Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday offered his first defense since releasing his emails arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer in June 2016 to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton as part of what he was told was a Russian government effort to aide Donald Trump’s campaign: He just wanted to see what would happen.
“These are going a million miles an hour again,” Trump Jr. said in a preview of an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity set to air Tuesday night. “And, hey, wait a minute, I’ve heard about all these things, but maybe this is something, I should hear them out.”
Trump Jr. on Tuesday morning published what he said was the entire email chain leading to his meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya.
In the exchange, Trump family acquaintance Rob Goldstone, a publicist who booked Russian pop star Emin Agalarov on Miss Universe, said a “Russian government attorney” could give Trump Jr. “documents and information that would incriminate Hillary” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Trump Jr. said he expected “just basic information that was going to be possibly there” at his meeting with Veselnitskaya.
“I didn’t know these guys well enough to understand that if this talent manager from Miss Universe had this kind of thing,” he said. “So I wanted to hear him out and play it out.”
I wanted to hear them out. That’s a high-quality excuse. I’d put it somewhere between “prime” and “choice.” Definitely not “select.”
Junior must be a defense lawyer’s nightmare. He just doesn’t understand “STFU Duncie”…
On Hannity? At least Sean can call out the same name at moments of climax.
Hey, Junior. NYT is calling you the “Dim Namesake.”
And if the Russian agent’s proposal wasn’t good enough, Junior would provide his own suggestions?
That’s the dangling question that nobody in the media is willing to ask yet. How did this meeting end? It’s hard to imagine that they all just decided to walk away empty handed without coming up with something that would benefit them all.