and what happened next? donald trump mentioned those e-mails after they were released in october. 150 times. an average of five times a day. it was a central part of his closing argument as part of the final 30 days of the presidential campaign. and there again we get on read the e-mail from this goldstone who is kind of a barney character from overseas, laying out the stakes of the meeting. i know the feds have the equivalent of blinders and bose head phones in mueller s office. what must they make, however, of these repeated and different attempts at cover stories for the meeting? it s never good when you re always trying to come one a cover story. and especially when the cover stories are all centered around this one meeting in trump tower.
well, they knew when it they met with her. whn they set up the meeting. you asked me, did they have any intention to meet with russians? they just knew she had a russian name. she s not a representative of the russian government so this is much ado about nothing. let s read the e-mail, again, from a guy named rob goldstone to donald trump jr. setting up the meeting. the crown prosecutor of russia offered to provide the trump gain some official documents is that information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia, and would be very useful to your father. he goes on to write, this is obviously very high level and sensitive information. but is part of this, might as well be in all capital letters, russia and its government s support for mr. trump. djtj, donald trump jr., replied minutes later, if it s what you say, i love it. especially later in the summer. we have asked our guests to rush to our conversation. jeremy, just remind us the short list of facts versus m
threat to our institutions and this is not about any sort of partisanship. in fact what a lot of the former colleagues argue, if they were overtly political, we would have seen it by now and we simply haven t seen any evidence to support the president s claims that this is on their part an effort to settle some sort of score against this president. if anything, he is the one who admitted that he is acting in part in retaliation as well as in question, the russia probe. it is maggie hagerman who says all the time, especially in washington, norms outweigh laws. they outnumber laws. on this norm of pulling security clearances, is there a point at which it would inflame or cause republicans on the hill, god for bid, to speak up? it hasn t yet. there have been very few things that have caused republicans to speak up. outside of the ones we go over
on that, let us bring in our lead-off panel on a monday night. moderator of washington week on pbs. former u.s. attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. and jeremy bash is back with us. former chief of staff at the cia and at the pentagon. robert, i would like to begin with you. what is the degree to which the trump camp was caught off guard by just the idea of 30 hours of don mcgahn testimony in front of the special counsel? it s not tonight trump camp caught off guard. it was mcgahn himself a year ago who was found this whole strategy by john dowd and ty cobb, the president s lawyers, to be off. mcgahn didn t agree with the cooperation strategy when it came to the mueller probe. he advised against it. he went i know what the cooperation, setting the over 1 million documents from the white house and offering his time. in fact, i saw mcgahn go into
natalia veselnitskaya was russian before the meeting took place, nor that she was connected to the russian government. any meeting with regard to getting information on your point is something any candidate staff would take. if someone said, i have information about your point, you would take that meeting. from the russian government? she didn t represent the russian government. she s a private citizen. i don t even know if they knew she was russian at the time. all they had was her name. i think they knew she was russian. well, they knew when it they met with her. not when they set up the meeting. you asked me, did they have any intention to meet with russians? they just knew she had a russian name. she s not a representative of the russian government so this is much ado about nothing. let s read the e-mail, again, from a guy named rob goldstone to donald trump jr. setting up the meeting.