Trump acknowledges purpose of meeting with Russian lawyer

Don Jr. wanted to get info on ‘opponent’

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Sunday gave what was seen as his most definitive and clear public statement yet about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting that is pivotal to the special counsel’s investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent.

“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Mr. Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics — and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

That is a far different explanation than Mr. Trump gave 13 months ago, when a statement dictated by the president but released under the name of Donald Trump Jr. read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”

The misdirection came amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, in which he tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Mr. Trump unleashed particular fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Mr. Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials.

Mr. Trump’s critics immediately pounced on the new story, the latest of several versions of events about a meeting for which emails were discovered between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Mr. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Mr. Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

Sunday’s tweet was Mr. Trump’s clearest statement yet on the purpose of the meeting, which has become a focal point of Mr. Mueller’s investigation even as the president and his lawyers try to downplay its significance and pummel the Mueller probe with attacks. On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s assertion that the June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya “went nowhere” was contrasted with the fact that the conversation preceded the release that summer of material damaging to Ms. Clinton from purloined emails. Also, legal experts have pointed out that conspiring to commit criminal acts is illegal whether or not those acts come to fruition.

Mr. Trump also again suggested without evidence that Mr. Mueller was biased against him, declaring, “This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country.”

And as Mr. Trump and his allies have tried to discredit the probe, a new talking point has emerged: that even if that meeting was held to collect damaging information, none was provided and “collusion,” which is Mr. Trump’s go-to description of what Mr. Mueller is investigating, never occurred — and that even if it did, colluding with Russia would not have been a crime. (Collusion is not found in criminal statutes, but legal experts say acts so described could fall under such offenses as conspiracy to defraud.)

“The question is what law, statute or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys, on ABC’s “This Week.”

But legal experts have pointed out several possible criminal charges, including conspiracy against the U.S. and aiding and abetting a conspiracy. And despite Mr. Trump’s public Twitter denial, the president has expressed worry that his son may face legal exposure even as he believes he did nothing wrong, according to three people close to the White House familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Mr. Sekulow acknowledged that the public explanation for the meeting has changed but insisted that the White House has been very clear with the special counsel’s office. He said he was not aware of Mr. Trump Jr. facing any legal exposure.

“I don’t represent Don Jr.,” Mr. Sekulow said, “but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he’s a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel.”

The Trump Tower meeting also included Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort.

Mr. Trump’s tweet, however, conflicts with a statement that Mr. Trump Jr. released to The New York Times in July 2017, as the newspaper prepared to report about the meeting in which the president’s son indicated that the meeting had been “primarily” about the issue of the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

The meeting’s true purpose was exposed a few days later when the Times published emails between Mr. Trump Jr. and Rob Goldstone, a British-born former tabloid reporter and entertainment publicist who helped arrange it. Mr. Goldstone said he had “something very interesting” — sensitive information that “is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Amid public uproar over the meeting, the president’s son was forced to release follow-up statements, ultimately acknowledging that the meeting’s true purpose had been to get dirt about Ms. Clinton from a lawyer he had been told was working for the Russian government.

At the time, in July 2017, Mr. Trump offered a similar comment to the one he made Sunday, dismissing the meeting with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on his political opponent as no big deal.

“Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “That’s politics!”

The Post reported a few weeks later that Mr. Trump Jr.’s initial misleading statement had been “dictated” by Trump.

The president’s attorneys at first denied Mr. Trump’s involvement in drafting the response to the Times, but months later, in a letter intended to explain why Mr. Mueller should not interview Mr. Trump, they agreed that the president had, in fact, been the author of the statement. They described the statement, which had not mentioned that the Russian lawyer was expected to bring damaging information about Ms. Clinton, as “short but accurate.”

And they said Mr. Trump Jr., Mr. Kushner and White House staffers had made a “full disclosure” about that session to Mr. Mueller and Congress.

Mr. Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contained a similar defense as his father’s Sunday tweet, indicating that he saw no reason not to accept a meeting that could yield important information about Ms. Clinton, even though he was told that it was part of an effort by the government of a hostile power.

Mr. Sekulow also noted on Sunday that he himself had given a misleading statement a year ago when, on “This Week” and in other media appearances, he said Mr. Trump had nothing to do with the misleading statement given to the Times.

“I had bad information at that time,” the lawyer said. Mr. Sekulow added that he has “no knowledge” of the president’s son testifying to the special counsel’s grand jury or being told that he is a “target,” which is an official designation the Justice Department would use to tell someone that they are likely to be indicted.

“Let’s be honest with the American people, there are irregularities in this investigation the likes of which we have not seen,” Mr. Sekulow added, mimicking one of the president’s favorite phrases.

Democrats hammered away at the president’s Sunday admission.

“The Russians offered damaging info on your opponent. Your campaign accepted. And the Russians delivered,” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “You then misled the country about the purpose of the Trump Tower meeting when it became public. Now you say you didn’t know in advance. None of thisis normal or credible.”

Mr. Trump’s days of private anger spilled out into public with the Twitter outburst.

Despite a show of force from his national security team this week as a warning against future Russian election meddling, Mr. Trump again deemed the matter a “hoax” this week. And at a trio of rallies, he escalated his already vitriolic rhetoric toward the media, savaging the press for unflattering coverage and, he feels, bias.

“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE,” Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”