The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee argued Tuesday that Congress can’t trust any of the Trumps after a new email released Tuesday revealed that Donald Trump Jr. was willing to hear damaging information from a Russian lawyer about Hillary Clinton that appears to have come from Russian sources.
Trump Jr. originally said the meeting was about adoptions, and only on Tuesday was it clear that the goal of the meeting was to discuss incriminating information about Clinton.
“Plainly as we saw the constantly evolving stories from the president’s son, we cannot rely on any public representations that are made by the family about their contacts with the Russians,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. said. “We have now seen a very demonstrable pattern of obfuscation and dissembling about these meetings.”
“We see again a kind of a shifting defense from the Trump administration,” he added. “First that there is no collusion, then… OK if there is collusion, collusion’s not against the law. The reality is, conspiracy is against the law.”
“Rather than report this overture by the Russian government to provide damaging information to intervene in the presidential election in a way to help his father, neither the president’s son, nor the campaign reported this information to the FBI,” Schiff said.
“When it became obvious that the emails were being dumped, when it became obvious this was being done by the Russian government, when our own intelligence community issued a statement in October affirming this that was being done by the Russians, did the Trump campaign then disclose that, in fact, they had received an overture to receive damaging information? The answer of course is, no, they didn’t.”
Schiff said he wants all participants in the meeting to testify before the committee, and said he is also interested in whether the meeting was the first and only contact of its kind.
Earlier in the day, the Russia controversies exploded when Trump Jr. tweeted copies of emails from June of 2016 in which he was offered the meetings. He published the emails after a New York Times story from late Monday first acknowledged the existence and the rough details of the email thread.
President Trump defended his son in a statement read at the daily White House press briefing which said in part, “My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency.”
Schiff also used the opportunity to press the House to pass the bill on tougher Russian sanctions, which has already passed the Senate by a veto-proof 98-2 vote.
“We stand ready, I think, on a very bipartisan basis to pass the Senate bill overwhelmingly,” Schiff said. “I have no doubt if that came up for a vote tomorrow it would pass overwhelmingly. Certainly, these events give added urgency to doing exactly that.”
