Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.
.. During this busy period, Robert Goldstone contacted Don Jr. in an email and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by Democratic Party front-runner, Hillary Clinton, in her dealings with Russia
.. “He said, ‘I’m told she has information about illegal campaign contributions to the D.N.C.,’”
.. His decision to move ahead with such a meeting was unusual for a political campaign, but it was consistent with the haphazard approach the Trump operation, and the White House, have taken in vetting people they deal with ahead of time.
.. Mr. Goldstone said Ms. Veselnitskaya offered “just a vague, generic statement about the campaign’s funding and how people, including Russian people, living all over the world donate when they shouldn’t donate” before turning to her anti-Magnitsky Act arguments.
.. “It was the most inane nonsense I’ve ever heard,” he said. “And I was actually feeling agitated by it. Had I, you know, actually taken up what is a huge amount of their busy time with this nonsense?”
Reports: Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner Met with Kremlin-Linked Lawyer
Circa also reported that the meeting was short, lasting only 20 minutes. The outlet also reported that the president’s legal team believe the meeting may have been part of an election-year opposition effort to create the appearance of “improper connections” between Trump and Russia.
.. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for President Trump’s legal team, told Circa:
We have learned from both our own investigation and public reports that the participants in the meeting misrepresented who they were and who they worked for. Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the President and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier.
“These developments raise serious issues as to exactly who authorized and participated in any effort by Russian nationals to influence our election in any manner,” he added.
Hume: Trump Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer Was a ‘Farce, ‘Almost Laughable’ — Not Collusion
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said the meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer had “the element of a farce.”
Hume said, “The meeting probably went nowhere. The whole thing has the element of a farce.”
He continued, “I would be more concerned if the episodes themselves, the meetings turned out to be some substantive meeting in the sense they pointed in the direction that there were some cooperation and collusion going on. So far what we’ve seen doesn’t seem to do that. And it’s not hard for me to imagine people associated with the president’s campaign might have forgotten them. This meeting seems to be eminently forgettable, almost laughable.”
.. but the Kremlin is saying they don’t know anything about it. Putin doesn’t know this woman. You can’t be a prominent lawyer in Moscow without in some way being connected to the Kremlin because the Kremlin is connected to nearly everything in Russia. But that doesn’t make her a Russian agent, certainly doesn’t make her a Russian official as she is being characterized by some of the president’s critics.
Why in the world would Donald Trump Jr. take this meeting?
federal election law prohibits soliciting or accepting “anything of value … in connection with” an election from a foreign national.
.. Trump Jr.’s false and misleading statements on his involvement with Russians add to the argument that this is a man behaving as if he had something to hide. Asked by the New York Times in March whether he had ever discussed “government policies related to Russia,” Trump Jr. replied, “a hundred percent no.” Then, confronted by the Times about the Veselnitskaya meeting, he first said the participants “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children,” before acknowledging, the next day, that in fact it concerned opposition research on Clinton.