The Washington Post reporter by lining the story for us. Ellen thanks very much for joining us, the secret Communications Channel, your sources are telling you it was kushner who originally raised this idea, is that right . Yes, thats right. According to sources who have reviewed intelligence collecting by use of intelligence agencies. Jared kushner, proposed this secret secure channel at a meeting at trump power in december, with the Russian Ambassador. Talk a little bit about this secret channel, this Communications Channel, it was going to, what, be based at the Russian Embassy in washington . Thats what it sounds like, now, we caution that this is based on reporting by kislayak, up to the superiors in moscow. That reporting was captured on intercepts. And, you know, this could be russian intelligence agencies are known sometimes to put disinformation into their feeds in order to sow confusion. Intelligence officials exaggerate at point, but if this is true, it means kushner was seeking a secure channel during the transition period, with the government of an adversary that the intelligence agencies had concluded had meddled in the president ial election, to help donald trump get elected. What would be your understanding, why kushner exactly wanted a setup like this at the Russian Embassy . We dont know for sure why, whether indeed this is true, but apparently, the idea was to have a secure means of communicating, if that would be beyond, you know, the reach of u. S. Intelligence agencies or other intelligence agencies, will submit to keep their channel of communications very private. In other words, have a dialogue with the kremlin that the u. S. Presumably would not be able to monitor or others in the u. S. Intelligence agency, is that what youre suggesting . Thats the suggestion, yes. I know before you publish this in the Washington Post, you went to Jared Kushner, you went to the white house, you went to others to get their reaction. What are they saying to you . The white house has declined to comment, so we dont have any public reaction from them. What about Jared Kushner, have you spoken to his attorney, a former Deputy Attorney general in the clinton administration, what did she say. She referred our query to the white house, and the white house declined to comment. The white house has declared to comment, Jared Kushner is declining to comment. But theres intercepted conversations between sergey kislayak, whos is Russian Ambassador to the United States, with top kremlin officials, alleging in that conversation that Jared Kushner met with him and proposed setting up this secret Communications Channel through the Russian Embassy in washington, thats the gist of your bomb shell report, right, ellen . You got it. Ellen, from the Washington Post, with us, about her reporting. There are some excellent people here, phil mudd, dana bash, former attorney general of the United States, michael mukasey, phil mud, you worked at the cia, you know about these issues, you have read it now, you heard ellen, what is your reaction . You see thing over 30 years in washington, d. C. , and you never think youll be surprised, and history proves you wrong, this is not surprising, stunning, if this is true, lets step through a timeline, in the summer of 2016, somebody receives a president ial nomination, in this case, in the republican party, its donald trump, hes cleared to receive top secret briefings. In early december, his soninlaw, if this report is correct, decides to go to the Russian Embassy, which has a primary responsibility of spying on america, and saying i want to subvert the american bureaucracy. There was actually a conversation at trump tower, talking about establishing communications, outside the u. S. Bureaucracy to talk to the russians, remember, less than a month later, president of the United States, president obama sang shctions the russians. Remember, President Trump during the preinauguration period about russian involvement in the elections, he sanctions the russians for this and says that the russians interfered with the american election, in all the things that we have seen since this Russian Investigation broke, i have never seen anything like it. You have seen plenty of opportunities for americans to have diplomatic back channels with other governments. This is different, though, this is actually having a back channel, but using the Communications Capabilities of that other government. Lets be clear, a back channel means i want to have a conversation thats not available to the public, that the media will never see, we have a campaign thats not in power yet, going to an adversary, this is not just using the communications of an embassy, this is communications with an adversary, which has just had its spies thrown out 269 United States, and saying i want to use your communications, which means i trust you more than us, youve got to be kidding. This is a very stunning report, once again if true. No question, i will say in terms of caution, and they know this in the Washington Post piece, but its important to underscore the information that theyre basing this on, are reports that the Russian Ambassador gave to moscow. Meaning he talked about basically youre not going to believe what just happened, Jared Kushner, saying he wants to have Russian Communications that, information was gleaned by what kislayak, the Russian Ambassador told moscow. So the caution i would say is that the russians are, you know, very good at smoke and mirrors and very good at understanding that the americans are listening, and the question is, whether or not kislayak knew that the russians were missing and inflated thark whatever to maker him look good, or to make Jared Kushner look bad, or just to throw them off their gairm. These reporters, these officials they talk to say, the history shows that the communications they listened to with kislayak tend to be pretty accurate. The silence from the white house from Jared Kushners lawyers, they have plenty opportunity in the course of today to say this is a phony story, this is not true. Theyre not commenting on this at all. And that silence, as you and i know, dana, this is a very thunderous sign. It could be deafening, at the end of the day, if this were a story that happened in a vacuum, it would be an overwhelm my god moment, its not in a vacuum, it completely feeds into a narrative, not just a narrative, a very real and congressional simultaneous probe that are going on into what went on in the trump world during the campaign, but this was obviously after the campaign and it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, never mind straws being on the floor. Michael mukasey, theres a lot certainly that we do not know, were relying on this Washington Post reporting, but heres a question, wouldnt there be anything illegal about Jared Kushner wanting to protect his communications from the russians. I dont think it would be anything illegal, but lets take a step back, here is a report that is gotten from a communications source, ie, the russians talking to the russians that say that Jared Kushner wants to communicate with us over what . A different one from the one that kislayak was using . I seriously doubt it. In other words, he is saying on a channel of communication that he has every reason to believe is going to be intercepted. That Jared Kushner wants to communicate with the russians over a communication channel that may also very well be intercepted. I dont know if thats true, but it sounds very surprising. Theres a lot that sounds very surprising, as you and i know, there are u. S. Officials who want to have back channel conversations