Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 Jared Kushner told reporters Monday he had done nothing wrong, that no collusion with Russia had taken place, and that his father-in-law won in November because he ran a better campaign than Hillary Clinton — not because he got help from Moscow. 
 
 "Let me be very clear. I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner, a senior presidential adviser, said at a podium in front of the White House after more than two hours of questions behind closed doors from staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 
 
 Related: Jared Kushner’s Full Statement to Congress 
 
 "Records and documents I’ve provided will show all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events in a very unique campaign," he said. "I had no improper contacts, I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information." 
 
 He added, "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him." 
 
 Earlier in the day, before Kushner was interviewed by the committee staff, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during the election and transition and denying any collusion with Moscow. 
 
 Among the meetings with Russian officials he addressed in his written statement was a June 2016 sit-down that included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. In his statement, Kushner said that meeting was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. 
 
 Ahead of that meeting, Donald Trump Jr. had been promised potentially damaging information about Clinton, according to emails he released earlier this month — although the president's son has said the meeting did not produce any information and that Veselnitskaya wanted to discuss an adoption program of Russian children. 
 
 Democrats have pounced on the meeting as evidence that Trump Jr. was willing to collude with a foreigner purporting to have information tied to the Russian government to help his father's presidential campaign and influence the results of the election. 
 
 Kushner said in his initial Monday statement that he had not spoken to the lawyer since. "I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently," he said. 
 
 In his statement, Kushner said his first meeting with a Russian official came in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Following a speech there by then-candidate Trump about foreign policy, the event’s host, Dimitri Simes, introduced Kushner "to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak." 
 
 Kushner wrote of two additional meetings with Russian officials, both which occurred after Trump won. 
 
 President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor, Jared Kushner, arrives for a meeting with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 24 in Washington. Win McNamee / Getty Images 
 
 A Dec. 1 meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower "lasted twenty- thirty minutes," where "Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President's National Security Advisor" was also present, Kushner said he "stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President," he wrote. 
 
 Kushner, in his statement, also wrote of a Dec. 13 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, who Kislyak had said "was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together." 
 
 "I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days," Kushner wrote. 
 
 "As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration," Kushner wrote. 
 
 NBC News had reported in June that members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees proving Russian interference might be looking into whether Kushner had been looking for a customer in Moscow to buy the massively expensive 41-story tower at 666 Fifth Avenue from his family's real estate company. 
 
 The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Russia's alleged attempted interference in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the covert operation was intended to damage Clinton's campaign and evolved into an attempt to help Trump win. 
 
 Kushner arrived at Capitol Hill for his interviews around 9:40 a.m., and did not respond to questions being shouted by reporters. 
 
 He emerged more than two hours later, responding to more shouted questions from reporters that his interviews had gone "very well" and that he had answered "as many (questions) as they had." He later spoke to reporters in front of the White House at a podium with the White House seal on it. 
 
 His interview took place in a special area used for classified briefings and meetings called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF. The SCIF is on the second floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, the same place where the Intelligence Committee has held recent interviews with James Clapper, Denis McDonough and Susan Rice. 
 
 Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate panel, said Monday there was a "broad bipartisan expectation" that Kushner would be called before the committee again. ||||| FILE - In this June 22, 2017, file photo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during the "American Leadership in Emerging Technology" event with President Donald Trump in the East Room of... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the Russia investigations (all times local): 
 
 1:25 p.m. 
 
 White House senior adviser and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner says he did not collude with Russia. 
 
 Kushner spoke to reporters at the White House Monday after meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. Kushner told reporters he wanted to be "very clear." He said he "did not collude with Russia nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so." 
 
 Kushner says he "had no improper contacts" with Russia and says his actions were entirely "proper." 
 
 Kushner left his private meeting with Senate investigators, nearly three hours after it began. He delivered a brief statement upon his return to the White House but did not answer reporters' questions. 
 
 __ 
 
 12:30 p.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump's son-in-law has concluded his meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 Jared Kushner left the private meeting around 12:25 p.m., nearly three hours after it began. A man tried to hand him a Russian flag and police stopped him. 
 
 Kushner is to make a public statement from the White House Monday afternoon. 
 
 In a written statement released before the committee meeting, Kushner said he never colluded with Russians looking to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton and does not know of anyone who did. 
 
