During a meeting with Senate Judiciary Committee staffers today, Donald Trump Jr. denied any wrongdoing in his meeting with a Russian lawyer during his father's presidential campaign, according to the prepared remarks he delivered investigators this morning that were obtained by ABC News.
In the statement, the president's eldest son said he took that June 9, 2016 meeting with the Russian lawyer because he wanted to determine Clinton's "fitness" as a candidate. He said he was skeptical about taking the meeting in the first place, and that "as it later turned out, my skepticism was justified."
"Nonetheless, at the time, I thought I should listen to what Rob [Goldstone, a music publicist acquaintance of Trump's] and his colleagues had to say. To the extent they had information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate, I believed that I should at least hear them out," Trump Jr. said in his statement, which was first obtained by The New York Times.
He says the meeting quickly turned from a confusing allegation about Russian support for the DNC to the Magnitsky Act, which he had never heard of befroe that day, he said.
"It was clear to me that her real purpose in asking for the meeting all along was to discuss Russian adoptions and the Magnitsky Act," he said of the act concerning Russian adoptions.
"The meeting lasted 20-30 minutes and Rob, Emin [Agalarov, a pop singer and acquaintance of both Goldstone and Trump's] and I never discussed the meeting again. I do not recall ever discussing it with Jared, Paul or anyone else. In short, I gave it no further thought,” he said.
The written statement concludes by saying "As is clear from the above, I did not collude with any foreign government and do not know of anyone who did. I am grateful for the opportunity to help resolve any lingering concerns that may exist regarding these events. I am very proud of the campaign my father ran and was honored to be a part of it."
The president’s eldest son arrived at the Capitol sometime before 9:40 a.m. and was not pictured entering the committee room. He is still in the room answering questions from Senate staffers as of 12:30 p.m.
On Wednesday, the day before the meeting, Trump Jr.’s legal team released a statement saying that they "look forward to a professional and productive meeting and appreciate the opportunity to assist the committee."
The meeting with Veselnitskaya and Goldstone and others took place in June 2016, more than a month after his father became the presumptive Republican nominee. Music publicist Goldstone, whom Trump Jr. knew through the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that was held in Russia, reached out to Trump Jr. about the meeting that eventually included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
In the initial email to arrange the meeting, Goldstone wrote that a client of his "offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."
Trump Jr. described his reaction to the email during his prepared remarks today.
"I was somewhat skeptical of his outreach, as I had only known Rob as Emin’s somewhat colorful music promoter who had worked with famous pop singers such as Michael Jackson. Since I had no additional information to validate what Rob was saying, I did not quite know what to make of his email. I had no way to gauge the reliability, credibility or accuracy of any of the things he was saying," Trump Jr. said in the statement.
Trump Jr. said that he asked his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort to attend the meeting, which was held in Trump Tower.
He said in his statement that he had asked Goldstone to send him a list of the attendees of the meeting but "he never did. As a result, I had no advance knowledge of who would attend."
Earlier media reports stated that there were eight people at the meeting, but today Trump Jr. said "I only recall seven."
The meeting was publicly disclosed in early July 2017, and Trump Jr. released several differing statements about the meeting before releasing copies of the emails that show the scheduling of the meeting.
Here is the full statement:
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2wMOX3c
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