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<\/div>\nNew revelations about Donald Trump Jr.\u2019s meeting last summer with a Russian lawyer are continuing to surface a week after the revelation rocketed the President\u2019s eldest son to the center of allegations of collusion with Russia.<\/p>\n
Daily news reports offering a steady drip of disclosures and shifting statements from Trump Jr. and others involved have triggered an ever-mounting list of questions.<\/p>\n
A Russian-American lobbyist has now confirmed to The Associated Press and The Washington Post that he also attended the meeting with Trump Jr. \u2014 the latest piece of information to surface since emails revealed that Trump Jr. hoped to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. Sources told CNN on Friday that a translator and representative for the Agalarov family were also in the room.<\/p>\n
The disclosures \u2014 amid President Donald Trump\u2019s cries of a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d \u2014 offer the most definitive evidence yet that at least one Trump campaign associate, in this case the President\u2019s son, was open to receiving information from the Russian government that could influence the election.<\/p>\n
The meeting was not something Trump Jr., the President\u2019s son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner or former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort \u2014 who also attended the meeting \u2014 publicly disclosed until Kushner amended his security clearance application while preparing to testify before Congress.<\/p>\n
The lack of full disclosure has left some at the White House frustrated, with two White House officials telling CNN on Friday they were irked that accounts of the Trump Jr. meeting have continued to shift.<\/p>\n
What do we know about the meeting?<\/b><\/p>\n
On June 3, 2016, Trump Jr. received an email from Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov \u2014 a Russian-Azerbaijani pop star who has previously done business with the Trumps alongside his father Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
The emails were publicly released by Trump Jr. this week after The New York Times asked him to comment about the emails.<\/p>\n
Goldstone\u2019s email informs Trump Jr. that the Russian government is eager to provide \u201cofficial documents and information that would incriminate Hillary\u201d to the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government\u2019s support for Mr. Trump \u2014 helped along by Aras and Emin,\u201d Goldstone said in the email.<\/p>\n
Less than 20 minutes later, Trump Jr. makes it clear he\u2019s interested: \u201c(I)f it\u2019s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
On June 7, 2016, Goldstone emails Trump Jr. to schedule a meeting with a \u201cRussian government attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later, Trump Jr. \u2014 joined by Kushner and Manafort \u2014 meets at Trump Tower with Goldstone, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and a Russian-American lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin.<\/p>\n
Akhmetshin\u2019s attendance was previously undisclosed and only emerged Friday after he first confirmed it in an interview with The Associated Press, and later to The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
CNN also reported Friday at least eight people attended the meeting, according to sources familiar with the circumstances.<\/p>\n
What did the Trump campaign learn about Hillary Clinton in the meeting?<\/p>\n
Not much, according to some of the meeting\u2019s participants.<\/p>\n
Trump Jr., Veselnitskaya and Goldstone have said the meeting centered on the Magnitsky Act \u2014 a 2012 US law that imposed sanctions on Russian individuals \u2014 and the retaliatory Kremlin-imposed ban on adoption of Russian children by American citizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer 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,\u201d Trump Jr. said in a statement last Sunday. He added that Veselnitskaya\u2019s \u201ctrue agenda\u201d was to discuss the Magnitsky Act and the adoptions dispute.<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. said the meeting ended after about 20-30 minutes.<\/p>\n
How has the story shifted since this first became public?<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. initially offered no inkling that the meeting had anything to do with obtaining damaging information about Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
Instead, he described his meeting with Veselnitskaya as a \u201cshort introductory meeting\u201d during which they \u201cprimarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day, when The New York Times reported that Trump Jr. had been promised damaging information on Clinton ahead of the meeting, Trump Jr. conceded in a statement that Veselnitskaya said she had information \u201cthat individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. called the Russian lawyer\u2019s statements \u201cvague\u201d and nonsensical.<\/p>\n
It took two more days \u2014 and a head\u2019s up that The Times would soon publish a follow-up to their story \u2014 before Trump Jr. disclosed the emails he exchanged with Goldstone, revealing that he had been promised information as \u201cpart of Russia and its government\u2019s support\u201d for Trump\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n
Then, on Friday, reports surfaced that another Russian national attended the meeting.<\/p>\n
Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist, confirmed Friday in an interview with The Associated Press and The Washington Post that he attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya.<\/p>\n
In April, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, described Akhmetshin in a letter to the secretary of Homeland Security as \u201ca Russian immigrant to the United States who has been accused of acting as an unregistered agent for Russian interests and apparently has ties to Russian intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grassley knew of Akhmetshin from his lobbying efforts. But Akhmetshin denied any connection to Russian intelligence services, according to The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
Did Trump Jr. suggest there was more information that had yet to surface?<\/p>\n
Trump Jr. actually suggested the opposite in his interview Tuesday with Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo as far as you know, as far as this incident is concerned, this is all of it?\u201d Hannity asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is everything. This is everything,\u201d Trump Jr. said.<\/p>\n
That was three days before additional information emerged.<\/p>\n
Did Jared Kushner disclose his participation in the meeting?<\/p>\n
Kushner\u2019s attorneys provided the FBI with an amended SF-86 form \u2014 used to obtain a security clearance \u2014 on June 21 to list the meeting with the Russian lawyer from a year earlier after discovering the email chain while preparing documents to turn over to the Senate intelligence committee. The change was the third time Kushner has amended his SF-86 form.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s son-in-law listed about 100 foreign contacts in his second revision to the form that his lawyers submitted earlier this spring, but that list did not include the meeting with the Russian lawyer.<\/p>\n
Kushner is the only individual who attended the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya who currently works inside the Trump administration. His presence at the meeting, coupled with his failure to disclose the meeting in previous versions of his SF-86, have led to calls from Democrats for Kushner\u2019s security clearance to be revoked.<\/p>\n
White House officials have declined to say whether Kushner still maintains his security clearance.<\/p>\n
How has President Donald Trump responded to all of this?<\/p>\n
President Trump has defended his eldest son on Twitter and in public comments, saying that the coverage of the controversy has been unfair.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son is a wonderful young man. He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer, not a government lawyer, but a Russian lawyer,\u201d he said at a news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. \u201cI think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting \u2026 Politics isn\u2019t the nicest business in the world, but it\u2019s very standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s defense of his son cuts against comments by numerous Republican politicians and GOP political operatives who insisted it was not standard to receive damaging information on an opponent from a foreign government.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s nominee to be FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in a Senate hearing Wednesday that such contact from a foreign government should have resulted in a call to the FBI.<\/p>\n
Where do we go from here?<\/p>\n
Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigators plan to probe the meeting and the email exchanges as part of their broader investigation into Russian meddling, a US official briefed on the matter told CNN on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The revelations have also prompted calls from Democrats and Republicans alike for Trump Jr. to testify before Congress, with the leaders of the Senate judiciary committee already drafting a letter requesting Trump Jr. appear before the committee.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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