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Jan. 6 committee expected to interview Jared Kushner

The president's son-in-law is expected to sit for a virtual interview with the committee investigating the Capitol riot on Thursday.
Image: Jared Kushner
Jared Kushner in the briefing room with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in Washington on April 2.Win McNamee / Getty Images file

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is expected to interview former President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, this week.

Kushner is expected to sit for a voluntary interview in a virtual meeting Thursday, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. His expected appearance was first reported by ABC News.

The interview would make Kushner — who was a senior adviser to Trump in the White House — the highest-ranking member of the administration to appear before the committee, as well as the first Trump family member.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée, who worked for Trump's campaign, met with the committee for a virtual interview last month. The interview was derailed when she refused to participate after she found out the meeting included committee members, not just staffers. She has since been subpoenaed to testify.

Asked about Kushner's impending interview Tuesday at the daily White House briefing, communications director Kate Bedingfield said the "White House has decided not to assert executive privilege over the testimony of Jared Kushner" and his wife, Ivanka Trump. 

Asked whether that message had been relayed to Kushner's team, Bedingfield declined to comment. "I won’t speak to private communications between our attorneys and his," Bedingfield said.

Kushner was out of the country working on the Abraham Accords in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021, and didn't return from Saudi Arabia until the day of the riot.

His name, however, appeared to surface in the investigation this week, when The Washington Post and CBS News reported on text messages in the committee's possession between then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, after the 2020 election. In one, dated Nov. 13, 2020, Thomas wrote: “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am. Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.”

NBC News has not independently reviewed the messages. A source familiar with the materials confirmed their veracity.

At a committee meeting Monday night, the panel discussed asking Ginni Thomas to sit for an interview. The chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said afterward that no decision had been made.

The panel has been in talks with Ivanka Trump to voluntarily participate in an interview. She was in the White House on Jan. 6 and was reported to have urged her father to speak out against the violence at the Capitol.