Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner met with the Russian ambassador in December, White House reveals

Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn.
(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The White House on Thursday acknowledged a previously undisclosed meeting between Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and senior adviser Jared Kushner, The New York Times reports. The meeting took place in December, before President Trump's inauguration, when Flynn was gearing up to serve as Trump's top national security official.

The meeting was arranged to "establish a line of communication" between the incoming Trump administration and the Russian government, White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks told the Times. The New Yorker reported earlier this week that Kushner and Kislyak had met in December, but it wasn't until Hicks' statement Thursday that Flynn's attendance at the meeting was confirmed. The three men reportedly spoke for about 20 minutes.

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.