 He disclosed four interactions with Russians during the campaign and transition, saying he had nothing to hide. Those were with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., a Russian banker and a Russian lawyer said to have damaging information about Clinton. 
 
 Kushner was to meet Tuesday with the House intelligence committee. 
 
 __ 
 
 11:10 a.m. 
 
 House Speaker Paul Ryan says special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, isn't a biased partisan. 
 
 Ryan's comments in a radio interview in Milwaukee come as President Donald Trump repeatedly has dismissed Mueller's investigation as a political witch hunt. 
 
 On the "Jay Weber Show," Ryan was asked why more Republicans aren't defending Trump in light of the Mueller investigation. 
 
 Ryan says the facts uncovered through the Mueller and congressional investigations will "vindicate themselves." And he says there's no question that Mueller is a Republican, noting that he was first appointed FBI director under Republican President George W. Bush in 2001. 
 
 Ryan says, "I don't think many people are saying Bob Mueller is a biased partisan. He's anything but." 
 
 ___ 
 
 9:45 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump's son-in-law has arrived for questioning by Senate investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. 
 
 Jared Kushner is speaking in a closed session Monday to staff on the Senate intelligence committee. Earlier, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. 
 
 Kushner in those prepared remarks says he "did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government." 
 
 Kushner is to meet with lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday. 
 
 __ 
 
 9:20 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump is calling the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel "sleazy" for conducting what he says is a "biased" Russia investigation. 
 
 The president tweeted Monday that "Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into 'Russia,' spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!" 
 
 Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a "witch hunt" spearheaded by Democrats because of the Republican victory in 2016. 
 
 California Rep. Schiff has been an outspoken advocate of hearing testimony from Trump associates on their contacts with Russian officials during last year's election. 
 
 ___ 
 
 9 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump is questioning why those investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by members of his campaign aren't digging into Hillary Clinton's "crimes & Russia relations." 
 
 In doing so, the president took his latest swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, including him in the list of people who he says should be investigating Clinton's potential Russia links. 
 
 Trump tweeted Monday, "So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" 
 
 Sessions recused himself from the investigation earlier this year after it was revealed that he had met with a top Russian diplomat last year. 
 
 Trump condemned Sessions' recusal in a New York Times interview last week, saying he never should have taken the job as attorney general. 
 
 __ 
 
 7:20 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump's son-in-law says he received a "random email" during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trump's tax returns and demanding ransom to keep the information secret. 
 
 Jared Kushner says he interpreted the email as a hoax. Kushner says the email came from a person going by the name "Guccifer400." The name is an apparent reference to Guccifer 2.0, an anonymous hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee's computer systems. 
 
 Kushner says the emailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it. Kushner disclosed the details of the email ahead of a closed-door interview Monday with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. 
 
 __ 
 
 6:33 a.m. 
 
 The son-in-law of President Donald Trump is blaming his assistant for filing a version of his security clearance questionnaire that left off any contacts with foreign governments. 
 
 Jared Kushner says the assistant accidentally filed the questionnaire while it was still being prepared. He says the initial form left off all foreign contacts, not just ones with Russians. Kushner says he eventually disclosed more than 100 contacts with people from more than 20 countries. Kushner says that list includes the King of Jordan, the prime minister of Israel and a high-ranking Mexican government official. 
 
 Kushner is disclosing the information about his foreign contacts just hours before he speaks behind closed doors with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with Trump associates. 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:06 a.m. 
 
 The son-in-law of President Donald Trump says a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. 
 
 That's according to a statement Jared Kushner is providing to congressional committees this week. 
 
 Emails released this month show Donald Trump Jr. accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers. 
 
 Kushner says in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions. He says he texted his assistant to call him out of the meeting. 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:00 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump's son-in-law says that he only had four contacts with Russians during the campaign and presidential transition and that none of them were improper. 
 
 Jared Kusher also says he never colluded with any foreign government during the presidential campaign. He also is denying that Russians finance any of his business in the private sector. 
 
 Kushner is disclosing the information in an 11-page statement provided to The Associated Press. The release of the statement comes just hours before he is to be interviewed by a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates. 
 
 The interview with the Senate intelligence committee is behind closed doors. 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:20 a.m. 
 
