Was Trump Jr. the only member of the Trump campaign to share that same private anticipation? Did Manafort and Kushner also know what the point of the meeting was? Did the candidate, Donald Trump? In other words, were all four of them planning to play ball with what the Russians offered?
.. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee released testimony from Trump Jr. and Goldstone that made fairly clear that both Manafort and Kushner knew what the point of the meeting was.
.. But before Trump Jr. took the meeting, he wanted to confirm with Goldstone’s boss that it was legitimate. “Perhaps I just speak to Emin [Agalarov] first,” he wrote in his initial response to Goldstone, referring to the developer/musician with whom Goldstone worked. Goldstone worked to set that call up, and Trump Jr. received a call on June 6 from Russia that lasted one or two minutes and later placed one to Russia that lasted two or three minutes. (Trump Jr. has insisted that he doesn’t remember speaking with Agalarov and that perhaps the calls back and forth, including one from Agalarov to Trump Jr. at around noon on June 7 were an exchange of voice mails.)
.. In between those calls on June 6, though, was a mysterious one. Trump Jr. was in contact with a blocked number for three to four minutes. (Call logs round up to the nearest minute in reporting call lengths.) Immediately after ending that call, Trump Jr. called Agalarov.
.. Without subpoenaing records — which Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Post’s Greg Sargent that the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee refused to do — it’s impossible to know who was on the other end.
.. But there’s another question that remains unanswered and is potentially important: Did Trump Jr. call the blocked number, or did the blocked number call him?
On CNN Thursday night, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) described the call as outgoing. The implication from an outgoing call, of course, is that Trump Jr. was seeking advice before he called Agalarov back. (His first call to Agalarov came immediately after that blocked-number call.) If Trump Jr. received the call, the timing is still suspicious, but it’s possible that the call is not related to the investigation.
.. In short, the evidence suggests that the call was indeed made to Trump Jr. from the blocked number. The vagueness about the subject — an important one when considering the critical question of whether Donald Trump knew about the meeting — is likely a function both of the lack of curiosity among House Republicans and an eagerness by some Democrats to present the call as outgoing. It still seems likely that the call involved Trump, given the context, but it’s still a mystery.
.. At least two people probably know who that call involved. One is Trump Jr., despite the denials in his testimony.
The other is special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.