Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday released a stunning chain of emails highlighting his conversations about setting up a controversial campaign meeting with a Russian lawyer offering compromising information on Hillary Clinton.
“The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with [Agalarov’s] father Aras this morning and their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia would be very useful to your father,” reads one of the emails from Rob Goldstone to Trump Jr.
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
In one of the emails, referring to the information on Clinton, Trump Jr. told Goldstone: "If it's what you say I love it."
Despite Trump Jr.'s earlier claim that he did not know about the Russian lawyer's ties to Moscow, Goldstone explicitly stated in one of the emails that she was a "Russian government attorney."
Goldstone, a music producer who represents Russian pop star named Emin Agalarov, has connections to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump.
Trump, Jr.’s release comes after The New York Times reported that he was warned beforehand that the Russian lawyer promising dirt on Clinton was part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s presidential campaign.
The email chain was to arrange a meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who had promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
The meeting took place on June 6, 2016. In addition to Trump, Jr., Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also attended.
Trump, Jr. has said that the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, did not have the promised opposition research and instead arranged the meeting to press for changes on a U.S. policy that restricts adoptions of Russian children.
“The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official,” Trump, Jr. said in a Tuesday statement. “And as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act. To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue. As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was ‘the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it’.”
--This breaking news report was last updated at 11:39 a.m.
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