The
June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been
more explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had
been contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering
to provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The
documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and
would be very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a
trusted intermediary, who added, “This is obviously very high level and
sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support
for Mr. Trump.”
If
the future president’s elder son was surprised or disturbed by the
provenance of the promised material — or the notion that it was part of a
continuing effort by the Russian government to aid his father’s
campaign — he gave no indication.
He replied within minutes: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
Four
days later, after a flurry of emails, the intermediary wrote back,
proposing a meeting in New York on Thursday with a “Russian government
attorney.”
Donald
Trump Jr. agreed, adding that he would most likely bring along “Paul
Manafort (campaign boss)” and “my brother-in-law,” Jared Kushner, now
one of the president’s closest White House advisers.
Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
On
June 9, the Russian lawyer was sitting in the younger Mr. Trump’s
office on the 25th floor of Trump Tower, just one level below the office
of the future president.
Over the last several days, The New York Times has disclosed the existence of the meeting, whom it involved and what it was about. The story has unfolded as The Times has been able to confirm details of the meetings.
But
the email exchanges, which were reviewed by The Times, offer a detailed
unspooling of how the meeting with the Kremlin-connected Russian
lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, came about — and just how eager Donald
Trump Jr. was to accept what he was explicitly told was the Russian
government’s help.
The
Justice Department, as well as the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees, is examining whether any of President Trump’s associates
colluded with the Russian government to disrupt last year’s election.
American intelligence agencies have determined that the Russian
government tried to sway the election in favor of Mr. Trump.
The
precise nature of the promised damaging information about Mrs. Clinton
is unclear, and there is no evidence to suggest that it was related to
Russian-government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails.
But in recent days, accounts by some of the central organizers of the
meeting, including Donald Trump Jr., have evolved or have been
contradicted by the written email records.
After
being told that The Times was about to publish the content of the
emails, instead of responding to a request for comment, Donald Trump Jr.
tweeted out images of them himself on Tuesday.
“To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails” about the June 9 meeting, he wrote.
“I first wanted to just have a phone call but when that didn’t work
out, they said the woman would be in New York and asked if I would
meet.”
He added that nothing came of it.
On Monday, Donald Trump Jr. said on Twitter that it was hardly unusual to take information on an opponent. And on Tuesday morning, he tweeted,
“Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this
nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the
desperation!”
Got a confidential news tip?
The New York Times would like to hear from readers who want
to share messages and materials with our journalists.
The
back story to the June 9 meeting involves an eclectic cast of
characters the Trump family knew from its business dealings in Moscow.
The initial email outreach came from Rob Goldstone,
a British-born former tabloid reporter and entertainment publicist who
first met the future president when the Trump Organization was trying to
do business in Russia.
In the June 3 email, Mr. Goldstone told Donald J. Trump Jr.
that he was writing on behalf of a mutual friend, one of Russia’s
biggest pop music stars, Emin Agalarov. Emin, who professionally uses
his first name only, is the son of Aras Agalarov, a real estate tycoon
sometimes called the “Donald Trump of Russia.”
The
elder Agalarov boasts close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia: His company has won several large state building contracts, and
Mr. Putin awarded him the Order of Honor of the Russian Federation.
Mr. Agalarov joined with the elder Mr. Trump to bring the Miss Universe contest to Moscow in 2013, and the Trump and Agalarov families grew relatively close.
When
Emin released a music video with a theme borrowed from the television
show “The Apprentice,” Mr. Trump, then the show’s star, made a cameo
appearance, delivering his trademark line: “You’re fired!” The elder Mr.
Agalarov had also partnered with the Trumps to build a Trump hotel in
Moscow, but the deal never came to fruition.
“Emin
just called and asked me to contact you with something very
interesting,” Mr. Goldstone wrote in the email. “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.”
He
added, “What do you think is the best way to handle this information
and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?”
There
is no such title as crown prosecutor in Russia — the Crown Prosecution
Service is a British term — but the equivalent in Russia is the
prosecutor general of Russia.
That office is held by Yury Yakovlevich Chaika, a Putin appointee who is known to be close to Ms. Veselnitskaya.
After
sending back his “love it” reply, Donald Trump Jr. arranged to speak
with Emin, sending along his private cellphone number on June 6.
“Ok he’s on stage in Moscow but should be off within 20 Minutes so I’m sure can call,” Mr. Goldstone wrote at 3:43 p.m.
Within the hour, Donald Trump Jr. had responded: “Rob thanks for the help. D.”
The
following day, Mr. Goldstone followed up: “Don Hope all is well Emin
asked that I schedule a meeting with you and The Russian government
attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday. I believe you
are aware of this meeting — and so wondered if 3pm or later on Thursday
works for you?”
Mr.
