with this woman who s an advocate for the kremlin along with kushner and paul manafort. during that meeting she brings up the magnitsky act, which is a bill that provides sanctions on human right abuseers in russia, something that putin hated. after that meeting we know what happens in terms of the hacking and dumping, the dumping of documents. this meeting purportedly in june. in july the russians start dumping documents helpful to donald trump, hurtful to hillary clinton. and then, you know, flash forward after the election. investigation starts. and the family is asked, the president is asked did you have any meetings with any representatives of the russian government? the answer is no, absolutely not. not in a million years. and then donald, jr. is asked well, what about this meeting? and in a pattern we have seen over and over again, when confronted with evidence of particular meetings, they re
had been connected to the ms. universe that was put on in pageant that was close to vladimir putin. he was reportedly the acquaintance of donald trump, jr., who contacted thohim to sep this meeting in june 2016 with this kremlin backed lawyer. donald trump jr. accepted the invitation and asked paul manafort and jared kushner to be there as well. according to the new york times, before that meeting happened, donald trump, jr., was told in an e-mail from this guy rob goldstone who he knew, told that there would be compromising information about hillary clinton offered in this meeting and he was informed explicitly in this e-mail according to the times, quote, that the material was part of a russian government effort to aid his father s candidacy. this e-mail message was described to the new york times by three people and according to the times, they have not published the e-mail, but they say the e-mail indicates that the source of
because they re aware that foreign nationals are trying to influence a u.s. election and they explicitly overtly take that meeting because they would like to help those foreign nationals in their goal of trying to influence our election in a way that will hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. if you explicitly take a meeting with the express purpose of trying to help foreign nationals succeed in their attack on the united states, which you understand they are carrying out, if that s the case, then you admitting to taking that meeting, which donald trump, jr., has now done, that is that s a lot of things. but that is not a smart thing to admit to if you re trying to avoid potential criminal liability, say n case these things are ever investigated or prosecuted which i don t know. they might be. who can say. there have been a lot of surprises in the reporting on the trump/russia affair.
question as to whether or not it was possible that any american, let alone anybody connected to the trump campaign, might have been aware of, let alone involved with, let alone supportive of that russian attack. we ve now got answers to those questions. and honestly, it is now therefore no longer a question of whether they did it. it s just a question of what s going to happen now that we know that. now that they are admitting it. and let me add this. just within the last couple of minutes, and we re going to have more on this in just a second, just in the last couple of minutes, the new york times has published an addendum to the story. i ll read you the lead. just to put the chery on top of this. before arranging a meeting with a kremlin connected russian lawyer he believe would offerim compromising information about hillary clinton, donald trump, jr., was informed in an e-mail that the material meehe was goi to get about hillary clinton was part of a russian government effort to a
forced to acknowledge yes, we did have that meeting. but that meeting was about adoptions. right. they re confronted again and then it s acknowledged okay, paul manafort came to this meeting about adoptions. why will the campaign manager come to a meeting about adoptions? then it s acknowledged okay, it wasn t really just about adoptions, it was about sanctions, the magnitsky act, but it was also because we were offered damaging material against hillary clinton which we were really disappointed with that it wasn t damaging enough and she didn t seem to have the goods. but of course the goods came out the following month. so obviously there s a lot to impact here, but the chronology i think is very concerning. it s all warrants a thorough investigation. everyone who was in that meeting ought to come before our committee. these e-mails that are described we need to see. it s obviously a narrative completely at odds with what the first family has said and represented time after time.