President Personally Dictated Son’s Intentionally Misleading ‘Russian Adoption’ Statement

‘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’

As President Donald Trump was headed home from the G-20 aboard Air Force One earlier this month, he personally dictated the statement his son, Donald Trump Jr., would provide to The New York Times claiming the previously undisclosed June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer was merely about Russian adoptions.

The Washington Post, which broke the story Monday evening, notes the statement, “emphasized that the subject of the meeting was ‘not a campaign issue at the time.'”

The statement was originally believed to have been from the president’s son, but reports soon broke saying the president had had a hand in crafting it. Never before has it been reported President Donald Trump actually created the intentionally misleading statement.

And it could become a legal challenge for the president.

“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,” the Post observes. 

“This was . . . unnecessary,” said one of the president’s advisers, who like most other people interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”

The firing of FBI Director Jim Comey, the weeks-long public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, now this report Trump personally drafted the largely false statement, and many other actions the president has taken, all might lead Special Counsel Robert Mueller to recommend obstruction of justice charges.

The Post adds Trump’s “advisers worry that the president’s direct involvement leaves him needlessly vulnerable to allegations of a coverup.”

The statement the President dictated reads: “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.”

 “I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand,” it concludes.

That, we. now know, is largely false.

There were at least eight people in the room, and the conversation was supposed to be about getting “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Some responses via Twitter:

 

 

Image of Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. by Disney | ABC Television Group via Flickr