Presidential fiction

Trump framed Jnr’s misleading statement on Russian controversy

THE White House has admitted Donald Trump helped draft a misleading statement about his son’s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer – deepening the president’s entanglement in the saga over his team’s ties to Russia.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump had “weighed in, offered suggestions, like any father would do”.

Mr Trump’s personal intervention casts doubt on claims he knew nothing about a meeting during the 2016 campaign now central to an investigation.

It also paints a picture of a president acutely aware of the scandal – and determined to manage it to a minute level.

Allies fear such a level of involvement, if proven, could put the Republican billionaire leader in legal jeopardy.

Politically, it will only intensify allegations that the White House is trying to cover up connections with a foreign government accused of trying to tilt the November election in Trump’s favour.

“This was ... unnecessary,” one presidential adviser told the Washington Post.

“Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”

Mr Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow dismissed the report as “misinformed”.

Emails show Mr Trump’s eldest son Donald Jr, his sonin-law Jared Kushner and his then campaign manager Paul Manafort met Kremlin-connected officials in June 2016 hoping to get dirt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

A British middleman pitched the meeting as an opportunity for the Trump campaign to obtain “very high level and sensitive information” as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for Mr Trump.

Republican congressman, Lee Zeldin of New York, told CNN: “I would be really interested in knowing what the president knew at that time.”