White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, left, talks to White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in Saudi Arabia last week. Photo / AP
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, the lone Administration official to speak out publicly about reports that Jared Kushner sought a back channel to communicate with the Russian Government, defended the move, saying it was a "good thing" for the US Government.
"It's normal in my opinion and acceptable," Kelly said
of the reports that Kushner made the request for a secret communications channel to the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. "Any way that you can communicate with people, particularly organisations that are not particularly friendly to us, is a good thing."
Kelly made the comments on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and he reiterated them in two other appearances on news broadcasts.
Kelly rejected the idea that such a back channel of communication with Russian officials would be damaging to US security interests.
"Any channel of communications, back or otherwise, is a good thing," he said on Fox News Sunday, suggesting that he did not know the facts behind the reported December discussions between Kushner and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "It doesn't bother me."
