Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wants to review information about the meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked lawyer, and the email thread that detailed the planning for that meeting.
Cummings, D-Md., sent a letter Tuesday to Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, requesting information about their meeting with a Russian attorney who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
“Our country has a fundamental principle that a foreign adversary should not and cannot interfere with our sacred elections,” Cummings wrote. “Your decision to take this meeting raises significant questions about your judgment and your respect for the very principles that our democracy has been founded upon. Furthermore, I am concerned that you failed to disclose this meeting to the authorities or the public for almost a year, even when the President and his team repeatedly denied any contact between the campaign and Russia.”
Trump Jr., on Tuesday released an email chain leading up to the June 9, 2016 meeting showing that he agreed to meet with the attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was offering him “very high level and sensitive information” that would “incriminate” Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president.
In the letter, Cummings requested all documents and communications regarding the meeting at Trump Tower, the recipients’ contacts with Russian individuals during the campaign and transition, and Kushner’s security clearance application and his reporting of his foreign contacts, travel, and meetings.
According to a CNN report, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is planning to review the meeting between Trump Jr. and the Kremlin-linked lawyer too.
