Washington – Donald Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law and then-campaign chairman met with a Russian lawyer shortly after Trump won the Republican nomination, in what appears to be the earliest known private meeting between key aides to the president and a Russian.
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Representatives of Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner confirmed the June 2016 meeting to The Associated Press after The New York Times reported Saturday on the gathering of the men and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. Then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended, according to the statement from Donald Trump Jr.
He described it as a “short introductory meeting” during which the three discussed a disbanded program that used to allow U.S. citizens to adopt Russian children. Russia ended the adoptions in response to American sanctions brought against the nation following the 2009 death of an imprisoned lawyer who spoke about a corruption scandal. Trump Jr. said he invited the other two Americans, was asked to attend by an acquaintance not named in the statement, and was not told beforehand with whom he would meet.
“It was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow up,” he said.
Kushner lawyer Jamie Gorelick said her client already disclosed the meeting in a revised filing of a form that requires him to list meetings with foreign agents.
“Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows,” she said.
Unlike Kushner, Trump Jr. does not serve in the administration and is not required to disclose his foreign contacts. The newspaper reported Saturday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, that Manafort disclosed the meeting to congressional investigators questioning his foreign contacts.
Manafort helmed Trump’s campaign for about five months until August and resigned from the campaign immediately after the AP reported on his firm’s covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party. He is one of several people linked to the Trump campaign who are under scrutiny by a special counsel and congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and potential coordination with Trump associates.
Manafort has denied any coordination with Russia and has said his work in Ukraine was not related to the campaign.
The newspaper said Veselnitskaya is known for her attempts to undercut the sanctions against Russian human rights abusers. The Times also said her clients include state-owned businesses and the son of a senior government official whose company was under investigation in the United States at the time of the meeting.
Once again the fake news goes with the assumption that Russia is the evil Stalin Soveits . However many of us believe that we should make peace with Russia and Putin is not this evil
Dictator depicited by the News and backwards minded people like McCain . Thus discussing to lifting sanctions and meeting with these guys is not bad
From Nikki Haley:
“Everybody knows Russia meddled in our elections … ” said Haley
Haley said that Trump wanted to let Putin now that “yes we know you meddled in our elections … and cut it out.”
She said that other world leaders would have a similar message since Russia has tried to meddle in other elections. “They are trying to cause chaos within the countries,” she added.
Just one example that Putin is evil.
so the witch hunt continues. did they also have russian salad dressing with their last meal? when are these morons going to let go? can you give me even one instance when during obama’s 8 years the media ever hounded him over and over about any issue? one of two things: either obama got away with murder or President Trump is being unfairly scutinized. i think the latter is probably true. will you “gotcha” folks out there please leave our President alone and let him do his job instaed of distracting him with all this craziness? enough is enough!
The media is dumb and blind. It was hillary who gave the russians of our uranium while bill got $450.000 for a speech and she isn’t being prosecuted yet.There’s no justice here in the good old USA.
There is a behind the scenes struggle that many have no idea about.
1, Russia has many unwanted babies.
2, For whatever reason, many Americans prefer to adopt kids that look like them, i.e. not black, not asian.
3, Many, if not most Russian kids in this system are brain damaged, often fetal alcohol syndrome.
4, In one egregarious case the adoptive parents sent the child back after he attempted to murder his adoptive mother.
5, Russia then stopped all adoptions.
I have seen some of these cases and these stubborn parents insist on adopting even when they are told there is brain damage. This results in huge, lifelong taxpeyer costs for foreign born kids.