Russians tried to contact campaign
Emails released by president’s son show knowledge of Russian goal to help campaign
Emails released Tuesday by Donald Trump Jr. show well connected Russians reached out to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign last summer, using the offer of damaging information against Hillary Clinton in an effort to gain access to the organization.
WASHINGTON — Wellconnected Russians were reaching out to Donald Trump’s campaign last summer, using the offer of damaging information against Hillary Clinton to gain access to the top levels of his organization, emails released Tuesday by Donald Trump Jr. show.
Trump Jr. met in June 2016 with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer, after being told in emails from a friend that shewas a Russian government attorney who had “official documents and information” that would “incriminate” Clinton “and be very useful to your father.”
Her information was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” according to the emails.
Nothing in the email exchange shows any surprise on Trump Jr.’s part over the reference to official Russian backing for his father’s presidential bid — something that the Trump campaign and administration have vehemently denied for nearly a year.
Instead, the messages show that top campaign officials were eager to receive the information, even after being told that it came from a foreign government.
“If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. responded to the emails from his friend Rob Goldstone, a music promoter with business dealings in Russia.
Goldstone’s pitch was enough to secure a meeting at New York’s Trump Tower attended not only by Trump Jr., but also Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, and Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman at the time.
The disclosure of the emails marks a potential turning point in the monthslong investigation of Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and whether anyone associated with Trump’s campaign might have been involved.
They offered the first concrete evidence of contacts between Russians and the top levels of Trump’s enterprise and the clearest indication that people close to Trump were aware of a Russian desire to assist his campaign.
Trump Jr. has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the meeting and said he received no useful information from Veselnitskaya.
“The entire meeting was the most inane nonsense I ever heard,” he wrote Tuesday, quoting a statement that Goldstone made recently.
Even if the Russian lawyer provided no useful information, however, the contact with her could be enough to violate federal law, which prohibits campaigns from receiving or soliciting anything of value from foreigners, legal experts said.
The new evidence is likely to be scrutinized closely by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is heading the federal investigation into the Russia affair.
In a statement read by deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, President Donald Trump said his son is a “high quality person, and I applaud his transparency.”
Trump Jr. said he released the emails in the interest of transparency, but he did so only after the New York Times obtained copies and informed him that they were about to publish them.
Asked when the president first learned about his son’s meeting with the Russian lawyer, Sanders said, “I believe in the last couple days, ismy understanding.”
She referred most other questions about the matter to Trump Jr.’s attorneys.
The June 9, 2016, session with the Russian lawyer came in the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention, as Trump’s campaign was securing the final votes needed to cement his nomination, working on the convention program and soliciting endorsements from party leaders.
On June 7, four days after Goldstone’s first email to Trump Jr. but before the meeting in Trump Tower, his father promised to make a speech about Clinton in the near future.
“I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons,” Trump said.
The meeting with Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower took place five days before the first public revelation that hackers linked to the Russian government had accessed computers at the Democratic National Committee and obtained emails from them. The first public release of some of the emails, by WikiLeaks, was July 22.
In his message to Trump Jr., Goldstone said that the offer of damaging information about Clinton was “part” of Moscow’s help to the campaign.
In July 2016, several weeks after the meeting, Trump Jr. denounced Democratic accusations that Russians were helping the Trump campaign. The allegations were “disgusting” and “phony,” he said.
It remains unknown whether the Trump campaign ultimately did receive information or other assistance from the Russian government intended to damage Clinton or whether anyone involved in the campaign shared information with the Russians.
Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show, Veselnitskaya said the Trump campaign was eager for information about Clinton. “It’s quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. They wanted it so badly,” she said, speaking in Russian from Moscow. “I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton.”
Asked if she had connections to the Kremlin, she replied, “Nyet.”