Report: Russian Amb. said Kushner wanted secret communications backchannel

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Russia’s U.S. ambassador said that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner wanted to set up a secret communications backchannel to communicate with Russian officials, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Kushner proposed using secure Russian diplomatic facilities to communicate with the Kremlin during the presidential transition, the Post report said, citing communications intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials as Ambassador Sergei Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow.

Russia occasionally attempts to deliberately disclose misleading information when it believes it is being monitored, allowing for the possibility that the request from Kushner did not actually occur, the Post story noted.

ABC News has not independently confirmed this report.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was also present at the meeting between Kushner and Kislyak at which the ambassador “reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate,” the Post reported.

This is not the first time reports of Kushner’s relationships with Russians have surfaced: Kushner and Flynn met with Kislyak together in Trump Tower in December, and Kushner later met with Sergey Gorkov, who runs a bank that drew sanctions from the Obama administration after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Kislyak has been at the center of contacts between Trump administration officials and Russia. The ambassador’s conversations with Flynn prior to Trump’s inauguration led to Flynn’s firing in February after it was revealed that Flynn misled White House officials about the nature of their discussions.

Meetings between Kislyak and Attorney General Jeff Sessions resulted in Sessions’ recusal from investigations into Russian interference in the presidential election and the ambassador was also present two weeks ago when President Trump revealed classified intelligence information during an Oval Office meeting.

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