1. "I am voluntarily providing this statement..."
Oscar Pistorius, when applying for bail after being charged with premeditated murder [he is currently in jail because he was convicted of murder] also breezily claimed that he was making his statement voluntarily. Fact is, if Kushner had a choice not to make a statement, he would have, ditto Oscar.
2. "...in order to shed light on issues..."
Why not be specific about it? It's not "issues", it is an allegation of colluding with the Russians to help one's father in law win an election, which would elevate Kushner and his wife into the White House as well. In Oscar's affidavit, in which he commits to "volunteering information", part of this "volunteering" is the strategic admission that he fails to understand how he is charged with murder, and can he please be furnished with proof, so that he be allowed to defend himself. See how quickly the open-handed "I'm just being honest here" actually becomes a legal ploy about finding room to manoeuvre when there is very little left?
3. "I am not a person who sought the spotlight..."
Well, then why not stay out of the White House, and out of Trump's campaign? Why walk on the stage when Trump accepted his nomination? Oscar also notes in his affidavit that he's not obligated in any way to provide any merits in terms of his case. He's sort of saying he's doing this as a favour, and at some inconvenience to himself. Well, when someone is murdered in your house, it's not about inconveniencing yourself when explaining what happened. The reason you're in court is because there is no obvious explanation.
4. "I have left it to others to work on media and public perception..."
Interesting words Kushner uses. Public perception. He is well aware that perceptions can be and are being manipulated [just not by him]. Kushner's attendance at a meeting to discuss Russia's ability to help them influence the elections was all about having an agency be to blame, even though the bottom line was a quid pro quo. Russia was offering Trump and his associates something [a way to undermine Clinton and the DNC], and in exchange, the Russian's wanted something. It was a transaction. Oscar Pistorius hired a PR firm and a representative to protect his million dollar image during the first part of his prison term. Once he was convicted for murder the PR disappeared, because the whole idea of a murderer having an image to protect is asinine [unless you're OJ Simpson, and even then, it's clearly bizarre].
5. "I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight..."
The allegations of Russian meddling came up as early as September 2016 during the election debates. Kushner's meeting was in June, giving them a perfect window of two months to prepare and execute. It's noteworthy that the first email dump [from Russia to Wikipedia of the DNC emails] took place just a few hours after the Access Hollywood slur. In other words, Trump was waiting for a good time to counterpunch a slur, to drop a bigger bomb when a PR hand grenade was flung by the Clinton campaign. So why did he wait until mid 2017 to "set the record" straight? He'd known about his meeting for over a year, and ought to have been painfully aware of the controversy surrounding Trump and Russia. Also, he only made a statement following Don Jnr's statement, which essentially implicated Kushner. So far from being grateful, Kushner was simply trying to extinguish a PR fire. Clearly if he could have avoided "setting the record straight..." indefinitely he would have.
6. "My experience was in business...it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law's campaign..."
This is interesting. If it wasn't Kushner's intent to play a role in Trump's campaign, whose was it? The word "large" is also interesting. Kushner seems to be suggesting both that he didn't intend to play a large role and that ultimately he didn't play a large role. But it seems like he did, like his role in the campaign was large. That's the issue. How large was it? It's a nice duck though from volunteering this information to sort of going backwards and saying it wasn't my idea to play a large role. Forget about that, what exactly was your role Mr. Grateful To Set The Record Straight.
7. "I was called to assist...and took on more and more responsibility..."
Vague terms. Who called you? When? To assist with what? What exactly were you responsible for?
8. "My role continued to evolve..."
Still fudging. What were you doing matters, not that what you did changed.
9. "I ultimately worked with the finance, scheduling, communications, speechwriting, polling, data and digital teams as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials..."
Wow, it's taken this far to actually say something. It's been a lot of smelly, obtrusive shit and diarrhea to get to this point, and what we have is an admission that Kushner was pretty much involved in fucking everything. So much for a dude who doesn't like the limelight or doesn't care about public perception. A campaign - with its polls, speechwriting and data analysis - is all about a strategic effort to shape public perception. That's all it is, and Kushner, Mr Shining Book Report, is absolutely central to all of it.
