E-mails show Trump Jr. embraced help from Russia

Donald Trump Jr. AP

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s eldest son revealed on Tuesday that he was eager to hear damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government, disclosing a series of e-mails that marked the clearest sign to date that Trump’s campaign was willing to consider election help from a longtime US adversary.

The e-mail exchange posted to Twitter by Donald Trump Jr. showed him conversing with a music publicist who wanted him to meet with a “Russian government attorney” who supposedly had dirt on Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

The messages reveal that Trump Jr. was told the Russian government had information that could “incriminate” Clinton and her dealings with Russia.

“I love it,” Trump Jr. said in one e-mail response.

As the e-mails reverberated across the political world, Trump Jr. defended his actions in an interview with Fox News, blaming the decision to take the meeting on the “million miles per hour” pace of a presidential campaign and his suspicion that the lawyer might have information about “underreported” scandals involving Clinton.

Trump Jr. said the meeting “really went nowhere” and that he never told his father about it because there was “nothing to tell.”

Democrats outraged

Democrats in Congress voiced outrage and insisted the messages showed clear collusion, with California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, declaring that “all of the campaign’s previous denials obviously now have to be viewed in a different context.”

Yet Republicans — who stand the most to lose politically from Trump’s Russia ordeal — did not join in the condemnation.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident Senate investigators would “get to the bottom of whatever happened.”

And Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the intelligence committee, cautioned that the e-mails were “only part of the picture.”

‘High-quality person’

Trump Jr., who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, portrayed his decision to release the e-mails as an effort “to be totally transparent.” In fact, they had already been obtained by The New York Times.

Hours after the son posted the e-mails, the father rose to his defense.

“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” the president said in a statement read to reporters by White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

The messages were the latest disclosure to roil the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and potential collusion with Trump’s campaign.

US intelligence agencies have said the Russian government meddled in the election through hacking to aid Trump.

As congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigate, the e-mails will almost certainly be reviewed for any signs of coordination with the Kremlin, which the White House and Trump Jr. have repeatedly said did not take place.

A spokesperson for Mueller, the former FBI director, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

In the e-mails — dated early June 2016, soon after Trump secured the Republican nomination — music publicist Rob Goldstone wrote to Trump Jr. to connect him to Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Goldstone wrote that the information “would be very useful to your father.”

‘I love it’

“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied in one of the e-mails.

Days later, Veselnitskaya met with Trump Jr. on June 9 at Trump Tower in New York. Veselnitskaya has denied ever working for the Russian government.

The e-mails show Goldstone telling Trump that singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Moscow-based developer Aras Agalarov, had “helped along” the Russian government’s support for Trump. The elder Agalarov was involved with Trump in hosting the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

Illegal contributions

In his e-mail, Goldstone said that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia” offered to provide the information on Clinton to the Trump campaign in a meeting with Aras Agalarov.

There is no such royal title in the Russian Federation, but Goldstone — who is British — may have been referring to the title given to state prosecutors in the United Kingdom.

In Russia, the top justice official is Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, the equivalent of the attorney general in the United States. Chaika is longtime confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin and was directly appointed by him.

In one e-mail, Goldstone said he could send the information about Clinton to Trump’s father first directly “via Rhona” — an apparent reference to Rhona Graff, the elder Trump’s longtime assistant.

Evolving account

Though the e-mails weren’t posted in full until Tuesday, word of their existence had emerged on Monday.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Goldstone described the information as purported evidence of illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee. It’s unclear what proof, if any, Veselnitskaya provided during the meeting.

Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting, its nature and purpose has evolved over the past several days, giving further fuel to critics who say the president and those around him have not been forthcoming as the Russia saga has unfolded.