Slow leak swamps Trump
As Air Force One flew home from Europe yesterday, news was set to break about a meeting that Donald Trump’s eldest son had with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, promising yet another round of unwelcome headlines about the president and Russia. The day-after-day drip-dripdrip of revelations over the past week about Donald Trump jnr’s contact with the Russian lawyer in 2016 underscores the White House’s inability to shake off the Russia story that casts a shadow over Trump’s presidency.
No matter how presidential Trump may have looked on his trips to Europe, the persistent questions about connections between Trump’s team and Russia prevent him from savouring a public relations victory and building momentum for his stalled legislative agenda.
“No successful crisis management model works the way they are doing things,” said Lanny Davis, who worked as special counsel to President Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings.
“If your mission is to control a story or try to end a story, you need to tell it early, tell it all and tell it yourself.”
Trump jnr’s account of his Trump Tower meeting has seemingly changed on an almost daily basis. At first, the meeting was said to be about a Russian adoption programme. Then, it was to hear information about campaign rival Hillary Clinton. Finally, Trump jnr was forced to release emails — moments before the New York Times planned to do — that revealed he had told an associate he would “love” Russia’s help in obtaining negative details about Hillary Clinton.
Even the number of people who attended the meeting has changed.
On Friday, a prominent RussianAmerican lobbyist told the Associated Press that he, too, had been part of the discussion.
Each revelation has been seized upon by Democrats and dissected in detail on cable news.
Trump jnr and Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser also attended the June 2016 meeting — also have retained attorneys separate from those hired by the president.
“They need to have one lawyer get every person in one room and figure out who knows what. No more surprises,” said Davis.