Senator David Perdue, R-Ga. walks off after a new conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 11, 2017, to announce a proposal to cancel the Senate’s August recess. Senior Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah calls the matter «overblown,» describing Donald Trump Jr. as «a very nice young man.» Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina appeared at a news conference with seven other GOP senators, insisting that Republicans should not be «distracted» by the latest reports on Russia and instead stay focused on their agenda. None of the other attendees at the press conference responded to a question on the new emails released by Trump Jr.
Looking at the matter
Sen. David Perdue of Georgia says several congressional committees are already looking at the matter. Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager says the U.S. is facing a «serious national security crisis.»A Russian lawyer tells NBC’s «Today» show that she was summoned to Trump Tower during last year’s presidential campaign to meet with Donald Trump Jr. and asked if she had information on the Clinton campaign. The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, told NBC she received a phone call from a man she didn’t know and was told to meet with the Trump campaign. She says she didn’t have information on the Clinton campaign and has never worked for the Russian government.
Made time for the Meeting
NBC’s «Today» and MSNBC aired an interview of the lawyer on Tuesday. It’s her first public comment since Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that he made time for the meeting hoping to get information on Clinton, his father’s Democratic presidential opponent. Veselnitskaya says Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, attended the meeting but left after a few minutes. Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, also attended but never participated and spent much of the meeting on his phone. It wasn’t clear from the NBC report who in the meeting asked her for information.
On damaging information on Clinton, she says through a translator: «They wanted it so badly.»The man who organized a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign says it occurred at the behest of a Moscow-based singer with family ties to Trump’s businesses.Trump Jr. acknowledges he made time for the meeting, organized by music publicist Rob Goldstone, hoping to get information about Hillary Clinton.Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Goldstone told Trump Jr. in an email ahead of the meeting that the Russian government was behind the information on Clinton. The Times cites three unnamed people with knowledge of the email. Goldstone spoke to The Associated Press earlier Monday to confirm he had set up the meeting on behalf of his client, but he did not disclose the contents of the email described by The Times. The Latest on President Donald Trump and the FBI (all times local): 10:30 p.m. The New York Times reports that former FBI Director James Comey declined to pledge loyalty to President Donald Trump during a dinner the two men shared in January, reports Associated Press.
