Update | Trump admits helping write son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian, ‘like any father would do’
Trump’s lawyer had previously claimed the US President was not involved in the inaccurate statement about the meeting, which was set up in the hope of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a briefing that Trump “certainly didn’t dictate (the statement), but he weighed in, offered a suggestion like any father would do.”
“The statement that was issued was true and there were no inaccuracies in the statement,” Sanders said, even though emails later released by Donald Trump Jnr showed that the subject of the meeting was to be possible damaging information about Republican Trump’s rival for the presidency, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump’s advisers discussed the statement about the meeting and agreed that Trump Jnr should issue a truthful account of the episode so that it “couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.”
But the president, who was flying home from Germany on July 8, changed the plan and “personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jnr said he and the Russian lawyer had ‘primarily discussed a programme about the adoption of Russian children,’” the Washington Post said, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the deliberations.