Donald J. Trump's meeting with Russian Attorney

Although some Democrats are, as usual, overstating the situation¹, Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the lady who was described as a Russian government attorney (in two separate emails and described as a “Russian attorney” in a third) IS unquestionably a BIG deal for me because of the administration’s repeated statements about the Russians.

The bold, underlined commentary below conveys my significant concerns.  I can imagine explanations for the other comments; they simply add some more questions.

Junior believed he was meeting with a Russian representative and was told that this was part of a Russian campaign to help his father against Hillary Clinton.

Initial text: “The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.”

Junior says he is being completely transparent but has released no communications that he had with Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner regarding the situation.

He explains that the campaign was thinly-staffed so he met directly with this attorney.  If the campaign was thinly-staffed, why was he accompanied by the campaign manager and Kushner?  Furthermore, Jay Sekulow, President Trump’s attorney, says that campaign staff had dozens of meetings each day.  Why was it so easy to exchange texts and schedule a meeting with three top campaign staff with short-notice changes, unless this was perceived to be important?

Junior repeatedly says (at least three times in one TV interview with Sean Hannity) that the meeting was a courtesy to Rob Goldstone.  In the same interview, he then said the same thing another way (he “did it for an acquaintance and a friend”).  If it was a courtesy, why did Manafort and Kushner also attend?  Why did he write “I love it”?  Why did he respond within 17 minutes and suggest a call “first thing next week” on a Friday?  Why, on Monday, did he write “Rob could we speak right now?”  Why did he respond with his cell phone number in one minute?  Why was he able to confirm both Manafort’s and Kushner’s availability in 55 minutes?  Why does he agree that he “pressed” the lady for the information she was supposedly holding?  Why did he twice thank Rob for his help in setting this meeting up?  I don’t use the term “lie” easily², but this “courtesy” statement is a “lie” in my opinion.

Obviously, Junior, Manafort and Kushner thought this was going to be an important meeting.  Junior wrote “I love it especially later this summer”.  The “later this summer” wording seems to suggest when he thought valuable “dirt” might best be released.  It did not suggest that he was happy to wait “until later this summer” to learn the details, as he suggested having the call on the next week-day.  It seems surprising that none of the three of them told the candidate, who is a control freak, about this meeting.  I wrote the previous sentence before learning that the candidate then suggested, in a speech, that he would make a major speech about Clinton issues (which speech he apparently did not make).

Although the meeting had no valuable information, it is surprising that it did not occur to them to report the meeting, at least after the fact, to the Republican National Committee or someone else.  

I understood Junior to tell Hannity something similar to lots of people send emails like that during a campaign, but no others have been cited and he told Hannity later that there were no others.

Junior stresses that this happened before there was a hullabaloo regarding possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.  That’s another embarrassing comment, not just for Junior to make but for others to repeat.  Does it change the nature of his interaction?  If “collusion” occurred (which is still unproven --see definition at the end of this blog), you would not expect people to raise a hullabaloo about it BEFORE it occurred.  The big issue is that this meeting was not brought to light in response to the hullabaloo.

President Trump has been questioning whether Russia is responsible for the DNC email hack and whether Russia meddled in the election.  Meanwhile, Junior (and likely Kushner and Manafort) were sitting on statements that Russia was actively trying to help his father. 

Clearly, during the hullabaloo, Junior should have told his father that he had some reason to believe that the Russians might have been meddling, even if he thought it was unreliable.  If Junior did tell the President, then the President has been involved in a cover-up and has been dishonest.  That’s a big deal!  Often, the cover-up is far worse than the information being hidden, as seems to be the case here.

If Junior did not tell the President, then he is an extremely unreliable, irresponsible person.  Unlike Jimmy Carter’s brother, Junior is highly-regarded and praised by his father.  His father entrusts him with a lot of responsibility and continues to praise him.

Attorney Sekulow says variously that the President did not see Junior’s previous statement before it was made and that he did not see the emails before they were made public.  If either is the case, I think Junior is hearing “You’re fired!” wording behind closed doors, rather than the public praise the President is giving him.

Assume this information had not come to light and the Special Prosecutor cleared the Trump campaign of collusion with the Russians.  The Russians could then have released this information at any time in the future.  Conceivably it could have been used to blackmail the Trump administration.  But, at a minimum, it could have been released to distract our media and leadership at a time when it was beneficial to Russia to do so.  That's a big deal!

Curious: I wonder what Rob Goldstone meant by “I believe you are aware of the meeting”?  Why did he email that he would send the names later, but not do so?  Why did Rob write “won’t sit in on the meeting”, but then apparently sit in (as he apologized when it ended)?  I have not reviewed previous statements by Junior, Manafort and Kushner about meetings with Russians; clearly it would be worth doing so.  Fortunately, we have a Special Counsel to do so.

Sean Hannity and others are criticizing the media for not reporting and focusing on issues related to Democrats.  Some of those criticisms are valid³, but they do not change my belief that THIS is a big deal!

As is usual (and probably substantiates my position), I think readers from both sides of the political spectrum will object to some of my comments above or foot-notes below.  I remind those who challenge my criticism of the Trump team above to focus on the bold, underlined statements.

Footnotes:

¹ Tim Kaine calls this meeting “treason”.  Many Democrats call it “collusion”.  The Kansas City Star writes today “For months on end, we’ve been hearing about Russian attempts to boost Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign” (as though new revelations about that have been coming out regularly) and writes “If this is not collusion, then we don’t know what that word means.” (a strange confession for a journalist to admit that they don’t know what “collusion” means.  Please see the definition below).

² For example, I described President Obama’s “if you like your doctor, you can keep him” statement as being deceptive rather than a lie, because PPACA allowed you to keep your doctor, but only until the government had an opportunity to force you into its program.  In case you don’t remember, any change to a health care program, even increasing deductibles to reflect inflation or decreasing deductibles to make it more attractive, resulted in having to come into compliance with the PPACA.

³ Consider the following quote from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/22/barack-obama/obama-romney-called-russia-our-top-geopolitical-fo/)

In March 2012, at a summit meeting in South Korea, Obama was caught in a “hot mic” incident.  Without realizing he could be overheard, Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more ability to negotiate with the Russians about missile defense after the November election.  “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama was heard telling Medvedev, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Putin.

At the time, the Republicans tried to use this against President Obama.  I don’t remember them being very successful with it, nor a supportive media challenging his “collusion”.  Yet President Obama initiated this discussion, asking the Russians for a favor to help him in his campaign.  Today’s liberal media would refer to that as having requested valuable compensation from Russia.

Definition of Collusion (from Wikipedia): Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage.

Other definitions will differ somewhat.  But there was no agreement here.  Had there been "dirt", the source might have been made public (hence not secretive).  There is no evidence that any deception was intended or that anyone would be deprived of their rights.  The clearest potential situation relative to collusion appears to be fake news, but I am not aware of any evidence that there was such collusion.