But it’s still shady as hell.
.. Despite Don Jr.’s posing, nothing in the e-mail is exculpatory. In many ways, the full context is worse than the Times’ story. While I’m sure many campaigns — including the Clintons’ — have dabbled in this kind of sordid effort, it’s still unethical.
.. Nor does it matter whether the biased mainstream media have gotten dozens of stories wrong about Trump and Russia (they have), or whether they are out to get Trump (they are), because the facts on this story have panned out. If it were no big deal, Trump Jr. would not have lied about it.
.. the Democrats, of course, immediately began offering the most severe condemnation, which will only make a legitimate concern another partisan clown show.
.. Not everything dishonest is “treason” or an impeachable offense.
Trump’s lawyer insists nothing ‘nefarious’ in Trump Jr. Russia meeting
A senior member of President Trump’s personal legal team said Sunday that there was nothing improper in the meeting that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, took with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
“Well, I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the president, said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “The president had Secret Service protection at that point, and that raised a question with me.”
It’s highly unlikely that the Secret Service, which is charged with protecting the president, his aides and his family from physical harm, would have any influence over who the president or his children chose to meet during a presidential campaign.
A Secret Service spokeswoman cast doubt on Sekulow’s claims.
“Donald Trump Jr. was not under Secret Service protection in June 2016,”
.. Initially, Trump Jr. said the meeting focused on Russia’s moves to halt adoptions by American families, but he changed his story after new details emerged.
.. Sekulow is part of a legal team headed by New York attorney Marc E. Kasowitz, and the White House said last week that Trump was adding veteran Washington lawyer Ty Cobb
.. “Here is the reality: The meeting in and of itself, of course, as I’ve said before, is not a violation of the law,” Sekulow said on “This Week.” He added that “the president was not aware of the meeting and did not participate in it.”
Timeline: Trump and associates denied Russia involvement at least 20 times
Over the next 13 months, the future president and associates including Donald Jr denied at least 20 times that their campaign team had had any contact with Russians seeking to influence the presidential election.
Trump campaign paid firm of lawyer representing Trump Jr. before emails were made public
President Trump’s campaign committee made a payment to the law firm of an attorney representing Donald Trump Jr. last month, nearly two weeks before it was announced that the same attorney would be representing the president’s son in Russia-related probes, according to a campaign finance report filed Saturday.
The committee reported in the filing to the Federal Election Commission that it paid $50,000 to the law firm of attorney Alan Futerfas on June 27. That payment was made 13 days before it was publicly revealed that Futerfas would represent Trump’s eldest son in the Russia investigations.
.. The filing also revealed that the campaign committee paid the Trump Corporation — a company being run by Trump Jr. and his brother Eric — more than $89,000 on June 30 for “legal consulting.” While the campaign committee has reimbursed Trump entities for services such as rent, air travel and hotel expenses in the past, it has not reported payments for legal fees, according to Federal Election Commission data.
.. Trump Jr. had previously said he held no meetings with Russians while “representing the campaign in any way, shape or form,” and he called the suggestion that Russia was attempting to help his father’s presidential campaign “disgusting.”
.. Futerfas has said the meeting was insignificant, telling The Washington Post on Friday that it was difficult to recall who attended that gathering because it was unimportant and too much time had passed.
.. “The frustrating part of all this for me is that this meeting occurred 13 months ago,” he said. “There is no record, no list of who was there. It was not a memorable meeting for anyone. Now, 13 months later, everyone expects we should have a perfect recollection.”