Trump son met Russian who promised damaging material on Clinton
BBC
US President Donald Trumps son has admitted meeting a Russian lawyer last year who, he says, promised to reveal damaging material on Hillary Clinton, reports BBC.
But Donald Trump Jr insisted that Natalia Veselnitskaya had provided no meaningful information on his fathers rival for the presidency.
The presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign head, Paul J Manafort, were also at the meeting.
US officials are investigating alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
It took place on 9 June 2016 at New Yorks Trump Tower, just two weeks after Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination.
It is thought to be the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and members of President Trumps inner circle.
After the New York Times first reported the meeting on Saturday, Trump Jr released a statement which confirmed that it had taken place but did not mention whether it was related to the presidential campaign.
However, another Times report, on Sunday, said Trump Jr had agreed to the meeting after being offered information that would potentially prove detrimental to Mrs Clinton.
The paper cited three White House advisers briefed on the meeting, and two others with knowledge for it, as its sources.
Trump Jr said that an acquaintance he had known from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant had set up the meeting. The Washington Post confirmed that figure to be music publicist Rob Goldstone, who has links to the Russian music industry.
In a statement on Sunday, Trump Jr said he had been asked to meet an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior
to the meeting. I asked Jared (Kushner) and Paul (Manafort) to attend, but told them nothing of the substance.
Trump Jrs statement continues: After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs Clinton.
Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.
She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act.
It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.
Veselnitskaya said on Saturday that nothing at all was discussed about the presidential campaign and insisted she had never acted on behalf of the Russian government and have never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government.
The act was adopted by Congress in 2012 and allows the US to withhold visas and freeze financial assets of Russian officials thought to have been involved in human rights violations.
The law so incensed President Vladimir Putin that he suspended a programme allowing Americans to adopt Russian children.
Veselnitskaya is a lawyer whose clients include companies and individuals said to be close to the Kremlin and her main role has been campaigning against the Magnitsky Act.
If it walks like collusion and talks like collusion... what exactly is it?
For the first time there appears to be direct evidence that three individuals in US President Donald Trumps inner circle met with a well-connected Russian prior to the presidential election where the campaign - including the possibility of damaging information about Democrat Hillary Clinton - was discussed.
Donald Trump Jr has denied that anything relevant came out of the meeting but that could be beside the point. Intent is key and this may end up just one piece of a particularly unseemly puzzle. This is also troubling news for the two other principals involved - son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chair Paul J Manafort - who are both embroiled in their own Russia-related controversies.
In May the president insisted that he had not colluded with the Russians. But I can only speak for myself, he said. Some in his administration may have swallowed hard at that line - and now three individuals, if the New York Times is right, are leaking dynamite to the press.
Try as they might, the Trump team cannot seem to escape this Russia-related vortex. It makes one wonder what grim reality spins beneath the surface, pulling everyone down.
