WASHINGTON _ A "spooked" Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, won't agree to a staff interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley said.
The Iowa Republican said at a committee hearing Thursday that he now plans to release transcripts of the panel's interviews with other participants in a 2016 meeting between Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton and top Trump campaign officials. That means the public could have its first public transcript of Donald Trump Jr.'s account of the meeting soon.
"I had hoped to speak with all the witnesses surrounding the Trump Tower meeting before releasing any interview transcripts, but with the unilateral release of the transcript for Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, it seems to have spooked other potential witnesses," Grassley said. "As a result it looks like our chances of getting a voluntary interview with Mr. Kushner has been shot."
Grassley noted the committee's top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, already has access to the transcript of Kushner's interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee, where she is a senior member, and said he hopes to see it as well.
Grassley said he would discuss how to release the transcripts with Feinstein, and he told reporters he didn't know how soon the Trump Tower material would be made public.
"That section of our investigation is done," Grassley said.
Feinstein released the interview with Simpson, whose firm commissioned a dossier of unverified allegations concerning Trump and Russia. Republicans say the dossier, largely paid for by Democrats and Clinton's campaign, was misused to open the continuing investigations of whether Trump or those around him colluded in Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The announcement by Grassley comes a day after two other Judiciary Committee Democrats, Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse, called on Grassley to share the transcripts with special counsel Robert Mueller, particularly the Trump Jr. interview.
Grassley expressed an openness to reporters to sharing the transcripts with Mueller on Wednesday, but said Mueller hadn't asked for them.
