Jared Kushner 'failed to hand over documents' to Russia investigation

Jared Kushner's lawyer failed to hand over documents detailing a "Russian backdoor overture", a senate committee investigating Russian interference in US politics has found. 

Mr Kushner, who is president Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, also failed to hand over emails concerning Wikileaks, the senate committee told his attorney Abbe Lowell.

In a letter to Mr Lowell on Thursday, Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee's Republican chairman and top Democrat, listed the documents and emails among materials Mr Lowell failed to produce.

Among the list were emails forwarded to a campaign adviser from September 2016 concerning whistle blower group Wikileaks.

Wikileaks published emails from Democratic party accounts shortly before the presidential election and US intelligence agencies have found the emails were hacked from accounts by Russian spies.

The committee wrote to Mr Lowell to tell him he appeared to have "overlooked several documents" requested as part of the committee's investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"Mr. Kushner and we have been responsive to all requests," Mr Lowell said in a statement. 

"We provided the Judiciary Committee with all relevant documents that had to do with Mr. Kushner's calls, contacts or meetings with Russians during the campaign and transition, which was the request. 

"We also informed the committee we will be open to responding to any additional requests and that we will continue to work with White House Counsel for any responsive documents from after the inauguration."

When asked about the letter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred reporters to Mr Lowell. Mr Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Moscow.

Russia has refuted a report by three U.S. intelligence agencies that found the state conducted an operation to skew the 2016 presidential vote in favor of Mr Trump over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Mr Kushner remains a person of interest to the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees, according to a source close to the investigation.

Among other things, investigators want to know if Mr Kushner knew during the 2016 campaign that Russia was hacking Democratic emails in an effort to help Trump. 

They will also try to establish whether the special adviser tried to create a secret back channel between the White House and the Kremlin, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Investigators also want to know if Mr Kushner took part in or knew of any post-election efforts by Mr Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, or others to lift U.S. economic sanctions on Russia in exchange for financial investments or other business deals.

Mr Flynn, a former Army general who led the Defense Intelligence Agency and later was a Trump campaign adviser, was fired in February as national security adviser after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak.

The letter to Mr Lowell also said he had failed to produce "communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Kushner."

Mr Millian, who has used multiple aliases, is a Belarussian-born émigré who in 2006 helped incorporate the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored trips to Russia by U.S. businessmen.

After a December 2011 trip arranged by the chamber and a quasi-governmental agency in Russia called Rossotrudnichestvo, FBI agents questioned participants about whether Russian spies had approached them during the visit, one of the travelers said.

Mr Millian, who met Mr Trump on at least one occasion, has boasted of his ties to the former New York real estate developer and reality television star. He has denied being a Russian spy.