FROM RUSSIA WITH 'LOVE’
Emails reveal Trump Jr.’s eagerness to accept Russian help in campaign; he admits, ‘ In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently’
WASHINGTON— Donald Trump’s eldest son revealed Tuesday 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 U. S. 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 “underreported” scandals involving Clinton.
Trump Jr. told SeanHannity that the meeting “really went nowhere” and that he never told his father about it because there was “nothing to tell.”
He said, “I wouldn’t have even remembered it until you started scouring through this stuff. It was literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame.
“In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr. said.
He allowed that “he has probably met with other people from Russia” but insisted that he did not attempt to coordinate to impact the election or try to damage Hillary Clinton.
He repeatedly suggested that the charges of collusion were “ridiculous” and “overplayed” and insisted that his father knew nothing about the June 2016 meeting.
Democrats in Congress have voiced outrage and insisted the messages showed clear collusion.
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.” And Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the intelligence committee, cautioned that the emails were “only part of the picture.”