Trump Jr. took Russian election help
Emails show inner circle was willing to meet with Russians.
Donald Trump Jr. eagerly accepted help from what was described to him as a Russian government effort to aid his father’s campaign with damaging information about Hillary Clinton, according to emails he released publicly on Tuesday.
The email exchange posted to Twitter by President Donald Trump’s eldest son represents the clearest sign to date that members of the president’s inner circle were willing to meet during the campaign with Russians who wanted Trump to prevail. U.S. intelligence agencies have said the Russian government meddled in the election through hacking to aid Trump.
The emails show Trump Jr. conversing with a music publicist who wanted him to meet with a lawyer from Moscow. The publicist, Rob Goldstone, describes the lawyer as a “Russian government attorney” who has dirt on Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” The messages with Goldstone show that Trump Jr. was told that the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Clinton in dealings with Russia.
In one response, Trump Jr. says, “I love it.”
The younger Trump, who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, released the emails Tuesday along with a statement describing the disclosure as an effort “to be totally transparent.”
Hours after the emails were released, the president rose to his son’s defense.
“My son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency,” Trump said in a statement read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Although Sanders declined to answer any questions about the emails, she said the White House stood by its insistence that no one in Trump’s campaign had colluded to influence the election.
Although Democrats in Congress voiced outrage and insisted the messages showed clear collusion, members of Trump’s party did not join in the condemnation. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident Senate investigators would “get to the bottom of whatever happened,” while Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the intelligence committee, cautioned that the emails were “only part of the picture.”
The messages were the latest disclosure to roil the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and potential collusion with Trump’s campaign. As congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigate, the emails will almost certainly be reviewed for any signs of coordination with the Kremlin, which the White House and Trump Jr. have repeatedly denied.
In the emails, dated in early June 2016 — soon after Trump secured the Republican nomination — Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr. that the information “would be very useful to your father.”
Goldstone was working to connect Trump Jr. to Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Trump Jr. on June 9 at Trump Tower in New York, accompanied by Paul Manafort, then the campaign manager, and Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president.
“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone in one of a series of email exchanges the younger Trump posted to Twitter.
The emails show Goldstone telling Trump Jr. that singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Moscow-based developer Aras Agalarov, had “helped along” the Russian government’s support for Donald Trump.