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Trump Jr. releases emails related to meeting with Russian attorney who is now speaking out

Posted at 9:38 AM, Jul 11, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-11 12:50:39-04

President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., agreed to meet with a “Russian government attorney” last summer who supposedly had “very high level and sensitive information” that would “incriminate” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to emails the younger Trump publicly released on Tuesday.

An email from publicist Rob Goldstone offered Trump Jr. a meeting with a “Russian government attorney” after offering “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.”

“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Goldstone, who represents the son of an Azerbaijani-Russian businessman close to Russian government, wrote in the email to Trump Jr.

“If it’s what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. replied, according to the email he released.

Trump Jr. tweeted out the emails after The New York Times first reported on the meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer on Saturday.

The Times subsequently reported that Trump Jr. had been informed that the information he was promised on Clinton was part of Russian government efforts to help his father’s campaign.

Trump Jr. tweeted that he was releasing the emails to be “totally transparent,” but his release came moments before The New York Times published the emails.

Donald Trump Jr.

In an analysis by CNN’s Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza, he states, “this paragraph, from The New York Times’ latest scoop on a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer, is completely and totally damning.”

Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

Cillizza goes on to explain why.

Remember that Don Jr. has changed his story since the Times reported a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on Saturday.

Version 1: The meeting was primarily about adoptions. Don Jr. didn’t mention anything about the election to the Times.

Version 2: The impetus for the meeting was the promise of negative information about Hillary Clinton. But Don Jr. said in a statement he didn’t know who it was he was meeting with.