CNN’s Mudd: We Don’t Know If Kushner Said Anything Inappropriate to Russia, Stop Mentioning Treason and Espionage

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” CNN Counterterrorism Analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd argued that while there is a question of judgment in the Jared Kushner Russia backchannel story, “We don’t know what he said and whether anything he said was either inappropriate or illegal,” and the “conversation about treason and espionage has to stop.”

Mudd said, “There are two words we need to drop out of this heated conversation. One is espionage, and the second is treason. There’s a question of judgment here. In the midst of a federal investigation, after the president — at that time, the president-elect of the United States is starting to receive intelligence briefings that presumably include conversations about Russia, there’s a judgment by Jared Kushner and the president’s team that says, I trust the Russians more than I trust the Americans. I’m going to go talk to the Russian embassy, because I don’t trust American channels. We don’t know what he said and whether anything he said was either inappropriate or illegal, and I’m going to presume he did this at the behest of the president-elect of the United States. There’s a question of judgment here, but all this conversation about treason and espionage has to stop. We don’t know.”

(h/t Grabien)

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