WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner is scheduled to answer questions from the House panel investigating last year’s insurrection at the Capitol Thursday in a private interview conducted remotely, a person familiar with the plans said.
There’s been no sign that Kushner intends to refuse the committee’s invitation to voluntarily appear, the person said. The select committee also has requested an interview with Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump. The White House said on Tuesday that it would reject any assertion of executive privilege by Kushner or Ivanka Trump to avoid questioning.
Kushner would be the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to talk with congressional investigators probing the events before, during and days after the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by a mob of the former president’s supporters.
He was traveling back to the U.S. from abroad when the Capitol riot began. The committee has disclosed that it has testimony placing Ivanka Trump in the Oval Office the morning of Jan. 6, when her father spoke by phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over a joint session of Congress to certify the electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election. Trump had been pressuring Pence to block the certification. The vice president refused and was later evacuated from the Senate chamber when the mob broke into the building.
Several other former Trump advisers have refused to testify, citing executive privilege despite the Biden administration’s rejection of such claims. The most recent are former White House aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro. The committee on Monday unanimously approved a recommendation to the full House that Scavino and Navarro be held in criminal contempt of Congress. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday the House would take it up next week.
