Alex Witt hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Alex Witt hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Don jr. And it goes on to say this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics. It is done frequently in politics when everyone involved is an american citizen. It is much more treacherous if there are any foreign nationals who are part of a meeting like that because there are violations of the law if foreign nationals contribute anything of value to a campaign. Money, information, anything of value. So thats where it gets a bit tricky. Now, one of the issues, we know, is that donald trump jr. , through his testimony and the emails that he released, did acknowledge that it was a meeting to get information, dirt as it was described on Hillary Clinton. We also know that another attendee of that meeting, jared kushner, who is the president s soninlaw and senior
euphimism facts develop. that s a nice way of saying their story has shifted several times on this meeting from adoptions to now finally the president admitting this morning the whole design was to get dirt on his opponent and to solicit that information from a foreign source, something that s patently illegal. one of the questions, as we look at some of the video here of one of the president s rallies, he was in ohio, as you know, yesterday. very key special election, one of the first excuse me it is the last of this season. but when you look at the response of his messaging, it seems like no matter what he tweets, and we re looking at some of them this morning, right? that it will be like water off the duck in that there will be very little repercussion. well, for the core base of trump voters, that 35, 40% of the population, you might be right. but if you take a step back and you look at the overa
midterms, where is the sensibility, where is that comfort in the presidency right now? there hasn t been reporting from any other outlets i ve seen that the president is going back to see steve bannon. it s possible that s true but not something widely reported. the president is dealing with a significant amount of angst as a result of the mueller investigation. he s been angsting about it since the legislation, but he seems particularly concerned that mueller could be getting information on his son don jr. that s why he put out these tweets this morning, sort of te telegraphing those concerns. we haven t seen people in don jr. s immediate circle being brought in for questioning, we haven t seen reports about raids or subpoenas being directed on people who might have information on don jr., but despite that, the president
don jr. and it goes on to say this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics. it is done frequently in politics when everyone involved is an american citizen. it is much more treacherous if there are any foreign nationals who are part of a meeting like that because there are violations of the law if foreign nationals contribute anything of value to a campaign. money, information, anything of value. so that s where it gets a bit tricky. now, one of the issues, we know, is that donald trump jr., through his testimony and the e-mails that he released, did acknowledge that it was a meeting to get information, dirt as it was described on hillary clinton. we also know that another attendee of that meeting, jared kushner, who is the president s son-in-law and senior adviser, has since gotten his security clearance at a level not the highest level but has a valid security clearance. that raises the issue of the
process to get that clearance would contemplate all of these issues like this meeting and things that they would know behind the scenes. so is that something to suggest there wasn t something unlawful there? we just don t know, but that s another piece of the puzzle. today jay sekulow, one of the lawyers for the president, addressed some of these concerns about what is the legal standard here and how might there be exposure or perhaps not. here s how he laid it out. the real question here is would a meeting of that nature constitute a violation the meeting itself constitute a violation of the law. you have to look at what laws, rules, regulation statutes are purportedly violated here. why did you deny president trump s involvement? when did you learn that the denial wasn t true? let me tell you two things on that. number one, as you know, george, i was in the case at that point a couple weeks ask there wnd th lot of information we were gathering, and as my colleague rudy giulia