'Establishment attacking Trump team as it poses threat to them’

The Trump team poses a threat to the Democratic Party, as well as to the globalist wing of the Republican Party, according to political analyst Charles Ortel, commenting on the ongoing scandal over Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia.

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, became the latest suspect in the scandal and was called to testify at a 'closed-door' hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Kushner explained in a statement he only had four contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign of his father-in-law, and that none of them were improper.

RT:  What do you make of Jared Kushner's statement to Congress? Will it put a stop to claims he colluded with Russia?

Charles Ortel: I doubt it. I thought he did a very good job. His statement was complete; it makes eminent sense. When you look at the substance of what actually happened, and we now have many months to think about it. Putting the 2016 election and the primary season in perspective; a complete outsider, bested 16 establishment competitors on the Republican side, and then blew out of the water, somebody who felt had a right to win, who was well positioned, loved by the media, well ensconced throughout the US of America, had a commanding lead, but ran a deplorable campaign, did a gigantic belly flop. That is the real story. And the sore losers in the media, in the Democrat Clinton wing and the Obama wing refuse to accept the reality. So they would complain and complain and do their best to try to delegitimize this president. I am not a huge fan of Jared Kushner or the idea that his son-in-law should have such a high position in a Republican government, that is to say, Republican form of government. Nonetheless, I think Jared Kushner did a great job in the primary, a great job in the general election, a great job in the transition, and a fine, outstanding job today. So I would hope the Democrats would realize it is actually in their interest now to use this new message that just came out today, and accept the fact that they lost. Because Hillary Clinton and her team ran a horrible campaign, learn from that, move on and select a new set of initiatives to try to sell the American people. But I fear they are simply just not going to give up.

RT:  Do you think it was appropriate for Congress to summon Jared Kushner for questioning, even though no evidence of Russia collusion has ever been provided? Why do you think we’re seeing more people brought to testify to Congress?

CO: It is a guess, but I hope an educated guess. I believe what has happened here is that the Trump organization, the Trump team, poses a threat not simply to the Democratic Party, but to the establishment wing, the globalist wing of the Republican Party. What has really been going on in the US and in the advanced economies around the world is that globalists, people who want to have some global government that may be lightly regulated where they are connected, and they can take advantage of business opportunities, people on the left and the right, in academia, media, business, and investing, consulting, in legal professions, in journalism – they all love this idea of globalism. But globalism and regionalism really haven’t worked anywhere as the EU is playing testament.

So that is what I think is going on here – the people who fear the dismantling of the globalist structure, of the EU – they are out to get the Trump people however they can. Unfortunately, under our legal system the special counsel Robert Mueller has a lot of power to take his investigation wherever he wants to take it. Unless Trump and his team acquire some backbone, quite frankly I think we’ve seen enough, we know enough, I think President Trump should stand up, he should be encouraged to use the process formally and get Robert Mueller to produce results and then stand down.

'Kushner helped himself testifying about Trump’s presidential campaign?’

Democratic super-delegate Mitch Ceasar, and Ed Martin the president of Eagle Forum discussed the issue with RT America’s Ed Schultz.

RT:  From a legal aspect, did Kushner help himself today?

Mitch Ceasar: What he really did is interesting: in some ways he kind of threw his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Junior, under the bus, because he clearly admitted all these meetings with Russian folks, just saying he is not really part of it. I don’t think he is a boy scout – you can’t survive in New York real estate and be a boy scout. See the example of Donald Trump. But clearly, he tried to distance himself - no question about that. Only time will tell if he helped himself. I think he did in the context of public opinion a little bit, because we heard his voice for the first time… I think he’s doing well on the PR front. It is very difficult at this point to see how he is doing on the legal front.

RT:  Does that embolden the president's argument that these investigations are overboard? What are your thoughts?

Ed Martin: I want to point two things …. Number one: last week Mike Pompeo, the head of the CIA said the following: “I am confident the Russians did interfere in the election.” When someone says: “I am confident of something” – that means they are not telling you the whole truth, they don’t know for sure. Jared Kushner instead stood up today and said: “I didn’t do this. I am careful; I’ll show you everything.” The difference between the intelligence community and the deep state telling us to focus on Russia and Jared Kushner is the difference between truth telling and people trying to hide the ball. That is why Kushner helped himself; that is why people are starting to move on. Frankly, that is why the Democrats… have a problem – because people are looking up saying: “What are you for, except yelling about things that are in the past that don’t make sense.”