Trump Jr. knew dirt came from Russians
Don Jr. told info was from Kremlin Defiant son gets snarky & hires attorney
DONALD TRUMP Jr. knew the Russian government was the source of damaging information on Hillary Clinton that a Kremlin-linked lawyer was offering him — despite his denials over the weekend, according to a report Monday.
The President’s eldest son was alerted in an email in advance of the June 2016 meeting with the lawyer, The New York Times reported.
The email told Trump the Russian government had provided the potentially harmful information about his father’s presidential rival, The Times said, citing three sources who saw the missive.
Former British tabloid reporter Rob Goldstone sent the email to the younger Trump. Goldstone (inset bottom) helped broker the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump and the Russian lawyer, identified as Natalia Veselnitskaya.
On Sunday, Trump acknowledged taking the meeting with an eye toward collecting damaging information about Clinton. He didn’t mention knowing the lawyer had possible Kremlin links, saying to the contrary he didn’t even know the attorney’s name ahead of time.
But The Times’ three sources said Goldstone’s email to Trump Jr. before the meeting indicated that the potentially inflammatory details about Clinton came from the Russian government, the newspaper reported.
Goldstone’s email contained no further information about a possible wider plot to help his father, Donald Trump, win the presidential election.
Nor did it hint at any involvement in the massive hack of the Democratic National Committee servers that led to a leak of thousands of emails embarrassing to Clinton and the Democratic Party, The Times said.
On Saturday, Trump said even less. In his initial comments about the meeting, he didn’t mention Clinton at all. He described it as a “short introductory meeting” focused on a disbanded program that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children.
But a day later, on Sunday, Trump admitted he knew beforehand that Veselnitskaya might have information “helpful” to the Trump campaign, and was told by her during the meeting that she had something about Clinton.
“No details or supporting information was provided or even offered,” he said in a statement to The Times. “It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
He said there was no followup to that 2016 meeting — which also included Trump son-inlaw Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort — and added that his father was unaware it happened.
Earlier Monday, he took to Twitter to share a sarcastic comment about the furor over his sitdown.
“Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent . . . went nowhere but had to listen,” the younger Trump wrote.
A few hours later, he hired New York attorney Alan Futerfas to represent him, and took to Twitter
again to say he would work with the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the panels probing possible campaign collusion, “to pass on what I know.”
Even before The Times’ latest scoop, the circumstances around the meeting had fueled new questions about the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia, which are being scrutinized by federal and congressional investigators.
A discussion of potentially damaging information on Clinton could draw the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller in light of federal laws barring foreign contributions to campaigns, legal experts told The Associated Press.
Futerfas told The Times in an email Monday his client thought any potential disclosure would be about Clinton’s business dealings in Russia.
“In my view, this is much ado about nothing. During this busy period, Robert Goldstone contacted Don Jr. in an email and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by Democratic Party front-runner, Hillary Clinton, in her dealings with Russia,” Futerfas wrote to The Times.
“Don Jr.’s takeaway from this communication was that someone had information potentially helpful to the campaign and it was coming from someone he knew. Don Jr. had no knowledge as to what specific information, if any, would be discussed,” the lawyer said.
The DNC issued its own statement in the wake of The Times’ revelation about the email to Trump.
“This isn’t just smoke anymore. Donald Jr. was willing to accept the help of a hostile foreign government to sway the election,” the statement said.
“It is time for Donald Trump, his family and his team to stop lying and come clean about their contacts with Russia, what they knew about the Kremlin’s efforts to help them and when they knew it,” the DNC said.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday told The AP the Kremlin doesn’t know Veselnitskaya and “cannot keep track” of every Russian lawyer who works overseas.
Veselnitskaya once represented the son of a vice president of state-owned Russian Railways in a New York money-laundering case settled in May before a trial.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters “no one within the Trump campaign colluded” with Russia.
The younger Trump said the meeting was arranged by someone he knew through the 2013 Miss Universe pageant his father held in Moscow. Goldstone identified that person as Russian singer Emin Agalarov, whose father was Trump’s partner in 2013.
Agalarov connected Goldstone to Veselnitskaya, who connected her with Trump Jr.