Jared Kushner, a former senior White House adviser in the Trump administration, provided an hours-long testimony to the 6 January select committee on Thursday that lawmakers say was “really valuable”.
Rep Elaine Luria, a member of the select committee, confirmed in a Thursday night interview with MSNBC that the former president’s son-in-law had met with the panel overseeing the investigation into the Capitol riot, but couldn’t specify the full contents of what they discussed.
“You know, what I’ll say is that, you know, we were able to ask for his impression about these third party accounts of the events that happened that day and around that day. So he was able to voluntarily provide information to us, to verify, substantiate, provide his own, you know, take on this different reporting. So it was really valuable for us to have the opportunity to speak to him,” Ms Luria said.
“I think that the committee really appreciates hearing information directly from people who have relevant facts about January 6, and the fact that Jared Kushner came as a witness is helpful to building the story of our investigation,” she added.
Mr Kushner’s testimony, conducted virtually, which sources told NPR lasted from 10am until at least early in the afternoon, breaks away from the cooperation that most in Trump’s inner circle have been offering the committee in recent months, as he appeared voluntarily.
Experts say his cooperation could escalate pressure on his wife Ivanka Trump to appear before the committee.
Just this past week, the House select committee voted in favour of referring criminal charges for former Trump White House aides, Dan Scavino Jr. and Peter Navarro, for defying subpoenas to appear before the panel and release documents to aid in the investigation.
Mr Kushner, who had begun to distance himself from his father-in-law’s administration in the chaotic weeks leading up to the insurrection as Mr Trump and his inner circle mounted a campaign to deny the outcome of the election, had flown back to Washington, DC on the day of the riot from Saudi Arabia. He reportedly, according toThe Hill, did not come to the White House after arriving back.
Ivanka Trump, Mr Kushner’s wife and a close adviser to her father who many viewed as a last resort to persuade him to call off the riot, is reportedly in talks with the committee about arranging a possible interview.
Mr Trump’s daughter could be, as a contributing analyst on CNN put it, one of the more “important” figures to gather information from for piecing together the events of that day, both through her husband’s testimony and herself, if she decides to volunteer.
“They can ask him things about her and we know that she figures centrally, she’s the person that people tried to prevail on repeatedly to have Trump call off the dogs,” former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman told CNN. “Just his testifying, I think, makes it more likely — or puts more pressure on her to testify.”
