would draft or weigh in on a false statement to be made by his son, a false public statement about a matter in which there is an ongoing criminal investigation. once he says something in a public statement, he would be very likely to say the same thing to a special prosecutor. and lying to the special prosecutor a crime feflt lies under oath, it becomes perjury. so this is a common strategy for obstructing justice, to get a witness to make statements torsion present a story that is not true. i can t imagine any father who would want to expose his own son to that to cover up something. except i guess a father who has the power to pardon his son if
discussions with lots of different variations. none of them were as none of them were as misleading and unspecific as the one that ultimately was released to the new york times. there was one idea that jared kushner s team had, which was to release everything to a mainstream media organization, you know, to use i m trying lanny davis s statement from the clinton scandal era, you know, tell the story yourself, tell it first, tell it all. that was the theme of this group. and that obviously is not what happened. initially. right. so, then when the story broke in early july, the president s attorney said that the president had no part in the don junior statement, which according to your reporting isn t true. let me revisit that. i wasn t involved in the statement drafting at all. nor was the president. i m assuming that was between
statement about the meeting. and after we went off air, he said the characters were misinformed and not pertinent. another said the story was fake news, had inaccurate and not pertinent. then today he certainly helped. he didn t dictate but he, like i said, he weighed in, offering a suggestion like any father would do. let s consider the time line. the statement was drafted as the president was flying home from the g-20 summit. he met twice with vladimir putin. the second meeting where the only a person present was an
the president was not, did not draft the response. the response came from donald trump jr., i m sure, in consultation with his lawyer. he was coming back from the g-20. the statement released on saturday was released by donald trump jr. i m sure in consultation with lawyers. last night as we went to air, multiple sources reported, the president had in fact personally dictated his son s misleading statement about the meeting. and after we went off air, he said the characters were misinformed and not pertinent. another said the story was fake news, had inaccurate and not pertinent. then today
and so everyone wanted to share more than that statement, but they were overruled by the president himself. which is something we haven t known until now. and those teams of advisers, according to our reporting, were really quite concerned and some of them were stunned when they found out about it after the fact. they were dismayed that, a, the president was involved in dictating a statement, and two, that he was involved in dictating a statement that concealed critical information, and number three, while bob mueller is investigating the president for potential obstruction of this investigation. right. so, just so i m clear, to underscore your point, it was jared kushner and his attorneys, don junior and his attorneys, who when they found out that people would be learning about this story, initially, they were okay with saying, yes, it was about getting dirt on hillary clinton instead of putting it off on this adoption thing, which is what the president ultimately did. there were