Looks like Donald Trump Jnr has just wrecked his daddy's attempts to put the "Russia thing" behind him.
The NYT has reported that DT Jnr agreed to a meeting with a Russian lawyer (who NYT says has links to the Kremlin) shortly after Trump and Clinton had just clinched the nominations of their respective parties. She was offering up dirt on Clinton. He brought the then campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law and principal adviser Jared Kushner to the meeting in Trump Tower. He claims that she didn't have anything and wanted to talk about the suspended adoption program of Russian orphans, so the meeting wrapped up in only 20 minutes.
He denied that he knew the identity of the lawyer or that she had any links to the Russian government.
But the NYT has just broken another story that 3 sources confirm that the meeting was set up because of an email in which DT Jnr was told that the lawyer had information that the Russian government wanted to give to the Trump campaign!
By the way, the woman lawyer involved has a very Russian name and thick Russian accent and the Russian orphan program was suspended by Putin who was outraged by US sanctions following the Ukraine intervention.
I wonder if Trump will pardon his son and any associates who may become targets of prosecutors. There's some precedent for doing so. President HW Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger to head off a prosecution over the Iran-Contra affair. Politically, it would usually be poison but I can imagine Trump defiantly asserting that his family and associates are the subject of a witchhunt and he has to act to stop his government being destroyed by the dark state. His base would eat it up.
The NYT has reported that DT Jnr agreed to a meeting with a Russian lawyer (who NYT says has links to the Kremlin) shortly after Trump and Clinton had just clinched the nominations of their respective parties. She was offering up dirt on Clinton. He brought the then campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law and principal adviser Jared Kushner to the meeting in Trump Tower. He claims that she didn't have anything and wanted to talk about the suspended adoption program of Russian orphans, so the meeting wrapped up in only 20 minutes.
He denied that he knew the identity of the lawyer or that she had any links to the Russian government.
But the NYT has just broken another story that 3 sources confirm that the meeting was set up because of an email in which DT Jnr was told that the lawyer had information that the Russian government wanted to give to the Trump campaign!
By the way, the woman lawyer involved has a very Russian name and thick Russian accent and the Russian orphan program was suspended by Putin who was outraged by US sanctions following the Ukraine intervention.
I wonder if Trump will pardon his son and any associates who may become targets of prosecutors. There's some precedent for doing so. President HW Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger to head off a prosecution over the Iran-Contra affair. Politically, it would usually be poison but I can imagine Trump defiantly asserting that his family and associates are the subject of a witchhunt and he has to act to stop his government being destroyed by the dark state. His base would eat it up.