title:  Kushner Takes The Only Life Boat, Watches Junior And Manafort Drown From The Shore
text:  I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. That s the first stand-out sentence from the statement Jared Kushner released Monday morning in advance of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. We re willing to bet that line makes it into his daily mantra as he navigates the nightmare he s realizing he married into. Oh, I don t excuse Trump s son-in-law for his part in any of the current investigation/fiasco/shenanigans. Don t get me wrong. But his demeanor clearly indicates a man who is in a different category of prevaricator than the Trumps he now unfortunately finds himself wed to in more ways than just his nuptials with Ivanka.His statement, first reported by CNN (in full here), is an absolute masterwork of distancing himself from the crimes that were obviously committed. With so much of The Meeting  between Don Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and himself already out in public   so much already confirmed   there is little to do but work with what he s got. And so carefully, meticulously, Kushner has crafted a storyline that excises his participation in the shady dealings with the Kremlin lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya: