carried political and potentially legal peril. the strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for donald trump jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. they wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn't be repudiated later if the full details emerged. but within hours, at the president's direction, the plan changed. flying home from germany on july 8th aboard air force one, trump personally dictated a statement in which trump jr. said he and the russian lawyer had primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children. when they met in june 2016, according to multiple people, with knowledge of the deliberations, the statement, issued to "the new york times," as it prepared a story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was, quote, not a campaign issue at the time. the claims were later shown to be misleading. further down in the washingt"wa post" story, quote, as special counsel robert mueller investigates potential obstruction as part of his broader probe of russian