President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort told authorities about his meeting with Donald Trump Jr., White House adviser Jared Kushner and a Kremlin-linked lawyer three months ago, according to a Bloomberg News report published Thursday.
The meeting initially came to light in July when the New York Times reported Trump Jr. had arranged to meet with the Russian lawyer. He initially said the meeting was held to discuss adoptions.
On July 11, Trump Jr. published the entire email chain that lead up to the meeting on Twitter, which revealed he knew the meeting was going to be about gaining damaging information about then-opponent Hillary Clinton and that it was part of the Russian government’s efforts to help the Trump campaign.
At the time, he claimed his father didn’t know anything about the meeting, but at the end of July, the Washington Post reported that Trump helped dictate his son’s initial statement on the meeting.
Manafort apparently disclosed the meeting to authorities about two months before the information came to light, according to Bloomberg. He told authorities about the meeting in response to congressional requests for information about contacts with Russia during his time working for the Trump campaign.
The information comes as news about special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election digs deeper into Manafort.
On Wednesday, news broke that the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid of Manafort’s home in July.
On Thursday, Politico reported that investigators pressed Manfort’s son-in-law for Jeffrey Yohai for information in order to pressure Manafort to cooperate with the probe.
