Russian web deepens
Trump Jr’s backflip
DONALD Trump’s eldest son has revealed that he was eager to hear damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government, disclosing a series of emails that marked the clearest sign to date that Trump’s campaign was willing to consider election help from a longtime US adversary.
The email exchange posted to Twitter by Donald Trump Jr showed him conversing with a music publicist who wanted him to meet with a “Russian government attorney” who supposedly had dirt on Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump”.
The messages reveal that Trump Jr was told the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Clinton and her dealings with Russia.
“I love it,” Trump Jr said in one email response.
As the emails reverberated across the political world, Trump Jr defended his actions in an interview with Fox News, blaming the decision to take the meeting on the “million miles per hour” pace of a presidential campaign and his suspicion that the lawyer might have information about “under-reported” scandals involving Clinton.
Trump Jr said the meeting “really went nowhere” and that he never told his father about it because there was “nothing to tell”.
“In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr said.
Democrats in Congress voiced outrage and insisted the messages showed clear collusion, with California Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, declaring that “all of the campaign’s previous denials obviously now have to be viewed in a different context”.
Among the loudest was Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, who labelled Trump Jr’s behaviour traitorous.
Yet Republicans — who stand the most to lose politically from Trump’s Russia ordeal — did not join in the condemnation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident Senate investigators would “get to the bottom of whatever happened”.
Trump Jr., who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, portrayed his decision to release the emails as an effort “to be totally transparent”. In fact, they had already been obtained by The New York Times.
Hours after the son posted the emails, the father rose to his defence.
“My son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency,” the President said in a statement read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Sanders stood by the White House’s longstanding insistence that no one in Trump’s campaign colluded to influence the election.
The messages were the latest disclosure to roil the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and potential collusion with Trump’s campaign. US intelligence agencies have said the Russian government meddled in the election through hacking to aid Trump.
As congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigate, the emails will almost certainly be reviewed for any signs of coordination with the Kremlin, which the White House and Trump Jr have repeatedly said did not take place.
In the emails — dated early June 2016, soon after Trump secured the GOP nomination — music publicist Rob Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr to connect him to Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. Goldstone wrote that the information “would be very useful to your father”.
Veselnitskaya met with Trump Jr on June 9 at Trump Tower in New York. Veselnitskaya has denied ever working for the Russian government.
The emails show Goldstone telling Trump that singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Moscow-based developer Aras Agalarov, had “helped along” the Russian government’s support for Trump.
The elder Agalarov was involved with Trump in hosting the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. The two men once also discussed building a Trump Tower in Moscow.