Donald Trump Jr. has admitted that the meeting he had with a Kremlin-linked lawyer during the 2016 election campaign was not wholly about a Russian adoption program as he originally said, but that he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, the NYT reports:
When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. said that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.
But on Sunday, presented with The Times's findings, he offered a new account. In a statement, he said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which his father took to Moscow. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
Trump Jr. claimed that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was using the claims of Clinton dirt as a sort of lure so that she could then discuss the adoption program.
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Said Trump Jr.: “It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.”
