Michael Cohen, former attorney and so-called "fixer" for Donald Trump, believes Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are turning against the former president as more witnesses offer insight into his role during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who formerly served as his senior adviser throughout most of his presidency, testified to a grand jury as part of an investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice's (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith—whose work on another case involving Trump and his alleged misuse of classified documents led to the former president's second indictment, which Trump has denied in addition to other charges against him.
Kushner is reportedly among several witnesses to have testified to a grand jury as part of Smith's investigation, according to The New York Times. The businessman married to Trump's eldest daughter was reportedly asked if Trump privately admitted to losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, yet continued to push false narratives about the results being "rigged" as a result of alleged widespread voter fraud.
"Based upon the plethora of reporting surrounding Jared and Ivanka's profiting off their positions as senior advisors [sic] to the President [Donald Trump], coupled with the unholy relationship with Saudi and MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman], the fact that they are not both under significant investigations leads me to believe they are informants," Cohen told Newsweek via email on Friday. "Anyone else would have been indicted, prosecuted and convicted."
Newsweek reached out to Kushner's attorney, Abbe Lowell, via email for comment.
Kushner's ties to Saudi Arabia have been amplified after his Affinity Fund allegedly reportedly received $2 billion, according to The Washington Post in February. The political ties with the country have been compared to alleged financial gain accumulated by President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, with both individuals using their family's positions for great benefit.
"Why would Jack Smith bring Jared Kushner to the table unless you already knew what Jared is going to say," Cohen told CNN's John Berman on Thursday. "There is no way that Jack Smith brought Jared in there to impeach, you know, the information, or the testimony that he has. That is just not how the grand jury system works."
Cohen opined that the influx of investigations into Trump coupled with Kushner and Ivanka Trump wanting to separate themselves from such legal entanglements has caused the familial relationship to go "south."
He also referred to them as "inside moles," adding that he has no information to prove it.
"Jared does not want to see the inside of a prison cell," Cohen said. "He knows what it's like through his father's eyes, he knows how difficult it was for him and his siblings. He doesn't want to do the same thing to his children."
Kushner's father, Charles, served 14 months in an Alabama prison after being prosecuted by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—who also worked in the Trump administration and is squaring off against the current Republican frontrunner in the 2024 GOP primaries—for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005.
Karen Agnifilo, a former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney, told Newsweek via phone on Friday that reports of Kushner's testimony lend her to believe that the former president, if charged, will be charged alone.
"I think [Smith] wanted to lock [Kushner] in," Agnifilo said. "I think he wanted to get him under oath so that he can't change his testimony later on. Jack Smith knows what the defenses are and what he's gonna say, and get any words that Trump said to him and try to figure out what Trump's strategy is."
Agnifilo continued: "Even Bill Barr testified before the January 6 Committee that Trump went to Kushner to try to get him to get Trump to stop with these crazy legal theories. To me, that just goes to show how close Kushner and Trump were that he's one of the people Barr pleaded with to get him to stop. I think he's in Jack Smith's inner circle, in his inner sanctum."
James Brosnahan, a California-based attorney with 60 years of experience and involvement in jury trials, also told Newsweek via phone on Friday that Kushner didn't have much of a choice in testifying or not due to his former position and closeness to Trump as a family member—as well as being subpoenaed.
Smith has plenty of evidence to work with based on the January 6 committee proceedings, he added, so much so that "a good case for sedition" could be made as part of eventual potential charges against Trump.
"But I don't think that's the way Smith is going," Brosnahan said. "I think he's going to a kind of fraud argument that would have to have the elements knowing that [Trump] lost the election, he produced a false narrative and broadcast widely that he actually lost—and maybe an element of that is he did all that in part to raise a lot of money, which in fact he did, which is kind of a fraud on the public really."
Anyone who believes they know how Smith's investigation will conclude is just guessing, Agnifilo added, but as a former prosecutor she predicts "there's three sets of charges at least."
"I think the big question is, do they charge Trump with insurrection?...I say [Smith] has to charge. He's charged other people with insurrection, and Trump was the ringleader of it. How do you not charge the guy who basically masterminded the entire insurrection and activated it and didn't stop it for 187 minutes?"
Cohen's opinion differs from what Kushner has said publicly regarding his father-in-law.
Following Trump's first indictment in March by the Manhattan district attorney's office after the former president allegedly gave hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to quiet an alleged affair the two had a decade before the 2016 presidential election, Kushner called it political vindictiveness.
"As an American, it's very troubling to me to see the leader of the opposition party be indicted," Kushner said during a speech at the Future Investment Initiative summit in Florida days after that indictment, adding that Trump's indictment "shows obviously the fear that the Democrats have of Trump and the political strength that he has."
