The war in Ukraine would not have happened if Donald Trump was still president, his son-in-law has said.
Former senior adviser to Mr Trump, Jared Kushner, claimed the ex-president led peace in Europe and put China on its “backfoot.”
“We had peace in Europe, peace in the world. China was on their back foot and now we have a war in Ukraine with Russia - that never would have happened,” Mr Kushner said.
He claimed that Mr Trump was laughed at when he suggested Germany should not be reliant on Russian gas.
It comes after Russia‘s state-owned energy company halted the flow of natural gas through a major pipeline from Russia to Europe on Wednesday, a stoppage that it announced in advance and has said will last three days.
Gazprom started cutting supplies through Nord Stream 1 in mid-June. It cited technical problems that German authorities have dismissed as cover for a political power play. In recent weeks, Nord Stream 1 has been running at only 20 per cent of capacity.
Meanwhile, Mr Kushner also confirmed during the Sky News interview that Mr Trump is “obviously thinking” about running for president again in 2024 as “he hates seeing what's happening in the country”.
“I know that he's obviously thinking about it, he hates seeing what's happening in the country,” Mr Kushner said. Asked when Mr Trump might make a decision, Mr Kushner said: “Nobody can speak for him.”
Asked to confirm that Mr Trump was not ruling out running for president again, Mr Kushner added: “With Trump it's hard to rule anything out, he's a very flexible thing.”
“You know, he had the economy running so well. He filled the hole economically that was caused by Covid. He got us out of it with the vaccine.”
Mr Kushner also dismissed the FBI raid on Mr Trump's Florida home as “an issue of paperwork”.
It comes as president Joe Biden said Trumpian politics are a danger to American democracy. Standing on what he called the “sacred ground” of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia — the place where America’s founding documents were debated and drafted — Mr Biden called the ideas embodied in that document, “equality and democracy” the “rock” on which the US was built.
The president warned that those ideas were now under attack.
“We do ourselves no favours to pretend otherwise,” he said. “I've come to this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, [and] about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it”.
The first images of documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by FBI agents earlier this month have been released as the Justice Department says that it has evidence that government records were likely moved to obstruct its investigation.
In images released as part of a Justice Department court filing late Wednesday evening, markers bearing the reading “secret” and “top secret” are clearly visible, removing all doubt as to whether Mr Trump had classified documents at the unsecured resort and residence where he currently lives.
The filing clearly indicates that the president and his allies at Mar-a-Lago may be in serious legal jeopardy as a result of their latest legal drama; separately, the president and some members of his inner circle including Rudy Giuliani are thought to be the target of an investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, into efforts to push local officials to overturn the election while at the same time a grand jury probe headed up by the DoJ regarding January 6 continues to operate in Washington, DC.
The filing also debunked Mr Trump’s claims that were outside of the scope of the Justice Department’s search warrant. Mr Trump had previously said the FBI stole his three passports. Rather, the filing says that the government seized the contents of a desk drawer with classified documents and government records that were mixed with other ones.
