Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) said Friday that “there’s nothing wrong with” Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to aide his father’s campaign.
“I don’t have an issue with it,” he told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. “Let me take a step back, Alisyn. In politics, if I meet with — whether it’s a citizen or a non-citizen and they give me information or an idea or talk about policy, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s not a crime.”
“So to have a potential meeting where this source might give you evidence that the DNC was taking money from Russia or that Hillary Clinton was committing a crime, and then once you find out this is a bogus meeting and after 20 minutes you kick them out of the office, I have no problem with what Don Jr. did,” Duffy continued. “And I don’t think any prosecutor would either.”
Multiple complaints to the Federal Election Commission allege the Trump Campaign illegally solicited a contribution from a foreign national — in this case, damaging information about Hillary Clinton — by accepting the meeting.
Friday brought multiple reports that more people were in attendance at the meeting than Donald Trump Jr. has claimed.
“You’re saying, if you got an e-mail saying this comes from the highest level of the Russian government, we have some information for you, you would take that meeting before you called the FBI?” Camerota asked later in the interview.
Duffy, who said there was nothing wrong with the meeting seconds earlier, wavered.
“There’s two distinctions,” he said. “One, there is politics, and legality. I think politically I would go, well, you know what, I might have someone else take that meeting. I might not take that meeting myself. But I might still want the information.”
“You have a family, the Trumps, who have been wildly involved in business in New York,” he continued. “But these aren’t politicos. These are people who have not been involved in politics. And I think you’ve seen through the course of their campaign there’s been some political stumbles. This would probably be one of them.”
“But I don’t think it’s a bad act on the part of Donald Jr. at all,” he concluded.
Watch below via CNN:
“I don’t have an issue with it,” says @RepSeanDuffy of Don Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyer https://t.co/U3okkKE4zj
— New Day (@NewDay) July 14, 2017
