Emails reveal Trump Jnr was offered Kremlin help to defeat Clinton. ‘I love it’, he replied
President’s son was offered dirt on Hillary Clinton as ‘part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump’
US President Donald Trump’s eldest son eagerly agreed last year to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic White House rival Hillary Clinton as part of the Kremlin’s support for his father, according to explosive emails released on Tuesday.
The emails, released by Donald Trump Jnr after the New York Times told him it intended to publish them, are the most concrete evidence yet that Trump presidential campaign officials welcomed Russian government help to win the White House, a subject that has cast a cloud over Trump’s presidency and spurred investigations by the Justice Department and Congress.
The messages show that the younger Trump delighted in the prospect of “very high level and sensitive information” from a Russian attorney that a go-between described as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump” ahead of a meeting on June 9, 2016.
The messages show that Trump’s campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, also planned to attend the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who denies having Kremlin ties.
The question of the campaign’s involvement appears settled now. The answer is yes
Trump Jnr said Veselnitskaya did not provide any damaging information about Clinton at the meeting and instead sought to discuss Russian sanctions.
But the correspondence between Trump Jnr and Rob Goldstone, a publicist who arranged the meeting, will provide fodder for US investigators probing whether Trump’s campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
“The Crown prosecutor of Russia ... 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,” Goldstone wrote Trump Jnr on June 3. Russia does not have a “crown prosecutor” the equivalent title is prosecutor general.
“The conversation will now turn to whether President Trump was personally involved or not. But the question of the campaign’s involvement appears settled now,” Cornell Law School professor Jens David Ohlin said in an interview. “The answer is yes.”
Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.
The stunning revelations jarred financial markets as investors worried it presented a fresh distraction from the administration’s economic agenda. Stocks and the dollar fell, while US Treasury securities gained ground.
Stocks later retraced most of their losses after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to keep lawmakers in Washington longer than scheduled to push through a healthcare reform bill.
The emails do not appear to provide proof of illegal activity, but legal experts say Trump Jnr could run into trouble if investigators find he aided a criminal action, such as hacking into Democratic computer networks, or violated campaign-finance laws by accepting gifts from foreign entities.
He is likely to face scrutiny from both congressional committees that are investigating the matter.
The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to call on him to testify and to provide documents, according to a Senate source, while the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee wants to interview him and everybody else involved in the meeting, said the panel’s top Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff.
“The most serious risk to the country, I think, is that the Russians possess compromising information,” Schiff told reporters.
“The American people need to know that our president is acting on their behalf and not acting because he has a fear that the Russians could disclose things that would harm him or his family,” he said.
CNN reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading a criminal investigation at the Justice Department, also plans to look into the meeting.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters that the president applauded his son’s transparency in releasing the emails and viewed him as a “high-quality person,” referring all other questions to Trump’s and his son’s lawyers.
Vice-President Mike Pence, who has said that the campaign had no contacts with Russia, said through a spokesman that he was not aware of the meeting, which took place before he became Trump’s running mate later that summer.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is at times harshly critical of Trump, told reporters: “This is very problematic. We cannot allow foreign governments to reach out to anybody’s campaign and say ‘we’d like to help you.’”
