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Donald Trump Jr posts emails of Russian offer of material on Clinton: 'I love it' Donald Trump Jr posts emails from Russia offering material on Clinton: 'I love it'
(about 2 hours later)
Donald Trump Jr has been forced to release damning emails that show he welcomed what he was told was a Russian government attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. Donald Trump Jr has been forced to release damning emails that reveal he eagerly embraced what he was told was a Russian government attempt to damage Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
The stunning disclosure raised questions over whether campaign laws were broken and why senior Trump associates failed to report a hostile act by a foreign power.
The emails show music promoter Rob Goldstone telling the future US president’s son that “the crown prosecutor of Russia” had 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”.The emails show music promoter Rob Goldstone telling the future US president’s son that “the crown prosecutor of Russia” had 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”.
Goldstone adds: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump.” British-born Goldstone adds in the exchange on 3 June 2016: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump.”
Trump Jr replies 17 minutes later and welcomes the offer. “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.” Seventeen minutes later, Trump Jr welcomes this with the reply: “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.”
In a later email, Goldstone describes the Russian lawyer they were due to meet, Natalia Veselnitskaya, as a “Russian government attorney”. In a later email, Goldstone describes the Russian lawyer they are due to meet, Natalia Veselnitskaya, as a “Russian government attorney”.
The formatting of the emails suggests that Trump Jr forwarded the whole chain to Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, Trump Jr’s brother-in-law, before the meeting the three attended with Veselnitskaya. Trump Jr agrees, adding that he would probably be accompanied by “Paul Manafort (campaign boss)” and “my brother-in-law,” Jared Kushner, husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and now a senior White House adviser.
Trump Jr released the email exchange on Tuesday apparently to pre-empt their publication by the New York Times, which, this weekend, first broke the news of his meeting with Veselnitskaya in June last year. Veselnitskaya had promised compromising information about Clinton but apparently failed to deliver. The formatting of the emails suggests that Trump Jr forwarded the whole chain to Manafort and Kushner before the meeting the three attended with Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York on 9 June.
On Sunday, Trump Jr had said he had asked Manafort and Kushner to attend but not told them what the meeting was about.
Critics seized on the new disclosures to question why three of Trump’s closest advisers were willing to accept such a meeting instead of alerting authorities to interference by a foreign adversary. Special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence committees are investigating Russian meddling in the election, thought to include stealing Democratic National Committee emails and the use of social-media “bots” to spread fake news about Clinton.
Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, a senator from Virginia and member of the foreign relations committee, told MSNBC: “These emails are very explosive... This should have set off alarm bells and red lights and yet what it seemed to do is activate their salivatory glands ... This is just wheelbarrows of new evidence for the special counsel and the Senate intelligence committee.”
Trump Jr released the email chain on Tuesday apparently to pre-empt its publication by the New York Times, which, this weekend, first broke the news of his meeting with Veselnitskaya in June last year. Veselnitskaya had promised compromising information about Clinton but apparently failed to deliver.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Trump Jr explained: “To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldstone about the meeting on June 9, 2016. To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue.”
There is no such position as crown prosecutor of Russia, but the most likely candidate would be the long-serving prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika.
Chaika, a long-standing member of Putin’s elite, was justice minister for several years before being made prosecutor general in 2006, a post he has held ever since.
He was the subject of a documentary film by the Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who alleged systematic corruption by the prosecutor general and his two sons.
Goldstone told the Wall Street Journal his reference to the “crown prosecutor” was meant to mean Veselnitskaya. “It’s a language thing,” he said.
Trump Jr has given shifting explanations for why he accepted the meeting, first claiming that it was to discuss American adoptions of Russian children, then acknowledging that he was interested in information about Clinton.
The president’s eldest son denies any wrongdoing and tweeted on Tuesday: “Media and Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a year, I understand the desperation!”The president’s eldest son denies any wrongdoing and tweeted on Tuesday: “Media and Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a year, I understand the desperation!”
