Donald Trump Jr. says he took Russia meeting to determine Clinton's "fitness" for office
President Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., told Senate investigators Thursday that he agreed to a meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton because he wanted to determine her "fitness" for office.
That's according to a prepared statement he delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee that was first reported by The New York Times and later obtained by CBS News.
"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 the statement. "Depending on what, if any, information they had, I could then consult with counsel to make an informed decision as to whether to give it further consideration."
He also said that he was skeptical about the meeting, which was organized by music publicist Rob Goldstone, but that nothing came of it.
"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. "As it later turned out, my skepticism was justified. The meeting provided no meaningful information and turned out not to be about what had been represented."
The chairman of the panel, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Thursday that there has not been a decision made about whether Trump Jr. will have to come before the committee in public testimony.
Trump Jr. came under fire over the summer due to revelations that gradually came out surrounding the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer, along with Trump's campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
CBS News' Rebecca Kaplan, Alan He and Brian Gottlieb contributed to this report.
