AP explains: Why the 2016 Trump Tower meeting matters

WASHINGTON» Adoptions of Russian children? Opposition research on Hillary Clinton?

President Donald Trump has for the first time acknowledged that a June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower was the latter. But he and his team have offered shifting explanations on the confab. That’s key to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A look at the details, the Trump team’s shifting explanations of the meeting, and why it matters:

Why it matters

It is illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign person or government. The U.S. intelligence community, members of Congress in both parties and even Trump have acknowledged that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller is probing whether anyone connected with the president’s campaign conspired with Russia to tip the election in Trump’s favor. He’s also looking at whether Trump’s tweets, statements and other actions amount to an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

Was it illegal?

At minimum, the meeting raises counterintelligence concerns for investigators trying to determine foreign efforts to penetrate an American political campaign or sway public policy. But there are potential criminal concerns as well. Federal campaign finance law makes it illegal for a political campaign to accept a “thing of value” from foreign nationals, and it’s possible that opposition research — though not in and of itself illegal — could be considered in that category for these purposes.

“It depends on motives and knowledge at the time of the meeting. Willfully soliciting a foreign contribution is a crime,” Rick Hasen, a campaign finance expert and law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement. “You have to know you are doing something illegal and the courts would have to consider the opposition research from Russian agents a ‘thing of value’ for campaign finance purposes.”

Who wrote those explanations?

The Times reported that the president “signed off” on his son’s statement, but Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, repeatedly denied that through the rest of that month. On July 31, 2017, The Washington Post reported that the president “personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” at the Trump Tower meeting.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the president “certainly didn’t dictate” the statement.

Did Trump dictate his son’s statement?

Yes. In January this year, Trump lawyers John Dowd and Sekulow wrote to Mueller, in part, that “the president dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump Jr.” Dowd subsequently resigned from the Trump team. Sekulow said this past weekend that he had been acting on “bad information” at the time.

Questions about a call

Trump Jr. spoke by phone several days before the meeting with a caller who had a blocked number, but said he didn’t recall who the person was and didn’t know if his father used a blocked number. He told the committee that he didn’t alert his father to the meeting beforehand.

What hasn’t changed

Whatever his explanation, Trump has consistently said he didn’t know about the Trump Tower meeting.