Jared Kushner, 2025. (Credit: Andrea Hanks/Official White House Photo)
As part of the effort to sabotage Trump and to render ineffective his staff, there were also leaks to the Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN targeting Jared Kushner, alleging improper and shady contacts with Russia. The FBI’s investigation into those leaks was opened in September 2017 under the name Sirens Lure.
As was the case with the other leak investigations, the FBI faced a daunting task: it initially identified “over 192 individuals in the subject pool” across various parts of the government, from the Intelligence Community to Congress.
Notably, some of the media reports concerning Kushner occurred after a “Read Room” was established for members of Congress to view classified information. House Democrats restricted access to at least one HPSCI staffer from an FBI interview “based on Speech or Debate privileges.”
This led the FBI to back-off attempts to interview other Congressional Democrat staffers. Though the FBI considered search warrants but either the FBI or the DOJ decided against that course of action. Without the capabilities to pursue the investigation further, and faced with the prospects of interviewing over 192 potential subjects (the number was likely much higher), Sirens Lures was closed in May 2021.