Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jared Kushner Pushed Trump To Fight Back Against Special Counsel

Jared Kushner has been widely described as the moderating force in President Trump’s White House.

But he may be about to lose this title.

According to the New York Times, when Trump huddled with his close advisers Wednesday evening seeking a response to the decision to appoint a special counsel for the Russian investigation, Kushner was the one pushing his father-in-law to fight back.

Two administration officials told the Times that Kushner was among the few “urging the president to counterattack,” but he was outnumbered. Trump agreed to go with a carefully-worded statement stating his determination to move on.

Still, Kushner, who was behind the idea of firing FBI director James Comey, may have had the last word once again. Thursday morning, President Trump took to twitter and seemed to have followed his son-in-laws advise. He lashed out at the decision, blamed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and called the move “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.