World
Donald Trump Acknowledges Son Met Russian To Collect Information About Hillary Clinton
Trump claims June 2016 meeting was completely legal
US President Donald Trump on Sunday admitted for the first time that his son met with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer back in 2016 at Trump Tower to get information about his Democratic rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton.
Trump claimed that the meeting aimed at collecting information on his 2016 opponent was totally legal and that such meetings are quite common in US politics to research opponents during a campaign. He also clarified it that he was completely unaware of the meeting between his son Donald Jr. and lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump tweeted. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”
Trump’s explanation came after various US media publications reported that the President was worried about his Donald Trump Jr. getting in legal trouble because of his June 2016 meeting with Ms. Veselnitskaya in New York.
Notably, the tweet contradicts the original explanation offered by the Republican president about the meeting. He had previously said the meeting was all about American adoptions of Russian children.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating if anyone associated with Trump coordinated with the Russians to get the election results in its favor. Notably, it is against the law for U.S. campaigns to receive donations or items of value from foreigners especially from representatives of a country viewed as an adversary.
The latest reveal will inevitably lead to more questions as to why the President gave a misleading explanation about the meeting in his earlier statement.
One of the president’s attorneys said on Sunday that the 2016 meeting cannot be deemed illegal under any federal statute.
“The question is: How would it be illegal?” Jay Sekulow said on ABC`s “This Week.”
He added that there is no law that prohibits campaign operatives from meeting and working with foreign agents.
“Nobody’s pointed to one,” Sekulow said.
While U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin has always denied his government’s involvement in the U.S. elections.
