you know, to me that is not a denial. what do you make of all of this? it s clearly not a denial nor have they denied the report that you just made reference to. so i think again the forms that mr. kushner filled out for his security clearance are very serious. if you lie on that form, it s a felony punishable up to five years in prison. this is serious, when someone gets a national security clearance, they are they receive very confidential, sensitive information that s important to the national security of the united states. it should be taken seriously. the idea that there have been a number of contacts that he has simply not reported raises a question, what are you hiding? if in fact all you were doing is trying to create a back channel to talk about syria, then why did you not reveal those contacts as you re required to do, and why was it necessary to do it outside of the normal intelligence and diplomatic and state department infrastructure? this is very unusual. i think when
well, look, i think there are examples of back channels that have happened between the state department and administrations and foreign governments. what s different about this is, of course, president trump wasn t in office yet. but this was a back channel which was attempted to be out of the view of national security intelligence and diplomatic experts. you know, it s one thing to have some back channel, but to try to create it secret from your own government and from the intelligence agencies and diplomatic agencies of the united states is very unusual. and again, when you look at all the other relationships between the trump campaign and the russians and the president s admiration for vladimir putin, his unwillingness to condemn him in any way and their clear interference in the american presidential elections, it makes all of this very disturbing and very important that we follow this investigation. it needs to be thorough. and if these reports are true, it raises very serious c
tain that position to plan future trips? we re not going to comment on jared. generally speaking general, would you be concerned if somebody on the national security council or in this administration were to seek a back channel communication system with the russian embassy and with the kremlin? would that generally concern you not to address kushner specifically but in general terms? no. i mean we have back channel communications with any number of countries so generally speaking, about back channel communications what that allows you to do is communicate in a discre discreet manner so doesn t predispose you to any content or anything. i would not be concerned about it. let s talk about this with cnn, washington correspondent ryan nobles. ryan, explain to us further what we know about this, you know, reported back channel and this proposal from jared kushner with the kremlin? fred, frankly this is just another story involving the russian government and the trump team that s d
hours there and see you back here state side. thank you. let s bring in democratic congressman david cicilline of rhode island, member of the house foreign affairs and judiciary committees. good to see you. good to see you. i ve got to start with the washington post explosive report. russian intercepts claim jared kushner wanted to set up secret back channel communications with russia. do you think that this is russia duping those listening in as they have been known to do or do you have reasons to believe that this is actually true? well, i don t think we know. obviously if this report is true, it s very problematic. it either means that jared kushner was incredibly naive and dangerously so, or something else is going on. but when you look at this reporting coupled with the fact that there were 18 contacts between the trump administration and the russians that have gone unreported and that jared kushner in filling out his form for the security clearance did not tell the tr
certainly climate and whether or not he officially signs onto climate. it didn t require any country to do any specific act. it s about buying in and we know from his epa actions, we re not buying in. the good news is, we will meet our climate goals that president obama set anyway. since we ve been fracking, in a world where tesla is worth more than ford, the u.s. is going to meet its climate goals and not because donald trump believes this one way or the other. that was not the only thing on the plate for the president. you being an expert on foreign affairs, how do you think with the russian question coming out, how common specifically when we look at the report from the washington post on back channel communications, how common is that? richard, the most iornt of that story is it is fantasy to think that that story