Trump Jr. Tweets Response To Russian Lawyer Controversy, Releasing Emails
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- In response to the controversy surrounding his meeting with a Russian attorney last year during the U.S. Presidential Election, President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., has tweeted a written statement and the contents of the emails between himself and the publicist who set up the meeting.
Members of Congress are demanding that Trump Jr. and two other top officials shed more light on a meeting they had with the Russian lawyer.
The New York Times says Trump Jr. was told that the paper was about to publish the emails right before he tweeted them himself.
Trump Jr.'s statement reads:
"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. The first email on June 3, 2016 was from Rob, who was relating a request from Emin, a person I knew form the 2013 Ms. Universe Pageant near Moscow. Emin and his father have a very highly respected company in Moscow. The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research. 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. And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act. To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue. As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was "the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it."
The email chain can be read HERE.
The emails were between Trump Jr. and a music publicist, who at one point wrote about an offer to provide the Trump Campaign with information from the Russians that "would incriminate Hillary and her dealing with Russia."
Trump Jr. responded: "If it's what you say I love it."
The meeting between the lawyer with possible ties to the Kremlin took place at Trump Tower.
Jared kushner and campaign chair paul manafort were present.
Through a spokesperson, the president praised his son: "My son is a high quality person, and I applaud his transparency."
In a letter sent to Trump Jr., his son-in-law Kushner and the former campaign manager, lawmakers questioned their respect for the democracy.
Hours after some members of congress said they had a duty to investigate his actions.
Trump Jr., appeared on Fox News to discuss the meeting.
"In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently," he said. "For me this was opposition research, they had something you know maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I'd been hearing about, probably under reported for years."
Both Democrats and Republicans are trying to get to the bottom of how the meeting what set up and why.
"It's certainly another shoe that's been dropped that needs to be looked at," said Arizona Senator John McCain (R).
"Raises so many questions. This question of collusion, which essentially starts to transition into potentially a treason investigation," said Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D).
Within hours of those tweets, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings sent a six page letter to Trump Jr., Kushner and Paul Manafort, demanding more clarity on what happened, before, during and after the meeting.
Cummings wrote:
"Your decision to take this meeting raises significant questions about your judgment. Furthermore, I am concerned that you failed to disclose this meeting to the authorities or the public for almost a year."
The letter from the House Oversight Committee, signed by Cummings, gives the men a deadline of July 25.
Trump Jr.'s lawyer said his client did nothing wrong when he met with that Russian lawyer.
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