Donald Trump’s eldest son admitted Monday to meeting a Russian lawyer to get dirt on his father’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, thrusting the White House deep into another Russia-related scandal.
Trump Jr confirmed reports that he was on the trail of damning information on the Democrat vying to become America’s first woman president, when he met Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016.
“Obviously, I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent,” Trump’s son said in a tweet, claiming that it “went nowhere” but he “had to listen.”
The FBI and Congress are investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential vote.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a mass effort to tilt the election in Trump’s favor, including hacking and leaking embarrassing emails from Democrats.
The New York Times reported that Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, two of Trump’s most trusted campaign officials, were also at the meeting last year.
In a potentially even more damaging revelation for Donald Jr and the Trump team, the New York Times reported later Monday that the younger Trump had been informed via email ahead of the meeting that material from the Russian lawyer was part of an effort by Moscow to aid his father’s presidential bid and hurt Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Veselnitskaya is not well known in Russia, but represented the son of a senior Russian official who was involved in a major fraud probe that had international repercussions.
In a statement to the Times, the younger Trump said the lawyer “stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs Clinton.”
“It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information,” he said, adding that the lawyer then began discussing the adoption of Russian children by American couples under a program Putin had suspended.
The meeting took place at a pivotal point in the 2016 campaign, after Trump had shocked Republicans with a string of primary victories and Clinton had all-but secured the Democratic nomination.
US officials have sought to distance the president himself from the encounter.
“The president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting,” Mark Corallo, a spokesman for President Trump’s private lawyer, told AFP.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had only learned of the meeting “in the last couple of days.”
Donald Trump junior’s meeting has already drawn the attention of Congressional investigators.
“Our intelligence committee needs to interview him and others who attended the meeting,” said Republican Senator Susan Collins.
A spokesperson for Kushner did not respond to request for comment.
The Kremlin said it “did not know who” Veselnitskaya was. “We can’t be aware of all the meetings Russian lawyers have abroad,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, Amanda Miller, confirmed to AFP that Donald Trump Jr. had hired attorney Alan Futerfas to represent him in the widening Russian meddling investigation, amid calls from some senior members of the US Congress — that he provide testimony in the case.
*AFP
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