Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Wednesday for Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, to resign from his White House post in the wake of revelations about a campaign meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Murphy said Kushner misled Trump and Vice President Pence, causing them to state falsely that no associates from their campaign communicated with the Russians.
“You don’t think the Republicans would be calling for the resignation of an Obama official who allowed the president and vice president to openly lie about a major national security issue?” the Connecticut Democrat told reporters. “He watched his father-in-law on TV say no one in [the Trump] campaign talked to the Russian government.”
{mosads}”[Kushner] knew that was false,” Murphy continued. “Either he didn’t alert the president and vice president, or there is a much bigger problem, and the president and vice president knew they were lying. There is a crisis of trust that the White House has to deal with.”
The Huffington Post first highlighted the Democratic senator’s remarks. The Hill confirmed the comments with Murphy’s office.
Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 at Trump Tower after an associate, Rob Goldstone, promised that she would provide damaging information on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Kushner and then-campaign chairman also Paul Manafort attended the meeting.
Both Trump and Pence deny knowledge about the meeting, and Trump Jr. denies that he received any compromising information about Clinton.
The news about the meeting with the Russian lawyer, as well as the motivations that led Trump Jr. to meet with her, has raised eyebrows among both Democrats and Republicans.
Both the Justice Department and multiple congressional panels have ongoing investigations that are looking into whether Trump campaign aides colluded during the election with Russia, which the intelligence community believes hacked Democratic groups in an effort to help get Trump elected.