Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump Jr.: I met Russians to vet Clinton ‘fitness’ for office
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr. agreed to meet last year with a Russian lawyer who had promised to provide damaging information on Hillary Clinton because he hoped to assess her “fitness” for office, the president’s eldest son told Senate investigators Thursday.
Moscow lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and three associates with links to Russia went to an office in Trump Tower in Manhattan for the June 9, 2016 meeting with then-candidate Donald Trump’s top lieutenants, including his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his son, Donald Jr.
“To the extent they had information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate, I believed that I should at least hear them out,” Trump Jr. said in a prepared statement about his meeting with the Russians.
“Depending on what, if any, information they had, I could then consult with counsel to make an informed decision as to whether to give it further consideration,” he added.
Trump Jr.’s closed-door testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the four congressional panels investigating the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia, provided the most detailed account yet of the meeting.
It also is a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s separate criminal investigation of alleged links between Russian government authorities and several members of Trump’s family, as well as current and former aides.
Trump Jr. sought to dispel speculation Thursday that his father knew about the meeting at the time. He told the panel he had not informed his father, then the expected Republican nominee, about it, according to a person familiar with his testimony.
Investigators see the Trump Tower meeting as significant because it was specifically offered to Trump Jr. as part of an effort by Moscow to help his father win the White House, and because attendees have provided varying accounts of what occurred.
They also are trying to understand what Trump knew about the Russian offer. After Trump Jr. was first promised damaging information, his father promised to give a major speech to discuss “all the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
The Trump Tower meeting took place days before news broke that hackers linked to the Russian government had stolen thousands of emails from computers at the Democratic National Committee. The emails began appearing on WikiLeaks in July.
Trump Jr. agreed to appear before the Judiciary Committee after the chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, subpoenaed him and Manafort. The subpoenas were withdrawn after they agreed to testify in private.
Grassley said they eventually would be questioned by senators publicly.
Mueller’s office has approached the White House about interviewing staff members who helped write Trump Jr.’s first public statements after news of the 2016 meeting emerged two months ago, CNN reported. Trump Jr. initially said he and Veselnitskaya had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.”
That was an oblique reference to the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law passed in 2012 that imposed financial sanctions on Russian officials and businessmen, including one of Veselnitskaya’s clients. Moscow responded by banning American adoptions of Russian children.
But Trump Jr. later released emails that showed he agreed to the meeting in hopes of receiving damaging information about Clinton, then the expected Democratic nominee.
The emails show he was contacted by Rod Goldstone, a former business associate, who described Veselnitskaya as a “Russian government attorney” who had “official documents and information” that would “incriminate” Clinton “and would be very useful to your father.”
Her information was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone told Trump Jr.
Trump Jr. said he “proceeded to quickly and politely end the meeting” by telling the lawyer that “because my father was a private citizen there did not seem to be any point to having this discussion,” saying he “gave it no further thought.”
“I did not collude with any foreign government and do not know of anyone who did,” he said.