President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner lost his top lawyer Friday, who said she will no longer represent him on Russia-related inquiries and would focus on “wrapping up” she was originally hired to do — namely ethics compliance and other disclosures.
Yahoo News reported that Jamie Gorelick, a former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, was turning over all responsibilities for the Russia probe to Washington criminal defense lawyer Abbe Lowell.
Lowell has represented clients including disgraced Democratic Sen. John Edwards and American lobbyist Jack Abramoff and will exclusively represent Kushner in inquiries from congressional committees and FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Yahoo reported. Gorelick would instead focus on “wrapping up” her works on Kushner’s ethics compliance.
The shift comes as pressure increases on Kushner over his alleged contact with foreign officials and his presence at a meeting last year between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer with alleged links to the Kremlin.
Axios reported Thursday that Trump lawyers are looking to “wall off” Kushner from President Trump over concerns that Kushner keeps discussing the investigation with the president.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Kushner faces additional scrutiny as he not only works in the White House (unlike Trump Jr.), but also he did not mention the meeting on forms he filled out for a background check to obtain a security clearance. Those emails were discovered in recent weeks by Kushner’s legal team, who then amended his clearance forms.
Kushner is set to cooperate in the upcoming weeks with both the House and Senate intelligence committee probes into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The National Law Journal noted that Gorelick’s withdrawal was particularly notable, as she had also campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was a frontrunner for the job of attorney general if Clinton had won the presidency. She had also been under what the outlet calls “intense criticism” for her representation of Kushner from D.C. insiders.
But sources told Yahoo News that Gorelick’s days were numbered as Kushner’s top lawyer once Lowell was hired over a month ago, as it would be rare for two prominent lawyers to share responsibility in such a probe.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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