The real issue is whether his role was defined from the outset or whether it evolved. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Roger Stone laid it on thick right at the beginning, telling Team Trump: if you go up against Clinton you can't win without getting your hands dirty. We can only win by making her lose. She's got to come out of this looking dirtier and slimier than we do. So what is our weakness? Our dishonesty. We've got to make her look more dishonest. What else? Donald's attitude to women. We've got to make her attitudes look worse.
In other words, that's a strategy set out at the outset. Like premeditated murder, you've got to know what outcome you want before you execute. It doesn't evolve along the way. And you need the right weapons and alibi for the job. In Kushner's case that means putting the right guy in place to pull the various strings in the game, and the alibi of course is Russia. We didn't smear Clinton, the Russians did [and can you blame them]. Well what the fuck is Russia doing having a meeting with Team Trump if not to ask: hey guys, do you want us to hack the DNC [Don Jnr: I love it]. Okay then, we'll do it, but then we need something in return.
It's also huge that at the end of that statement, and notice he leaves it for the end, Kushner adds: "...as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials..." Holy shit so he is the point man for all these meetings with Putin's point men...dudes like Kislyak [Russian ambassador to the US], Gorkov [chairman of a state run Russian bank], Dasha Zhukova [wife of Abramovich, a Russian oligarch]. Akhmetshin [a Russian lobbyist associated with the KGB]. Veselnitskaya...and so on.
If Kushner is meeting all these people, and he's working on "data and digital teams" then he's the point guy on the American side executing the whole scheme. Think about it. If Trump needed to rely on someone on the inside, but not too far in [like his daughter or son in law], and not too far out, then a son-in-law was perfect. And from Kushner's perspective, if he pulled the rabbit out of the hat and got dad-in-law elected president, then he automatically achieved diplomatic immunity from teacher for cheating on his book report. Screw his classmates, the teacher's pet couldn't be touched because the teacher had just become principal.
10. "All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously..."
Here Kushner is invoking the legal idea of precedent. It's a little like saying I've never shot my girlfriend in a door, so I didn't shoot my girlfriend through the door. Except this is Kushner saying I've never colluded with the Russians before on a presidential campaign, so I didn't collude with the Russians to get my father-in-law elected now. Except, it seems he did.
Fact is he did have business dealings with the Russians previously, so it made sense to have Kushner expand in a role - "being a point of contact with foreign government officials..." made perfect sense.
11. "When I was faced with a new challenge [like Russian hacking] I would reach out to contacts [like Kislyak?] and ask for advice, find the right person to manage the specific challenge [Veselnitskaya? Akhmetshin?] and execute the plan of action [the email dump, make it happen at 4pm...]"
Kushner seems to be saying here: hey, it wasn't just me...
Oscar also makes his ultimate defense in his murder charge, hey, it wasn't just me in that house, there was a burglar [or at least, I thought there was...]
12: "nimble culture...fast-paced campaign...viewed through the lens...thousands of meetings...some memorable, some not..."
Here we have the first signs of manipulation. Once again, not only were there lots of other people involved, not just me, so much was happening at once I should be forgiven for becoming confused. [In other words, when offered the chance to conspire, collude with the Russians, a seminal event in the entire election/when preparing to murder my girlfriend, a seminal event in one's home, and life], I sort of was caught up in things, and it should be seen in that "lens". Really?
In Oscar affidavit he also clouds his own culpability and the facts surrounding the murder by invoking "being asleep" and the place being "pitch dark". This allows for the possibility of cognitive confusion and ignorance, which is a classic giveaway.
In essence, the ruse of "volunteering information" actually amounts to strategic confirmations and strategic misdirections meant to confuse or muddle an investigation. Again, the whole point of the statement is nail something down that passes a sort of common sense test [oh, so he does have a reasonable version, a reasonable explanation]. Of course, that is the whole issue driving the process: how are you involved in this illegal act? The response is to provide some sort of excuse that explains an association that is reasonable. Ultimately little pieces of information are admitted where absolutely necessary, and little pieces omitted and distorted. It is then up to the resolve and intelligence of anyone analysing the statement to read between the lines and pursue it.
By putting up a statement, the idea is also to say, my lawyers are prepared to defend this, are yours prepared to pursue it? Well, I hope your resources are as much as mine...
12 points and I've only gotten to the end of page 1. Shall I continue?
Read Jared Kushner s Statement on Russian by The Guardian on Scribd
Oscar Pistorius affidavit by CityPress on Scribd
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