Kushner hires top lawyer for Russia probe
Abbe Lowell to join legal team of Trump's son-in-law and adviser, who's said to have received a loan from a bank with ties in Moscow
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser has hired a prominent defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, to represent him in Russia-related investigations.
Jared Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said that Lowell has been added to the team representing Kushner.
Gorelick’s law firm, WilmerHale, is involved in the Russia investigation in multiple ways. Former FBI director Robert Mueller left the firm last month to serve as special counsel overseeing an investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. He took several partners with him.
The firm also represents ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Lowell is one of the country’s most prominent trial lawyers. He won the acquittal of former North Carolina senator John Edwards in a campaign finance prosecution. He also currently represents Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (New Jersey) on bribery charges.
News of Kushner’s decision to hire Lowell on Monday came a day after the Washington Post reported that Kushner had received a $285 million loan a month before the 2016 US presidential election from Deutsche Bank, which at the time was working to settle a federal case over suspicions of mortgage fraud and charges in New York State that it had helped an alleged Russian money laundering plot.
The loan was used to refinance a property owned by Kushner near New York’s Times Square, which he purchased from Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev in 2015, according to the report.
While Kushner is not currently suspected of any wrongdoing in connection with the loan, any appearance of impropriety could draw further scrutiny into his dealings with Russians, including meetings he held in December with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak and the head of head of Russia’s state-owned development bank, the Vnesheconombank, which was slapped with US sanctions in 2014.
In addition to its ties with Kushner, who has as much as $25 million in liabilities to the bank, Deutsche Bank is also Trump’s largest lender, with the US president’s companies owing the German financial company $364 million in outstanding debt, according to the Post.
Democrats have raised concerns over Deutsche Bank’s ties with Trump and his family members, with the party’s members on the House Financial Services Committee having requested in May from the bank that it disclose its findings from an internal probe into whether Trump gained from illicit Russian money. They also suggested that the bank may have conducted a similar review into its ties with Kushner, although he was not mentioned by name.
Deutsche Bank, however, has refused to reveal the findings of its probe, saying they are protected under US privacy laws.