On Monday night, the Times had reported that Trump Jr was informed in an email before a meeting with the lawyer that damaging information about Clinton to be handed over was part of an effort by the Russian government to help the Trump campaign. Goldstone told the Associated Press on Monday he set up the meeting on behalf of a client, pop star Emin Agalarov, the son of a Moscow-based developer, Aras Agalarov, who has close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin and tried to partner with Trump in a hotel project.
The Times did not publish the Goldstone email, but reported that three different people had described it to them. On Tuesday the paper published the email, and Trump Jr posted the email chain to Twitter. Aras Agalarov worked with Donald Trump to bring the Miss Universe contest to Moscow in 2013. Trump appeared in a music video with Emin Agalarov that featured several Miss Universe contestants.
There is no such position as crown prosecutor of Russia. Goldstone’s 3 June email says the Russian government’s support for Trump is “helped along by Aras and Emin”. He asks if Trump Jr wants to speak to Emin about it directly and proposes: “I can also send this info to your father via Rhona [presumably Rhona Graff, Donald Trump’s longtime executive assistant], but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.” It is not clear from the emails whether Goldstone did send any of the information to Trump Sr, who has denied all knowledge of the meeting through his lawyer.
More details soon ... In an interview with the New York Times on Monday, Goldstone implied that he was at the meeting with Veselnitskaya and that it produced nothing of note. She 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 an American law that blacklists Russians suspected of human rights abuses.
Goldstone told the paper: “It was the most inane nonsense I’ve ever heard. 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?”
Before the publication of Trump Jr’s emails, Veselnitskaya had denied she had gone to the meeting with information about the Clinton campaign. “It’s quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information, they wanted it so badly,” she told NBC, denying that she had any to offer. She also answered “no” when asked if she had ever worked for the Russian government.
The revelations around 39-year-old Trump Jr’s involvement is one of the biggest blows yet in the ongoing saga of the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, which the president has dismissed as a “hoax”.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were taken aback but reluctant to weigh in just yet.
At least two Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee, Senators John Cornyn and James Lankford, said Trump Jr should testify before the panel, which is overseeing one of three parallel investigations into Russian interference in the US election.
Arizona Senator John McCain, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, said there were “many allusions and many stories of meetings and communications”, while noting he expected there was more yet to come.
“There’ll be many more shoes that will drop,” the former presidential candidate told CNN.
Richard Burr, the Republican chief of the Senate intelligence committee, said it was “too early to draw any conclusions”.
“We’re gonna look at everything and go where the facts lead us,” Burr told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Burr would not say if his committee was aware of the emails. His Democratic counterpart, Mark Warner, said it was significant that the emails had been forwarded to Kushner and Manafort.
“They’ve got a lot of explaining to do, because all these denials of any knowledge of Russian government involvement seems to be a gross contradiction here,” Warner told Roll Call.
Some of Trump’s most ardent defenders nonetheless stood by the president. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who competed bitterly against Trump for the Republican nomination, blamed the media for fixating on Russia.
“Russia is a significant adversary,” he told reporters. “Part of the irony of this media obsession with Russia is that the Obama administration began with Hillary Clinton bringing the big reset button with Russia.
“Substance matters,” he added. “Policy matters.”
Norm Eisen, former ethics czar under President Barack Obama, said: “It’s another significant step forward in the investigation of Trump collusion with Russia because it represents an offer to collude and an acceptance of collusion to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton and intrude upon our democracy.”
He added: “I believe it’s potentially legally actionable but we need to let the investigation play out. I predict it will not be the last bombshell.”
Additional reporting by Shaun Walker in Moscow
Here's my statement and the full email chain pic.twitter.com/x050r5n5LQHere's my statement and the full email chain pic.twitter.com/x050r5n5LQ
Here is page 4 (which did not post due to space constraints). pic.twitter.com/z1Xi4nr2gqHere is page 4 (which did not post due to space constraints). pic.twitter.com/z1Xi4nr2gq
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