BUILT ON A TOWER OF LIES
PREZ ADMITS: I TOLD JR. WHAT TO SAY ON RUSSIA MEET
WHITE HOUSE lawyers admitted a misleading statement Donald Trump Jr. gave in response to questions raised about a meeting with a Russian operative was dictated by the President himself, according to a report.
Administration officials had denied for months that President Trump had any role last year in his son’s statement that he was lured into a meeting about American adoptions of Russian children on the pretext of campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton.
But according to The New York Times, which obtained a 20-page memo to the special prosecutor investigating Russian ties to the 2016 election, the President’s lawyers freely admitted that Trump crafted the retort for his son.
“You have received all of the notes, communications and testimony indicating that the President dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump Jr.,” reads part of the 20-page missive, signed by John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. “His son then followed up by making a full public disclosure regarding the meeting, including his public testimony that there was nothing to the meeting and certainly no evidence of collusion.” Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who joined the President’s legal team this spring, used the changing explanations of the meeting to justify why his boss shouldn’t sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller. “This is the reason you don’t let the President testify,” Giuliani said Sunday during an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week.” “Our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption. . . . I think that’s what happened here.” The revelation was part of a broader argument in the mis-
sive to Robert Mueller’s team, which is investigating Moscow meddling, that the President couldn’t have obstructed justice because he’s the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Dowd left Trump’s team in March. Emails later released by Trump Jr. showed the meeting was set up with the promise that lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya had dirt on the Clinton campaign.
The real estate scion later said it was an unproductive meeting, which was also attended by then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law.
Veselnitskaya reportedly tried to make her case for lifting the Magnitsky Act, which Congress passed in 2012 to heavily sanction Russian officials over the death of attorney Sergei Magnitsky.
But Trump Jr.’s initial response didn’t mention the act, nor did it make reference to the promised compromising details on the Clintons.
What role the President had in the response has been unclear since the meeting was first reported last year.
Sekulow, who still represents the President, argued several times last July that Trump didn’t have a hand in the statement.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters last August that the commander-in-chief “didn’t dictate” the response, but “weighed in, offered suggestions like any father would do.”
Adding to the confusion, Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee last September that he didn’t directly communicate with his dad.
He admitted, however, that the President “may have commented through” then-top aide Hope Hicks, which could have influenced his response.
Giuliani on Sunday said Sekulow’s response was “wrong,” later chalk- ing it up to being misinformed at the time. He also noted Sekulow’s comments last summer were made during TV appearances, not during an official interview with FBI investigators — when false statements could be considered a crime.
“This is a point that maybe wasn’t clarified in terms of recollection and his understanding of it,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And what Jay did was he immediately corrected it. And even if that had been under oath he would’ve called that recanting.” He said that underscored the dangers of having the President meet with federal investigators — should he misremember an incident. “So that’s the wisdom of not having a President testify,” he said. “It’s one thing to do it with a lawyer, it’s another to do it with your client.”