Trump’s son admits meeting Russian for Clinton information
HE ADVISED WOMAN … HER COMMENTS AND CONCERNS WERE BETTER ADDRESSED IF … HE HELD PUBLIC OFFICE
President Donald Trump’s eldest son met a Russian woman in 2016 who offered to provide potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton, his father’s Democratic opponent in the 2016 election.
The meeting took place in June 2016, after his father had secured the Republican presidential nomination, according to a statement on Sunday from Donald Trump Jnr. The younger Trump said he had been joined at the meeting by his brother-inlaw, Jared Kushner, and the man managing his father’s campaign at the time, Paul Manafort.
The encounter was reported earlier by the New York Times, which said on Sunday Trump Jr had been promised damaging information on Clinton before agreeing to the meeting.
Representatives of the younger Trump and Kushner confirmed the meeting with the woman, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, had taken place at Trump Tower as reported. A spokesman for Manafort did not respond to requests for comment. In his statement, Trump Jnr said the woman had been referred to him by an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and that he had been told she could provide information that could help his father’s campaign.
The younger Trump said the meeting lasted about 20 to 30 minutes. He said the woman had told those present she had information about funding and support for Clinton and the Democratic National Committee by people connected to Russia.
Trump Jnr said “it quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information”.
“Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense,” he said.
“No details or supporting information was provided or even offered.”
CHANGED SUBJECT
Trump Jnr said the woman then changed the subject to the adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, a US law that sanctions people for humanrights abuses as well as those deemed complicit in the 2009 death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Russian President Vladimir Putin halted US adoptions of Russian children after that measure was passed.
Trump Jnr said he advised the woman his father was still a private citizen, “and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office”. He said he took her initial offer of information on Clinton as merely a pretext to discuss the other issues.
Veselnitskaya told the New York Times nothing about the 2016 campaign had been discussed at the meeting and she had never acted on behalf of the Russian government.
She never discussed the matter with anyone from the Russian government, she said.
Asked about Veselnitskaya, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday: “We don’t know who this is and … we can’t keep track of the meetings of all Russian lawyers either in Russia or abroad.”
INTERFERENCE PROBED
Revelations about the encounter at Trump Tower come as the FBI and congressional committees continue to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether there was any collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Some members of Trump’s political party criticised the concept of campaign officials meeting representatives of foreign governments to obtain derogatory information about rival presidential candidates.
“That doesn’t strike me as appropriate,” Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, told MSNBC.
“I think that it encourages countries to come in and undermine our democratic process.”
The president was focused on former FBI director James Comey on Monday, retweeting a Fox & Friends video that cited “a brand-new bombshell report” in The Hill that cited anonymous sources as saying more than half of Comey’s memos about his conversations with Trump have been determined to contain classified information.
“James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment, The Hill reported.
IMPROVED TIES
News of the meeting began emerging on Saturday, a day after the US president met face to face for the first time with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, an encounter Trump said he hoped would help foster better relations with Moscow. US intelligence agencies have said Putin’s government helped direct a sophisticated effort to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favour.