President Donald Trump personally dictated a misleading statement for his eldest son about revelations the son met with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign, the Washington Post is reporting.
At the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, the president’s advisers agreed that Donald Trump Jr. should release a statement to head off a New York Times article about the meeting, urging that the statement be truthful to avoid being contradicted by information released later, according to the report.
But the president wound up personally dictating the statement while flying home aboard Air Force One, portraying the June 2016 meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with a Russian lawyer as being chiefly “about the adoption of Russian children,” stressing that was “not a campaign issue at the time,” sources told the newspaper.
Over the next few days, accounts of the meeting shifted, and Donald Trump Jr. eventually released emails showing he took the meeting because it carried the promise of compromising information about Hillary Clinton, information linked to the Russian government.
The president’s advisers now worry that his involvement leaves him open to charges of a coverup as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III investigates Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“This was . . . unnecessary” one of the advisers told the Post. “Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”