with other governments, including some governments not all that friendly to the United States, but if you do it through their embassy, thats pretty surprising, heres the question, though, why wouldnt Jared Kushners attorney, the white house, flatly deny this story if there is nothing there . I have no idea, and it may very well be that they would prefer to talk in context about the entire issue of what they want what the fbi wants to talk to them about and what they dont, rather than swatting down individual stories, when i say swatting down, i dont mean any disrespect to ellen, who i know and like with and who i dealt with when i was in d. C. And who is a good reporter. This is as i pointed out over a line of communications that ambassador kislayak had every reason to believe was being intercepted. I want to get your reaction, youre a former federal prosecutor. This activity seems to be continuing to invite scrutiny, and more than just scrutiny, it invites criminal exposure. The term collusion is still a very nebulous concept. We havent defined it or attached it to a criminal content yet. The more scrutiny they give the actual deserved and warranted based on Something Like this. The more youre trying to have conversation where is youre trying not to alert the American Public or the American Government needs to have more than an eyebrow raised by intelligence investigators. The reason ckushner is no longer now that theres even more expoesz sure there, i did examine him to clam up a little bit and to be very guarded in any communication he gives from now on, which is odd considering that he had community skagss with the russians in a back channel. The only thing i can why he would want to have a russian Communications Channel with the kremlin, out of fear that if they did a u. S. Channel, it would be intercepted, the u. S. Would know about that, is that during this transition, they didnt want Obama Administration officials to know about this back channel that he was establishing through kislayak, the Russian Ambassador to washington. The two words that come to mind is one that laura said, in talk to the white house, theres no evidence of collusion, going to the Russian Ambassador and telling him they to me that sounds an awful lot like colluding with an adversary. If this story is true, if in fact that kislayak was intercepted by the u. S. Intelligence community as saying to his bosses in the kremlin, if he was just trying to sow some sort of discord and cause some troubles with the russians obviously do from time to time. They have done a really good job of doing in the last two years. The other word is concealment, what is the pattern of all the facts we know. Whether its Jeff Sessions and not disclosing his contacts with the Russian Ambassador, whether it is Michael Flynn the former National Security advisor to trump. The russian bank chief and apparently whos sanctioned by the u. S. Whos sanctioned by the u. S. And now the Washington Post w reports, was looking for a back channel. We have a pattern of senior Trump Officials concealing conversations with essentially russian spies, and of course you throw into that the president of the United States, when he gets in office, taking several steps to shut down the investigation of all this. Theres a lot of smoke right now. As a lot of us remember, its reported in the Washington Post story, in that early december meeting that donald trump had with ambassador kislayak, Michael Flynn who would become the president s National Security advisor was in that conversation as well. Michael flynn is tied into these meeting that are not disploeszed. As ryan was saying, this story today was big, but its big because of all the other stories, within the last 24 hours, just to remind everyone, nbc news and cnn both had stories regarding continuing focus of Jared Kushner, related to his data mining capacity and his Data Mining Program during the campaign. Now you have those stories, you have then during the transition, his outreach, i think were using the term back channel incorrectly, actually i think this is back channel is i want to Start Talking about the cubans, so we go to the pope to do that. This is Jared Kushner going rogue, right . I think the only question now that remains is that we are so close, not to sound dramatic, but i will be, we were close to the oval office and i think the question is, why are all these guys doing this . Are they doing it to protect themselves . Or to protect donald trump . I think that we now have to ask that question. Because there are too many people, too close to trump who he is projecting, who is trying to undermine, or change the figures, and i just dont know what their motivation is, sit personal dealings or is it something bigger. We are at the oval office door, we are at the Senior Adviser to the to President Trump. Steve hall, youre a former cia russia expert, with this sort of alleged communication system, with the russians, through the Russian Embassy in washington, involving a top adviser to the president elect of the United States, would that be a. The short answer to your question is it would be unprecedented. I dont understand why it is that Jared Kushner, if he wants some sort of thats what were calling it so ill stay with that, why if Jared Kushner wants some back channel back to moscow, why would he go to the ambassador kislayak and say i want to use Russian Communications systems, all he has to do if he wants a secure and back channel conversation with moscow, is to talk to ambassador kislayak, who would then turn around and secure Russian Communications, not open lines back to moscow, to communicate whatever it is that kushner wanted to keep to himself with the Russian Ambassador. All you got to do is talk to anybody in the Russian Embassy and it will get back to moscow, very securely. The only thing im troubled by is the whole idea of kushner talking to kislayak, the bottom line is in a couple of weeks after the inauguration, you go back to the timeline, hes got to talk to the russians anyway or to the trump administration, so unless it was something that was incredibly timely, that at that moment that other people in the trump team didnt want obama to know about and he desired some secret back channel, why not just wait until you are actually in power. I dont know if theres something timely there going on. This is all kind of weird, and im not sure that i can explain it without getting more detail about how this all went down, its very unusual. The fact that Michael Flynn was at that early december meeting with kislayak and Jared Kushner, and he emerged as the president s National Security advisor. Certainly during the transition as well. I assume in a meeting like that, he would be playing a significant role, right . Sure, absolutely he would, and i think a lot has been made, perhaps too much, but a lot has been made about these early contacts with kislayak, protocol theres issues there, optics probably didnt look good, given what we knew and what we know about the russian intention to mess with u. S. Elections, but at the end of the day, these people were going to be in power, the trump team to include Michael Kushner were going to be in office, and perhaps it was a little inopportuinopportune. I want to have everyone stand by, theres a lot more happening, were following the breaking news. Also coming up, why the fbi director, the former fbi director james comey, let a piece of russian intelligence, which he knew to be fake drive his decision to denounce Hillary Clintons email habits and seriously affect the president ial election. 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