As news emerged bit-by-bit over the weekend about Donald Trump Jr.’s previously undisclosed June 9, 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connection Russian lawyer, President Trump maintained his silence. On Monday, Mark Corallo, spokesman for Trump’s personal lawyer, released a statement that merely said, “The President was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”
On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. was contacted by the New York Times and informed that the paper was working on a story about the emails that set up the meeting. In response, Trump Jr. published the incriminating thread himself. In a statement he released accompanying them, he claimed he did so “in order to be totally transparent.”
The emails provide undeniable evidence that the Trump campaign was willing to collude with Russia in order to bring down Hillary Clinton. They indicate that Trump Jr. didn’t act alone — despite his claim to the contrary over the weekend, Trump Jr. forwarded an email thread providing full details about the meeting and its purpose to then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and current White House adviser Jared Kushner.
During an off-camera White House press briefing later Tuesday, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked if the president had any comment about the latest revelations involving his eldest son. She read a short statement on the president’s behalf that didn’t defend Trump Jr. in any way.
SHS statement from POTUS on Don Jr: "my son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency."
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 11, 2017
Huckabee Sanders also reiterated the administration’s line that no collusion with Russia occurred, despite Trump Jr.’s emails indicating that if it didn’t happen, it’s only because the campaign’s efforts to do so were unsuccessful.
The president’s praise for his son’s “transparency” is belied by the chain of events culminating in their release on Monday and also Trump Jr.’s shifting statements over the weekend. As ThinkProgress previously detailed, “When the New York Times first reported that Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner had taken a meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer during the 2016 election campaign, Trump Jr. initially offered up an innocuous-sounding subject matter: adoptions.”
But a day later, the Times reported that the meeting was actually scheduled after Trump Jr. was promised that the Kremlin-connected lawyer had damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The subject of the emails released Tuesday is “Russia-Clinton-private and confidential,” and the thread doesn’t contain the word “adoption” a single time.
At another point during Tuesday’s briefing, Huckabee Sanders was asked if there were any other previously unreported meetings between campaign officials and Russians that she could disclose. She stopped short of saying there weren’t.
“There’s nothing that I’m aware of at this time,” says @SHSanders45 asked about any other possible meetings between Russians and campaign
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 11, 2017
While the latest disclosures have turned up the heat on Trump Jr., the emails released Tuesday also alluded to a possible communications channel from the Kremlin directly to Donald Trump through his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff.