At home, Trump faces growing inquiries

In this Wednesday, May 3, 2017, file photo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, in Washington.
In this Wednesday, May 3, 2017, file photo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, in Washington.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his maiden trip abroad was a "home run" before heading back to Washington, where his top aides have been trying to contain the fallout from reports that Trump's son-in-law has drawn scrutiny in investigations involving Russia.

The White House canceled a presidential trip to Iowa and was putting together a damage-control plan to expand the president's legal team, reorganize his communications staff and wall off a scandal that now involves Jared Kushner, who also is a key adviser.

Federal investigators and several congressional committees are looking into any connections between Russia and the Trump campaign, including whether there was any collaboration to help Trump and harm his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

On Saturday, The Associated Press confirmed that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, requested information and documents earlier this month from Trump's campaign.

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The Washington Post first reported the request, which covers materials such as emails, phone records and documents dating to Trump's first days as a candidate in July 2015.

Those inquiries now include scrutiny of Kushner, the newspaper reported.

The White House was trying to determine how to respond to reports that Kushner had spoken in December with Russia's ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, about establishing a secret channel between his father-in-law's transition team and Moscow to discuss the war in Syria and other issues. The Post first reported on the suggestion Friday, and three people informed about the issue confirmed it to The New York Times.

The discussion took place at Trump Tower at a meeting that also included Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump's national security adviser before being forced out when it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about a separate telephone conversation he had with Kislyak.

It was unclear who first proposed the secret communications channel, but officials said the idea was for Flynn to speak directly with a Russian military official.

The channel was never set up.

The reports about Kushner dominated a briefing Saturday in Taormina, Italy, at the end of Trump's nine-day trip.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser, and Gary Cohn, his top economic adviser, declined to comment specifically on Kushner but sought to play down the significance of the disclosures.

"We have back channel communications with a number of countries," McMaster said. "It allows you to communicate in a discreet manner."

He added that he "would not be concerned" about such a communications system.

In response to repeated questions from reporters, Cohn said: "We're not going to comment on Jared. We're just not going to comment."

Trump's private legal team, led by his New York lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, meanwhile was preparing to meet in Washington to face fresh questions about contacts between Kushner and representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Aides have recruited prominent Washington lawyers with experience in political investigations for Trump to interview in hopes that they might join the legal team.

Kushner, who organized the president's Middle East stops at the start of the foreign trip, chose to return to Washington several days ago and has kept a low profile since then. But he has no plans to step down from his role as senior adviser or to reduce his duties, according to people close to him.

Still, he has told friends that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, have made no long-term commitment to remain by Trump's side, saying they would review every six months whether to return to private life in New York.

Kushner's new relevance in the investigation is only one facet of the struggles facing the administration. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, and Steve Bannon, the president's chief strategist, also returned from Trump's trip early, in part to deal with the political furor over the Russia investigations and the president's decision to fire James Comey as FBI director.

RNC meeting

Separately, amid the mounting questions about Russia, three members of Trump's family -- his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and Eric's wife, Lara -- were said to have met privately with GOP leaders to share their concerns.

The Trumps visited the Republican National Committee's headquarters in Washington on Thursday. The three family members, who were invited by the RNC, stayed for about two hours, according to four people who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Their appearance at the RNC irked at least two prominent Republicans who were briefed on the session. They questioned whether it was appropriate for the president's sons, who run the Trump family's real estate business, to be highly involved in discussing the party's strategy and resources.

White House officials declined to comment Saturday on the meeting.

Two other people familiar with the meeting said it was appropriate for the president's sons and daughter-in-law, who all volunteered for Trump's campaign, to huddle with Republican leaders and offer their perspective on what would be most helpful to Trump ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential race.

Two others, also familiar with the meeting, insisted that the Trump family did not pressure the RNC to follow their suggestions or to let them control aspects of the party.

Several RNC figures and Trump allies also attended the Thursday meeting: RNC Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel; RNC Chief of Staff Sara Armstrong; former Trump campaign digital strategist Brad Parscale; Trump campaign committee director Michael Glassner; and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh, who now advises a pro-Trump nonprofit group.

Another person briefed on the meeting said the family members made clear that they were frustrated with the way, in their view, the president has been drawn into various controversies and that they want the Republican Party to do what it can to help reignite his political base.

Republican strategists, meanwhile, said it was vital for Trump to focus on advancing a legislative agenda to show voters that the administration could deliver policy changes and to allay lawmakers' simmering fears that the president's troubles could damage their re-election chances.

"What they need to do is crank up the legislative side of things and say, 'OK, that's going on, and Trump's going to be Trump,' but meanwhile, they're actually working to get some kind of health care plan through the Senate, some kind of tax reform, and do what they promised they would," said Rich Galen, a top adviser to Newt Gingrich when he was the House speaker during Bill Clinton's presidency.

The Saturday news conference, led by McMaster and Cohn, grew tense at one point, in part over frustrations that Trump had refused to hold a news conference of his own or answer questions in an extended format with journalists during his foreign trip.

U.S. presidents traditionally hold news conferences when they travel overseas.

Cohn defended Trump's decision to evade the news media, citing the president's "robust" travel schedule.

"The president, since he left [Washington], has been dealing with foreign leaders, he's been dealing with jobs, he's been dealing with economic growth, he's been dealing with diplomacy, he's been dealing with unfair trade, he's been dealing with Paris [climate agreement], he's been dealing with China."

Cohn added: "His agenda has been overflowing. He's been fully consumed with what's going on here."

Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Peter Baker and Mark Landler of The New York Times; by Vivian Salama, Eileen Sullivan, Julie Bykowicz, Chad Day and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press; and by Philip Rucker and Robert Costa of The Washington Post.

A Section on 05/28/2017

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