where four passenger planes were waiting to take off. and the images coming in right now, digging for clues after four young men go missing. good evening, and it s great to have you with us here on a tuesday night, and we begin tonight with donald trump jr. s own e-mails. the president s son was told during the campaign that he was about to get dirt on hillary clinton, and he was told in those e-mails that the russian government was out to help his father win. don jr. agreeing to the meeting. a russian lawyer making the trip to trump tower here in new york city. in the e-mail exchange, told to go to the 25th floor. tonight, reaction has been swift and the white house, issuing a statement from president trump about his son. abc s chief white house correspondent, jonathan karl, leading us off. reporter: it s a startling development, the e-mails show donald trump jr. was told the russian government was trying to help his father s campaign, and that he was willing, even eager, to acc
new york with the russian government attorney who is flying over from moscow. don jr. replies, great. it will likely be paul manafort, campaign boss, my brother-in-law and me. 725 5th avenue, 25th floor. that s trump tower. the next day, don jr. forwards the full e-mail chain to kushner and manafort with that same subject line, russia - clinton - private and confidential. and the day after that the meeting takes place inside trump tower. don, jr. says nothing of value came from the meeting, and that he released the e-mails today himself to quote, be totally transparent, but the new york times says he only released them after he was told the times was about to publish the e-mails. there s no evidence the russian lawyer actually provided any information on hillary clinton, and, in fact, denies doing so. also unclear whether she had anything to do with the wikileaks release of nearly 20,000 dnc e-mails that happened six weeks later.
she flew in especially from moscow to meet with trump s inner circle on the 25th floor of trump tower, one floor below the office of donald trump sr. democrats in congress tonight are asking, how could he not know what was going on? especially since the meeting was set up by people working for a russian billionaire who was a former business partner of trump and also close to vladimir putin. tonight in moscow, the lawyer veselnitskaya, denied her purpose was to provide compromising information on hillary clinton. no, this is not true, she said. further claiming she didn t even know if donald trump was a candidate for president then. she says presidential son-in-law jared kushner left the meeting after only about ten minutes, and that campaign chairman paul manafort, spent most of the time looking at his phone. she insists the campaign was not on her mind, telling reporters tonight, i m not interested in politics. brian ross with us live tonight across from trump tower, and brian, that
schedule. i am told that behind those closed doors, the president is furious. he is fuming at his aides, frustrated that the russia story just won t go away. jon karl leading us off tonight. jon, thank you. you heard jon report there that donald trump jr. wasn t the only one in that meeting with the russian lawyer. we now know his brother-in-law, jared kushner, now a senior adviser, and campaign chairman, paul manafort were also there, and late today, the russian lawyer who was in that room appearing before the cameras. our team was there in moscow when she emerged from her office. here s abc s chief investigative corporate, brian ross, tonight. reporter: the big question tonight is, what did the president know about the meeting here at trump tower and when did he know it. the white house says he only became aware of it a few days ago. but we now know the russian lawyer, natalia veselnitskaya, well connected to the kremlin, and a familiar figure in washington lobbying against rus
we turn next hertoew reporting tonight after we learned of a close call at the san francisco airport. a major disaster narrowly averted, an air canada passenger plane coming in for a landing, heading straight for a taxiway, where four other passenger planes were waiting to take off. up to 1,000 passengers on those planes. here s abc s david kerley. reporter: new details tonight on a disaster averted on this runway. an air canada pilot, confused on a night approach. tower, i just want to confirm. this is air canada 7-5-9 we see some lights on the runway there. air canada 759 confirmed, cleared to land 2-8 right. there is no one on 2-8 right but you. reporter: what the pilot of the a-320 was actually seeing friday night were four other jets, potentially carrying up to 1,000 people on the taxiway running parallel to the runway. a pilot on the ground sounding the alarm. where is this guy going? he is on the taxiway. reporter: less than ten seconds later, the pilot told to abort