Kremlin-linked lawyer who met Donald Trump Jnr ‘promised dirt on Clinton’
2016 meeting also included Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort
Donald Trump’s eldest son said Sunday he met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer shortly after his father clinched the Republican nomination, hoping to get information helpful to the campaign.
A New York Times report Sunday went further, citing advisers to the White House briefed on the encounter who said Trump Jnr agreed to the meeting after being promised information damaging to Hillary Clinton.
The June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya involved Trump Jnr, his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who was then the campaign chairman.
On Monday, Trump Jnr hired a lawyer to represent him in Russia-related investigations, his office and the lawyer said on Monday, as Republicans voiced concern about a meeting between the US president’s son and a Russian.
Trump Jnr hired New York lawyer Alan Futerfas, who specialises in criminal defence.
Futerfas said: “I look forward to assisting Donald Jnr and, quite frankly, there is nothing to all of the media buzz about the June 9th, 2016 meeting. That will be proven to be the case.”
The existence of the meeting was disclosed only recently to government officials and confirmed on Saturday by representatives of Trump Jnr and Kushner following a separate Times report.
But he said he was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance he knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant who he was told might have information that would be helpful to the campaign.
Trump Jnr said that during the meeting the attorney claimed to have information that “individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee” and supporting Clinton.
“No details or supporting information was provided or even offered,” Trump Jnr said. “It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
On Saturday, Trump Jnr had described the same gathering as “short introductory meeting” during which the three discussed a disbanded programme that used to allow US 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.
He said on Sunday that the attorney turned the conversation to the adoption of Russian children, and that he believed that this was the “true agenda” of the meeting and that claims about damaging information had been a pretext for the encounter.
“I interrupted and advised her that my father was not an elected official, but rather a private citizen, and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office,” Trump Jnr said in the statement.
Unlike Kushner, Trump Jnr does not serve in the administration and is not required to disclose his foreign contacts. The newspaper said the meeting was disclosed in recent days to government investigators filed a revised version of a form needed to obtain a security clearance. His attorney has previously acknowledged that Kushner’s first security clearance submissions were incomplete and contained errors.
Manafort also recently disclosed the meeting to congressional investigators, the newspaper said.
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.