 Congressional investigators probing Russia's meddling in the U.S. election will have their first opportunity this week to hear from someone in President Donald Trump's innermost circle: son-in-law Jared Kushner. 
 
 Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president and is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, will talk to staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday behind closed doors. On Tuesday, he'll talk privately to members of the House Intelligence Committee. 
 
 Both panels are investigating Russian interference and possible connections to Trump's campaign. Kushner has attracted attention for a December meeting with a leading Russian diplomat. He oversaw digital strategy for the campaign, and some lawmakers have said they want more answers about whether Russian social media "trolls" were connected to Trump's election efforts. ||||| White House senior adviser Jared Kushner leaves a meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Kushner defends his Russia contacts: 'I did not collude' In his statement to Senate investigators, the president's son-in-law recounts but downplays four meetings with Russians. 
 
 In his first public defense of his meetings with Russian officials during Donald Trump’s campaign and transition, Jared Kushner on Monday presented his encounters with those operatives as innocent interactions, according to testimony submitted to Senate investigators. 
 
 In an 11-page opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is part of the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign, Kushner — now a senior White House adviser — attempted to exonerate himself, writing: “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Instead, the powerful son-in-law painted a picture of himself as a loyal, overworked, and underexperienced senior adviser to his father-in-law during a novice campaign that was never staffed up to win. 
 
 Kushner reiterated the message in a brief statement to reporters gathered outside the White House after testifying to the Senate panel, during which he answered senators’ questions. He took no questions from reporters. 
 
 But the statements, designed to look fully transparent and take Kushner out of the Russia investigation spotlight, appeared to raise more questions about Kushner’s judgment than they answered. 
 
 To wit: The former real estate developer explained the glaring omissions on his security clearance forms — which did not originally include several meetings with Russian officials that have since come to light — as an honest mistake made by his assistant at the time. And like others in the Trump orbit who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Inauguration Day, Kushner also said he had trouble remembering the official after their first brief, previously unreported encounter at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. — the same event at which Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with, but didn’t remember, the Russian ambassador. 
 
 Overall, his account of events “still feels incomplete; it was not fulsome,” Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, said of the testimony. “I still wonder exactly what he discussed with Kislyak,” she said. But more importantly, she added, Kushner’s testimony provides no explanation for why he was cavalier in his interactions with Russians after intelligence community reports that Russia tried to meddle in the U.S. election. 
 
 “After that,” Farkas said, “why not alert the FBI? It doesn’t exhibit good judgment, or concerns for national security or the integrity of our democracy to be taking those meetings with the Russians.” 
 
 The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. 
 
 The testimony also raised questions about how a man who blamed multiple foul-ups on sloppy paperwork, unread emails and misunderstandings, is overseeing such a vast portfolio in the White House. As a top West Wing official, Kushner’s situation does not appear to have changed much since the campaign. He still operates with a bare-bones staff, little bureaucracy and impossible burdens (see: overseeing the Middle East peace process while also innovating the entire federal government). 
 
 “I am not a person who has sought the spotlight,” Kushner said in his opening statement. But he explained that after Trump clinched the Republican nomination, his father-in-law asked Kushner to be the point of contact for foreign governments, and he was in touch with emissaries from 15 countries, including Russia. To put his hectic life and schedule into context — and explain away his presence at a meeting at which a Russian lawyer was hawking opposition research about Hillary Clinton — he also wrote that he typically received about 200 emails a day during the campaign and often didn’t read through every exchange. 
 
 In his opening testimony, Kushner walked through each of his four meetings with the Russians, downplaying all of them as brief, pro forma interactions that led to no follow-ups. 
 
 “I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then,” he wrote of Kislyak, with whom he reportedly tried to set up a communications back channel during the transition. “In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador.” 
 
 Trying to prove his point, he added: “when the campaign received an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from President Putin, I was asked how we could verify it was real. To do so, I thought the best way would be to ask the only contact I recalled meeting from the Russian government, which was the Ambassador I had met months earlier, so I sent an email asking Mr. [Dimitri] Simes [the publisher of a foreign policy magazine], ‘What is the name of the Russian ambassador?’” 
 
 Kushner also responded to a Reuters report that he had two follow-up calls with Kislyak. “A comprehensive review of my landline and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls,” he wrote of the reported calls in April and August 2016. 
 
