Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is focusing, at least in part, on whether President Donald Trump knew about his son Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer and what his role was in attempting to conceal the purpose of the meeting, according NBC News.
Mueller’s investigators are trying to determine what role Trump played in crafting Don Jr.’s initial response to a July New York Times report that revealed Don Jr. met with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and former Soviet intelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News. The meeting, which occurred in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York, was also attended by Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
In his initial response to the report, which Trump admitted he “weighed in” on, Don Jr. described the encounter as a “short introductory meeting” held to discuss American-Russian adoption policy. The Washington Post reported that Trump “dictated” the response.
The following day TheNYTimes reported that the meeting was sold to Don Jr. as an opportunity to obtain damaging information on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The NYTimes account was later confirmed when Don Jr. released an email exchange in which publicist Rob Goldstone told him that a Russian lawyer “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] … and would be very useful to your father.”
“If it’s what you say, I love it,” Don Jr. responded. He began making arrangements for the meeting the following day.
Federal investigators are currently exploring whether Trump “knowingly made a false statement,” a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
“Even if Trump is not charged with a crime as a result of the statement, it could be useful to Mueller’s team to show Trump’s conduct to a jury that may be considering other charges,” the source said.
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