Homeland security chief defends alleged plan for 'back channel' to the Russians

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."

Kelly said that if such a line of communication was set up, the critical thing would have been for Kushner and other transition officials to understand that the information provided by the Russians might be intentionally false.

"They may be working you," he said.

Kelly said he was not sure whether the reports that Kushner had proposed using Russian diplomatic facilities for such communications were true. But he said that as long as the information was shared with the US Government, it didn't represent a problem.

"Just because you have a back channel, if indeed that's what Jared was after, doesn't mean that he then keeps everything secret," Kelly said on NBC's Meet the Press. "I mean he shares that."

"Back-channel communications with people are ways to communicate with people, again not in front of the press, as an example, but that information is not necessarily kept secret from the rest of the government," Kelly added.

Senator Lindsay Graham tells @DanaBashCNN he doesn't trust Kislyak's account that Jared Kushner asked to open secret communications #cnnsotu

— Katie Hinman (@khinman) May 28, 2017

A lot of folks think McMaster's reputation has suffered from serving Trump, but I'd wager that Kelly's star has fallen the furthest. https://t.co/RXapdVQgJi

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 28, 2017

Kushner didn't propose a "back channel" on behalf of the US Government. It was a means of covert comms for the benefit of the Trump family.

— Evan McMullin (@EvanMcMullin) May 28, 2017

Schiff: Claim Russian back-channel was about Syria doesn't "necessarily mitigate this": US policy shouldn't "change for the wrong reason." pic.twitter.com/olXdOyX9U4

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 28, 2017