So Many Trump Associates Have ‘Forgotten’ So Many Russians
Yes, it’s been a whole week that America has been dealing with the revelation Donald Trump Jr. held a meeting last summer with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, a “Russian government attorney” according to the four-page email the president’s son released Monday. The drip, drip, drip began Saturday with the first New York Times story. It extended into Sunday with more revelations. Monday, Trump Jr. released the emails in advance of yet another New York Times story.
Monday night, he sat down with Sean Hannity, promising the meeting about Russian adoptions that then became about getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton was very quick, and he had been, as President Trump claimed, fully “transparent.”
“This is everything. This is everything,” Trump Jr. assured Hannity.
Except it’s not. Not even close.
Every single day this week there’s been more revealed by the news media – not Trump Jr. or the White House, which fraudulently claimed the meeting was about Russian adoptions in a statement President Trump signed off on.Â
Fast forward to this morning, America learns there was another person besides the Russian lawyer in the meeting. Hours later, we learn he was an “ex” Soviet Union counter intelligence agent. Then we learn he was accused of being involved in a hacking operation. And is accused of being an unregistered foreign agent.
“The June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort included at least eight people,” CNN reports Friday afternoon.
So:
- Donald Trump Jr.
- Paul Manafort
- Jared Kushner
- Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney
- Rinat Akhmetshin, the “ex-Soviet counter intelligence officer,” and a lobbyist
- Rob Goldstone, the publicist who helped arrange the meeting
Plus two others.
Politico’s Ken Vogel on MSNBC just revealed the seventh person in the room, a Russian translator:
So now we’re down to one unidentified person.
And remember, Trump Jr. said he had revealed “everything,” yet he “forgot” to name Rinat Akhmetshin and, according to CNN, another three people, a total of four names left off the list.
Why?
Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a strong supporter of Vladimir Putin and Russia, is the lawmaker House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy last summer “joked” is on Putin’s payroll.
CNN today reports Rohrabacher, “who has been lobbied by Akhmetshin, told CNN earlier this year that the lobbyist is someone with ‘an ulterior motive’ who is ‘involved with people who’ve got an agenda’ and has ‘international connections to different groups in Russia.’ When asked if he thought Akhmetshin was connected to the Russian security services, Rohrabacher said: ‘I would certainly not rule that out.'”
And minutes ago The Wall Street Journal reported Veselnitskaya “said she wasn’t working for Russian authorities, but she said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that she was meeting with Russian authorities regularly.”
Regularly.
And then with Donald Trump Jr., the Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Trump’s son-in-law and future Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner.
And Donald Trump didn’t know a thing about it…
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