Goldstone’s emails contradict statements he made in his interview with
The Times on Monday, when he said that he did not know whether the elder
Mr. Agalarov had any role in arranging the meeting, and that he had no
knowledge of any official Russian government role in the offer to
provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Mrs. Clinton. Instead, he said
that Ms. Veselnitskaya had contacted Emin directly, and that Emin had
asked him to reach out to the Trumps as a favor to her.
Document
Read the Emails on Donald Trump Jr.’s Russia Meeting
The text of email correspondence between Donald Trump
Jr. and a Kremlin-connected lawyer in chronological order.
“I
actually asked him at one point how he knew her, and he said, ‘I can’t
remember but, you know, I know thousands of people,’ ” he said in the
interview.
Subsequent
efforts to reach Mr. Goldstone, who acknowledged in the interview that
he had spoken with someone at the Trump Organization over the weekend in
anticipation of news media attention, have been unsuccessful.
Mr.
Goldstone, in a June 7 follow-up email, wrote, “I will send the names
of the two people meeting with you for security when I have them later
today.”
By
that time, as the Republican nominee, Mr. Trump was already under the
protection of the Secret Service and access to Trump Tower in New York
was strictly controlled. Ms. Veselnitskaya told The Times that the
person who accompanied her was an interpreter whom she declined to name.
After
being informed that the Russian lawyer could not make the 3 p.m. time
that had been proposed, and agreeing to move it by an hour, Donald Trump
Jr. forwarded the entire email chain to Mr. Kushner’s company work
email, and to Mr. Manafort at his Trump campaign email.
“Meeting got moved to 4 tomorrow at my offices,” he wrote on June 8. “Best, Don.”
Mr.
Kushner recently disclosed the fact of the meeting, though not the
content, in a revised form on which all those seeking top secret
security clearances are required to list contacts with foreign
government officials and their representatives. The Times reported in April that he had failed to list a number of Russian contacts, which his lawyer called an error.
Mr.
Manafort also disclosed that a meeting had occurred, and that Donald
Trump Jr. had organized it, in response to one of the Russia-related
congressional investigations.
Graphic
How Key Trump Associates Have Been Linked to Russia
Several are under scrutiny by the F.B.I. and Congress.
Representatives for both men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya arrived the next day and was ushered into Donald Trump
Jr.’s office for a meeting with what amounted to the Trump campaign’s
brain trust.
Besides
having politically connected clients, one of whom was under
investigation by federal prosecutors at the time of the meeting, Ms.
Veselnitskaya is well known for her lobbying efforts against the
Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that punishes designated Russian human rights
abusers by allowing the United States to seize their assets and keep
them from entering the country. The law so angered Mr. Putin that he retaliated
by barring American families from adopting Russian children. Her
activities and associations have brought her to the attention of the
F.B.I., according to a former senior law enforcement official.
When
first contacted by The Times on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. portrayed
the meeting this way: “It was a short introductory meeting. I asked
Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the
adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American
families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it
was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”
The
next day, after The Times informed him that it was preparing an article
that would say that the meeting also involved a discussion about
potentially compromising material on Mrs. Clinton, he issued another
statement: “I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from
the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might
have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior
to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing
of the substance,” he said. “After pleasantries were exchanged, the
woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to
Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms.
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. She then
changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children
and mentioned the Magnitsky Act.
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.”
Mr. Goldstone recalled the meeting in much the same way.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya offered “just a vague, generic statement about the
campaign’s funding and how people, including Russian people, living all
over the world donate when they shouldn’t donate” before turning to her
anti-Magnitsky Act arguments, he said. “It was the most inane nonsense
I’ve ever heard.”
Ms.
Veselnitskaya, for her part, said in an statement to The Times sent
this past weekend that “nothing at all about the presidential campaign”
had been discussed at the Trump Tower meeting, adding that she had
“never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and that she had
“never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the
Russian government.” She has not responded to requests for comment
since.
A
spokesman for Mr. Putin said on Monday that he did not know Ms.
Veselnitskaya and that he had no knowledge of the June 2016 meeting.
Back
in Washington, both the White House and a spokesman for President
Trump’s lawyer have taken pains to distance the president from the
meeting, saying that he did he not attend it and that he learned about
it only recently.
Mr. Agalarov did not respond to a request for comment.
Emin,
the pop star at the center of it all, will not comment on the matter,
either, Mr. Goldstone, his publicist, said on Monday. “Emin said to me
that I could tell journalists that you know he has decided to go with
just a straight no comment. His reasoning for that is simply that he
believes that by him commenting in any way from Russia it once again
will open this debate of Trump Trump Russia. Now here’s another person
from Russia. Now he’s another person from Russia. So he wants to just
not comment on the story. That’s his reasoning. It’s — the story will
play out however it plays out.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment