Putin loyalist and unindicted co-conspirator Donald "Rump" Trump dictated the initial, dishonest statement concerning his son's infamous meeting last summer with Russian individuals tied to the Kremlin, according to a bombshell report in the WaPo. The well-sourced report (Spicer? Priebus? Both?) contradicts claims by the White (Supremacist) House that Rump wasn't involved in preparing the statement, which was subsequently modified as Donald "Uday" Trump, Jr. released e-mails related to the meeting after learning that the New York Times was about to release them. From the Post:
"Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had 'primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children' when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations....Over the next three days, multiple accounts of the meeting were provided to the news media as public pressure mounted, with Trump Jr. ultimately acknowledging that he had accepted the meeting after receiving an email promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father's campaign. The extent of the president's personal intervention in his son's response, the details of which have not previously been reported, adds to a series of actions that Trump has taken that some advisers fear could place him and some members of his inner circle in legal jeopardy." (emphasis added)This development brings Rump closer to obstruction of justice if it can be proven that he knew what he was writing was false (and when has Rump ever lied?). So many questions. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has access to the e-mails that the principals in the Rump campaign produced, and will certainly be looking at whether Rump was informed of the purpose of the meeting (dirt on Hillary in exchange for a promise to lift sanctions). It's extremely hard to imagine that he wasn't told either before or after the meeting by at least one of the high-level attendees (Uday, Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, and Paul Manafort) that Russians with ties to the Kremlin had negative information on Clinton. It's too important a situation for Rump not to have been told, and one that Robert Mueller is sure to focus on.
