White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted Monday that the media is trying to make something out of nothing following reports of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer last summer.
“Everyone is trying to convert wishful thinking into hard evidence and they haven’t been able to do that,” Conway told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “The conservation’s real, the collusion is not.”
.@ChrisCuomo, White House counselor @KellyannePolls clash on air over @DonaldJTrumpJr‘s meeting with Russian lawyer https://t.co/LKkdHZctke
— New Day (@NewDay) July 10, 2017
The June 9, 2016 meeting included Trump Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign,” Trump Jr. said in a statement. “I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance.”
Trump Jr. said during the meeting, the woman offered them unusable information about Russian-connected individuals having donated to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton.
“Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information,” Trump Jr. said.
Conway said the group shut down the meeting after realizing the Russian lawyer lied about her intentions and had hoped to sell Russian adoption policies to the GOP campaign.
The press has pounded the Trump administration about the meeting since Sunday.
