Who's Who in the Russia Investigation: Donald Trump Jr.
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Countable Explains: Who's Who in the Russia Investigation
Donald Trump Jr.
Role:
Trustee and executive director of the Trump Organization
Quote:
"In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently."
Key dates:
NOTE: The two major events involving Donald Trump, Jr., are the meeting he attended in Trump Tower in June 2016 and his October 2016 correspondence with WikiLeaks. However, much of the information about these two events would be revealed in 2017. Therefore, we are grouping the information by event, rather than date.
THE JUNE 9, 2016 MEETING:
June 9, 2016: Donald Trump Jr. attends a meeting at Trump Tower that he arranged. After a series of reports and investigations, it’ll ultimately be revealed that there were at least eight people in the meeting: Donald Trump Jr.; Jared Kushner; Paul Manafort; Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya; music publicist Robert Goldstone; Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin; real estate developer Ike Kaveladze; a translator.
June 8, 2017: the above meeting remains secret for a year, until it’s revealed in a New York Times report. At this time, the only known attendees are Trump Jr., Manafort, Kushner, and Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya.
In response to the story, Trump Jr. releases a statement, saying: "We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up."
June 9, 2017: the New York Times reports that Trump Jr. was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton in anticipation of the June 9, 2016, meeting. Trump Jr. releases a new statement, saying:
After pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.
July 10, 2017: Trump Jr.’s attorney sends an email to the New York Times calling their reports "much ado about nothing." The attorney tells the Times that Robert Goldstone, a music publicist who worked on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Russia, “contacted Don Jr. in an email and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by Democratic Party front-runner, Hillary Clinton, in her dealings with Russia.”
July 11, 2017: Trump Jr. tweets images of his email exchange with Goldstone. The emails begin on June 3, 2016, with Goldstone writing that "the Crown prosecutor of Russia" has “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.” Trump Jr. responds, “if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
Trump Jr. releases a statement to accompany the above disclosure. He claims that "the information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research" and the meeting “occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue.”
Late July, 2017: it’s revealed that that there were at least eight participants in the June 9, 2016, meeting.
July 22, 2017: Mueller sends a "document preservation request" to White House Staff, asking them to save “any subjects discussed in the course of the June 2016 meeting" and also "any decisions made regarding the recent disclosures about the June 2016 meeting."
Throughout July 2017: It’s being reported that President Trump helped craft his son’s initial statement about the June 8, 2016 meeting—that it was actually the President who suggested Trump Jr. claim the meeting was about "the adoption of Russian children."
July 12, 2017: Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, tells CNN: "I wasn't involved in the statement drafting at all, nor was the President." Sekulow repeats a similar statement on July 16.
August 1, 2017: after a month of denials, the White House admits Trump "weighed in" on Trump Jr.’s initial statement. "The statement that Don Jr. issued is true," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says. “There's no inaccuracy in the statement. The President weighed in as any father would, based on the limited information that he had.”
December 6, 2017: Trump Jr. meets with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors. According to sources, the interview focused on three areas: the June 2016 meeting; Trump's correspondence with WikiLeaks; and prior business by the Trump Organization. Trump Jr. declined to discuss the conversation he had with his father following the June 2016 meeting, telling the committee he was invoking attorney-client privilege.
TRUMP JR.'s CORRESPONDENCE WITH WIKILEAKS
October 2016: On November 13, 2017, it would be revealed that around the same time Mike Pence was on Fox News denying that the Trump campaign was "in cahoots" with WikiLeaks, Donald Trump, Jr. was communicating with them. This was during the period where the website was publishing hacked emails from the DNC and Democratic officials.
October 12, 2016: WikiLeaks sends a private message to Trump Jr., suggesting: "Hey Donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications. Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us." The link was to a site where users could search the hacked documents of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Fifteen minutes later, the future President tweets: “Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!” Two days later, Trump Jr. tweets the link WikiLeaks had provided him.
On November 13, 2017, Trump Jr. shares a series of tweets that he says reveals the totality of his correspondence with WikiLeaks:
Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/SiwTqWtykA
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017
2/3 pic.twitter.com/b1B9PBGl5t
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017
3/3 pic.twitter.com/5FdeNrbg02
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017
- December 6, 2017: Trump Jr. meets with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors. According to sources, the interview focused on three areas: the June 2016 meeting; Trump's correspondence with WikiLeaks; and prior business by the Trump Organization. Trump Jr. declined to discuss the conversation he had with his father following the June 2016 meeting, telling the committee he was invoking attorney-client privilege.
Current mood:
Feisty. Trump Jr. has continued to tweet in defense of his father and himself.
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