 His second interaction with a Russian official was the now infamous Donald Trump Jr. meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, that June. 
 
 Kushner claimed he had no idea what he was walking into. An email from his brother-in-law reminded him of the time change to 4 p.m. for the Trump Tower meeting, and Kushner wrote that it was not abnormal to pop into each other’s offices for meetings. “That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time,” he wrote. “Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as ‘Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner.’ No one else was mentioned.” 
 
 The meeting, at which Veselnitskaya, Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and four other people were discussing Russian adoptions — and at which Trump Jr. expected to receive damaging information about Clinton — was outside his purview, he wrote. 
 
 “I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting,’” Kushner wrote. “No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted.” 
 
 His third and final contact with a potential Russian agent, he claimed, was a hoax email he received from a hacker trying to obtain Trump’s tax returns. 
 
 During the transition, he said, his only meeting with Kislyak lasted 23 minutes. 
 
 “I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations,” he wrote of the meeting where Kushner reportedly tried to set up a back channel of communication. It was Kislyak, Kushner wrote, who brought up U.S. policy in Syria and said “he wanted to convey information from what he called ‘his generals.’” 
 
 “He said he wanted to provide information that would help inform the new administration. He said the generals could not easily come to the U.S. to convey this information and he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation,” Kushner added. 
 
 Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Kushner explained to Kislyak that there was not. “I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” he explained, “and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration.” 
 
 Kushner said he declined two attempts by Kislyak in December for a follow-up meeting. Eventually, Kushner sent his assistant instead. It was there that Kislyak recommended that Kushner sit down with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Kremlin-linked Russian bank. All that was exchanged, he said, was a humble piece of art and a bag of dirt from the Belarus village where his grandparents were born. 
 
 “There were no specific policies discussed,” he said. “We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration. At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind.” 
 
 The Putin-linked bank, however, has provided a different explanation. The Washington Post reported that the bank claimed the meeting was part of a new business strategy and that it was held with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos. 
 
 As for the confusion about his security clearance forms, he blamed the omissions on an assistant. 
 
 “[People at my New York office] sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed,” he wrote. “At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017.” 
 
 But lawyers cast doubt on his hurried explanation of the gaps on his security clearance forms. “The idea he’d have his staff fill out the questionnaire is beyond belief itself,” said Nick Akerman, a former assistant Watergate prosecutor, noting the process requires a physical signature. “Someone on this committee has to go through this point by point and take him through this whole process.” 
 
 Kushner is so rarely heard from in public that when he spoke, briefly, at a tech conference earlier this summer, many people joked they didn’t know what his voice sounded like. “It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense,” Kushner noted in his testimony. But it won’t be his last such appearance. 
 
 Kushner, who will face a second grilling by the House on Tuesday, prepared for both sessions with his lawyers. He claimed, at the end of his lengthy statement: “I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required.” 
 
 Sen. Mark Warner, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, said he anticipated additional appearances by Kushner before the committee in the future: “There’s broad bipartisan expectation that we’ll want to hear from Mr. Kushner again.” 
 
 While Kushner and his aides may be hoping to make him a less juicy target than other former Trump officials under investigation, like Manafort and Trump Jr., the statement is only the beginning of the story. 
 
 “The key,” said Peter Zeidenberg, who served on the Justice Department’s special prosecution team during the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation, “will be how this story holds up to a thorough cross-examination.” 
 
 Darren Samuelsohn and Austin Wright contributed to this report.
– With the first of his two days of congressional testimony in the books, Jared Kushner made a rare public statement Monday afternoon to reaffirm his main point: "I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," he said, per the AP. Kushner spoke outside the White House after meeting behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. While he largely reiterated points made earlier in an 11-page statement to Congress, Kushner also suggested that the Russia investigation has political undertones. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," he said, per NBC News. "Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him." Kushner has said all of his actions related to four meetings with Russian nationals were aboveboard, per CNN. He added during his speech that he had "no improper contacts" and has "not relied on Russian funds for my businesses." Kushner is back on Capitol Hill Tuesday, when he again testifies behind closed doors, this time with the House Intelligence Committee. As for that 11-page statement, an analysis by Zack Beauchamp at Vox finds the carefully worded descriptions of the Russian meetings to be incomplete. "The whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team," he writes. Judge for yourself here.