Well here we go again.

Kushner Is Said to Have Discussed a Secret Channel to Talk to Russia
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZOMAY 26, 2017

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according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.
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three people said.
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people familiar with
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The three people were not authorized to discuss the December meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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News of the discussion was first reported by The Washington Post.
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yada, yada, yada

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/po...&pgtype=article

The source of the NYT articel:

Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin
By Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous and Greg Miller May 26 at 7:01 PM

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according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.
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according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials
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people familiar with the matter say
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officials said.
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yada, yada, yada

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat...m=.04fb36b9fb89

Alan Dershowitz's take:

Alan Dershowitz: Civil Liberties Threatened With Kushner Probe
By Todd Beamon | Thursday, 25 May 2017 10:45 PM

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday that reports that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was under FBI scrutiny on Russia pointed to an inquiry that was "being done backwards" and "raises great concerns about civil liberties."

"Usually, you can point to a statute and say, 'We're investigating crime under this statute,'" Dershowitz told Anderson Cooper on CNN before referencing special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

"What Mueller seems to be doing is saying: 'We don't like what happened. Maybe there was some collaboration. But I can't figure out what statute was being violated.'

"When Hillary Clinton was being investigated, at least we knew what the statute was."

The Washington Post and NBC News reported on Thursday that the FBI was investigating Kushner's meetings last year with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow.

Jamie Gorelick, Kushner's lawyer, said that her client would cooperate with the probe.

"Mr. Kushner previously volunteered with Congress what he knows about these meetings," she said in a statement. "He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry."

Dershowitz had some advice for Gorelick, whom he said was a former student.

"I would say, first to the investigators: 'Before you talk to my client, I want to know what your authority is. What your jurisdiction is.'"

Laking that foundation, Dershowitz likened the Kushner inquiry to the words of Joseph Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria: "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

"I don't like criminal investigations to start on hoping that once you have the target, maybe we'll find the crime, maybe we'll find the statute – and if we can't find the statute, we'll stretch the statute to fit the person.

"I don't want to ever see that come to America."

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/alan-der...5/25/id/792471/

A Blast from the not so distant past:


Inside Obama’s Secret Outreach to Russia
The U.S. has been working behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, even enlisting Henry Kissinger.
by Josh Rogin
December 31, 2014, 10:59 AM EST

President Barack Obama's administration has been working behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little interest in repairing relations with Washington or halting his aggression in neighboring Ukraine.

This month, Obama's National Security Council finished an extensive and comprehensive review of U.S policy toward Russia that included dozens of meetings and input from the State Department, Defense Department and several other agencies, according to three senior administration officials. At the end of the sometimes-contentious process, Obama made a decision to continue to look for ways to work with Russia on a host of bilateral and international issues while also offering Putin a way out of the stalemate over the crisis in Ukraine.

“I don’t think that anybody at this point is under the impression that a wholesale reset of our relationship is possible at this time, but we might as well test out what they are actually willing to do,” a senior administration official told me. “Our theory of this all along has been, let's see what’s there. Regardless of the likelihood of success.”

Leading the charge has been Secretary of State John Kerry. This fall, Kerry even proposed going to Moscow and meeting with Putin directly. The negotiations over Kerry’s trip got to the point of scheduling, but ultimately were scuttled because there was little prospect of demonstrable progress

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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/...reach-to-russia