Did Donald Trump Jr. violate federal law when he accepted a meeting with Russian individuals under the pretense of obtaining from them opposition research on Hillary Clinton compiled by the Kremlin?
His father, President Trump, certainly doesn’t think so, and has argued that a presidential campaign in a similar position would have taken the meeting, which occurred in June 2016, as he was preparing to formally accept the GOP nomination.
At least one prominent Republican election lawyer in Washington, Charlie Spies, agrees with the president on the issue of whether Donald Trump Jr. broke the law or ran afoul of Federal Election Commission regulations.
“For there to be a problem, he would have either had to have received something of value … or have solicited something of value,” Spies said. “I don’t believe the FEC has ever considered [information] to be something of value.”
The president’s eldest son in June of last year was offered through interlocutors damaging information on Clinton, then on her way to becoming the Democratic nominee.
Via emails that have since been made public, Trump Jr. was told that the Russian government had gathered material on Clinton that it wanted to provide to help his father in the campaign.
Trump Jr. accepted the meeting, held at Trump Tower in Manhattan, and was joined by top Trump advisor Jared Kushner, now a senior White House hand, and Paul Manafort, brought onto the campaign last year to help Trump win the battle for GOP nominating delegates.
Manafort was elevated to campaign manager later that month before being fired in August.
Trump Jr. has said that the promise of opposition research didn’t pan out and that he didn’t walk away with a physical file or other tangible, usable information. But Common Cause, a liberal public interest organization, disagrees and has filed complaint with the FEC and the Department of Justice
The group alleges that Trump Jr.’s discussions about setting up the meeting with the individual who proposed, now viewable in the disclosed emails, plus the meeting itself, amount to solicitation, and acceptance, of something of value from a foreign source.
Candidates for federal office are prohibited by law from soliciting, accepting, anything of value from foreign individuals or entities.
“The email thread undercuts the claims he’s made,” Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause vice president for policy and litigation, said, of Trump Jr.
Common Cause has since amended its complaints to include Kushner, Manafort and Rob Goldstone, the British publicist acting as the interlocutor for the meeting with the Russian individuals who were advertised as having connections to Moscow.
Ryan explained why he disagreed with Spies on the issues of solicitation and whether something of value was received:
“I would point you to the actual email from [Trump Jr.] to Goldstone on June 3 at 10:53 [in which he said] ‘Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?,'” Ryan said. “That is [Trump Jr.] requesting and asking for the information that was offered. That is the solicitation.”
Some Republican election law experts disagree. They say that for solicitation and receipt of value to occur, Trump Jr. would have had to instigate the meeting, rather than be approached, and he would have had to receive an opposition research file in some physical form, whether paper file or thumb drive, for example.
Otherwise, all sorts of conversations with campaign supporters could be construed as resulting in the receiving of something of value. For instance, a campaign aide is talking to an activist or donor who recommends a strategy, and in doing so imparts a piece of information.
The meeting has nevertheless intensified scrutiny of the Trump team as a special counsel and several congressional committees investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including the question of whether there was any collusion between Russian meddlers and the president’s campaign.
