No collusion, Trump Jr. says

President Donald Trump’s eldest son cast his meeting with a Russian lawyer last year as simply an opportunity to learn about Hillary Clinton’s “fitness, character or qualifications,” insisting Thursday to Senate investigators behind closed doors that he did not collude with Russia to hurt her campaign against his father.

Donald Trump Jr.’s description of the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York, delivered in a statement at the outset of a Senate panel’s staff interview, provided his most detailed account yet of an encounter that has drawn close scrutiny from Congress and investigative special counsel Robert Mueller.

He tried to dismiss concerns about a comment he made in emails leading up to the meeting that has attracted controversy. He said he was just being polite and “colloquial” when he emailed “I love it” to Rob Goldstone, the publicist who was setting up the meeting with a Russian who was said to have election-season dirt on Clinton.