Trump jnr wanted Clinton info
President Donald Trump’s eldest son told Senate investigators yesterday that he had set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because she might have had damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump jnr, in a prepared statement to Senate Judiciary Committee investigators for a meeting behind closed doors, said it was important to learn about Clinton’s “fitness” to be president.
“To the extent they had information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate, I believed that I should at least hear them out,” said the statement, which was seen by Reuters.
Trump also said the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others in Trump Tower in New York provided no meaningful information.
The New York Times first reported the statement.
Russia has loomed large over the Trump presidency. US intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow worked to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favour. Several congressional committees and a special counsel are also investigating allegations of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
The younger Trump’s testimony is believed to be the first by a member of the President’s family to congressional investigators, much of whose work has been conducted behind closed doors.
Moscow denies meddling and Trump denies collusion by his campaign, while regularly denouncing the investigations as political witchhunts.
When news of the meeting with the lawyer broke earlier this year, the younger Trump at first said that the main topic at the encounter was child adoption from Russia but then he released emails that showed his reason for attending the meeting was to receive possibly damaging information about Clinton.