that's not necessarily indicative of the fact that we had something in the works. lt's possible, but I'm sure if it was in the works, we have all kinds of records on kind of what we were working on and when we were working on UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF TFIE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES it. So that's 123 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TTVE what lknow. MS. SPIER: So how did Guccifer400 get youi email? MR. KUSHNER: Probably the same way the hundreds of other people who I ended up having to block would get my email. lt's just or MS. SPEIER: So we all know that the President is very reluctant to share his tax return with the American peopte. So here you had someone who was basically saying, "we've got your father-in-law's tax return; we're about to release it if you don't give us 50 bitcoin." So did you tell your father-in-law about this email? MR. KUSHNER: No. I didn't deem it to be credible. MS. SPEIER: You didn't deem it to be credible. And what was the basis of not deeming it to be credible? MR. KUSHNER: I got was to ignore it. it. I showed it to the Secret Service guy. His advice And then, you know, you also have to go through and say, look, if we did get it, you know, did I think that he would have the appetite to then try to go say: Oh, I'm going to pay off some, you know, some random person to keep my things private. I mean, I think that his attitude was more it will be what it will be, you know, generally on things. So, again, he had so many different things on his mind. My goal was to try to keep things that were not pertinent or related to what he needed to do off of his mind. So it didn't strike me as something that was necessarily actionable, so the decision I made was just to delete it and move on. MS. SPEIER: So you mentioned that this national security -MR. CONAWAY: Jackie, we're into UNCI,ASSf FIED, votes. So would you ask the last COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 124 UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE question, then we'll have to break. MR. SCHIFF: lf we have time, Mr. Chairman, before votes, I know Mr. Castro had a few questions as well. MS. SPEIER: Okay. So this national security advisory committee you said was just a bunch of names, that you had never met them. MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it was called - MR. LOWELL: That's not quite right. That's not what he said. MR. KUSHNER: I don't know if it was called the national security advisory -MS. SPEIER: Foreign PolicY list. MR. KUSHNER: I think it was -- I think what we were getting a lot of flak on was -- and, again, you are allvery prestigious Congressmen and -women who know a lot of people in Washington. You know, to give you an idea with our campaign, the first time I tried to hire somebody to help us write a policy paper, they basically said to me, there's two conditions: The first condition is you can't tell anybody I worked on this, and the second condition is l'm going to charge you double. Because people in this town were being told that, if they worked on the Trump campaign, they would never get a job in politics again. So - MS. SPEIER: Since I'm really running up against the clock, let me ask you this: Roger Stone was the campaign manager for a period of time. Did you recommend that he resign, or did he do that on his own accord? MR. KUSHNER: So, first of all, I don't know if he ever was actually the campaign manager. What I can tellyou is I only met Roger Stone once. And, again, I've been around my father-in-law and I was probably the most active and longest term member of the campaign. I met him once, and it was during the transition. He stopped in the building. I shook his hand, said hi, and that was UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LiNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES it. 125 UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE MS. SPEIER: So you don't know if Roger Stone had communications with your father-in-law through email or telephone conversations during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I would -- I'm not familiar with how often they communicated. MS. SPEIER' And Paul Manafort, did you recommend that he be terminated? MR. KUSHNER: No. MS. SPEIER: So he resigned on his own accord? MR. KUSHNER: No. I think it came at the right time. There was a lot of news that was out there, and the decision was that it was time for him to resign. MS. SPEIER: Those gifts of art and dirt that you received from Mr. Gorkov, where are they now? MR. KUSHNER: I don't know. I had my assistant give them to the transition and register them. So I assume the transition did something with them, but it was not a painting I wanted to hang in my apartment. lt was nice, but -MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier, can we allow Mr. Castro before - MS. SPEIER: Yes, I'm finished. MR. CASTRO: The last name of Rosemary at Deutsche Bank that you introduced to your father-in-law? I don't think we got her last name for the record. MR. KUSHNER: Sure. Vrablic,V-r-a-b-l-i-c. Wonderfulwoman. MR. GASTRO: Okay. Have any of the assets of the Kushner Companies been used to pay off any debts of The Trump Organization or Trump companies? MR. KUSHNER: Not that I can think of. MR, CASTRO: Okay. Can you provide a list of the hundred people who worked in the San Antonio operation and their titles and the duties that they UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 726 performed for you in that digital operation? MR. KUSHNER: I can try to pull that together. I think it was a lot of subcontractors. MR. CASTRO: Do you know who would have that list? MR. KUSHNER: Not me is the question -- is the answer. MR. CASTRO: Would Brad Parscale have that !ist? MR. KUSHNER: Brad might be able to try to figure out how to recreate something like that. MR. CASTRO: Did you visit the San Antonio operation? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. CASTRO: You never visited? MR. KUSHNER: No. MR. CASTRO: How many phones were you using during the campaign? MR. LOWELL: I'm sorry? MR. CASTRO: How many cell phones were you using during the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I had a primary phone that I used. MR. CASTRO: Was that the only phone you used for campaign purposes? MR. KUSHNER: Again, there was -- you know, if people called, l'd take a call on somebody else's phone. And then, you know; at one point I borrowed a phone from somebody else in my company just to use for speaking to the guy from Mexico. MR. CASTRO: Could you provide the numbers of those cell phones or land lines or whatever you used, as you just described? MR. KUSHNER: Yes, I could try to track it down. UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES L27 UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE MR. CASTRO: How many email addresses did you use for campaign purposes? MR. KUSHNER: I had -- for campaign purposes, I used basically -- I'm thinking. So they gave me a campaign email, but I didn't really use it. MR. CASTRO: What was that? MR. KUSHNER: Probably I think they or something like that gave me a transition email. I didn't really use that. MR. CASTRO: What was that email? MR. KUSHNER: I don't recall. l'm sure we could get it for you. I had a -- MR. CASTRO: lf you would turn over the list of all emails you used during the campaign, that would satisfy my request. MR. KUSHNER: No problem. MR. CASTRO: Brad Parscale, you said you met him when you started working on the digital part of the campaign or overseeing the digital part of the campaign. ls that correct? MR. KUSHNER: ln November, yeah. MR. CASTRO: Do you know whether he worked for The Trump Organization before that? MR. KUSHNER: I believe he did, MR. CASTRO: Do you know what duties he performed for The Trump Organization before that? MR. KUSHNER: I think he made websites and whatnot, but I'm not that familiar. MR. CASTRO: On the digitalpart itself, which program did you UNCIJASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES use? l'll 128 UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE give you an example. Many of us use NGP VAN for keeping data to basically send out emails and so forth. Do you know what program was used in the campaign? MR. KUSHNER: I do not. lf you gave me the name, I probably could know it, because I remember having to look at all the vendors and whatnot, but I - MR. CASTRO: Well, I guess it just seems odd that you were overseeing this entire operation, but you also don't know your cell phone carrier and you don't know what was used to keep a data set. MR. KUSHNER: Okay. MR. CASTRO: Those are allthe questions I have. MR. CONAWAY: AII right. Mr. Kushner, thank you so very much for your extended visit, and we appreciate your candor and straightforward answers. And I guess we're adjourned Thank you. MR. KUSHNER: Thank you very much. MR. LOWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Members of Congress and staff. [Whereupon, at 1:19 p.m., the interview was concluded.] UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES