Washington (July 12, 2017): United States President Donald Trump’ eldest son Donald Trump Jr has released an e-mail chain showing he was interested in the ‘sensitive’ information on Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton from a Russian.
Donald Trump Jr, agreed to meet with someone he believed to be a “Russian government attorney” last summer after receiving an email offering him “very high level and sensitive information” that would “incriminate” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to emails the younger Trump publicly released on Tuesday.
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a statement from the President defending his son during an off-camera briefing with reporters Tuesday.
“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” Sanders said, reading a statement from Trump. “Beyond that I’m going to have to refer everything beyond this matter to Don Jr.’s counsel and outside counsel,” Sanders said.
Sanders declined to answer several follow-up questions, referring questions again to outside attorneys.
The email, from publicist Rob Goldstone, claimed the information was part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Goldstone subsequently offered to set up a meeting with a “Russian government attorney” to discuss the information.
Goldstone, who represents the son of an Azerbaijani-Russian businessman close to the Russian government, claimed in an email to Trump Jr. in June 2016 that a top Russian prosecutor had offered the father “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.”
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone wrote in the email to Trump Jr. “If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. replied, according to the email he released.
The Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, denied in an interview having ever acted on behalf of the Russian government. And despite Goldstone’s promises, both Veselnitskaya and Trump Jr. say the lawyer offered no consequential information on Clinton.
The emails offered the most concrete evidence yet that Trump campaign associates and family members were willing to consider receiving support from the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign. Federal investigators have been probing ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia for months as part of an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
Trump Jr. has repeatedly pushed back on allegations of collusion. Just a month after he was promised information from the Russian government on Clinton, Trump Jr. rejected the Clinton campaign’s claims of a Russian effort to boost the Trump campaign.
“This just goes to show you their exact moral compass. I mean, they will say anything to be able to win this,” Trump Jr. said and added, “It’s disgusting. It’s so phony.”
The US intelligence community concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed an influence campaign to hurt Clinton and help Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, though it was not clear whether the emails Trump Jr. received were part of that effort.
“I first wanted to just have a phone call but when that didn’t work out, they said the woman would be in New York and asked if I would meet. I decided to take the meeting. The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official,” Trump Jr. said in a statement he tweeted along with the emails. “And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act.”
Veselnitskaya has also claimed the meeting primarily centered on the Magnitsky Act, a bill signed into law in 2012 by President Barack Obama that leveled sanctions on Russian individuals. Putin retaliated against the sanctions by banning the adoption of Russian children by American citizens.
Related News:
Trump’s Son, Son-in-law Met With Kremlin-linked Lawyer during campaign
Putin denies for Trump shared classified info with Russian diplomat
