They wanted it so badly. Have you ever worked for the russian government . Do you have connections to the russian government . Translator no. The white house denying collusion. The president s lawyers denying he knew about this meeting at all. I do want you to keep this in mind. This makes at least seven current or former Trump Campaign team member who is either lied, changed their stories or have not been forthcoming about their contacts with russia. Joining me right now, political director, david is with me. David, what does this mean . What does this change . Well, i think we are now seeing drip, drip, drip in a significant way just on the donald trump jr. Meeting. Just this one meeting. He had a version on saturday, that didnt hold up. Sunday, its negative information about Hillary Clinton that could help in the campaign. Now we are learning, this is where it gets significant. He knew in an email, now, this is going to be part of sort of evidence that mueller, that senate intel, the house intel, all the investigative authorities are going have a chain of them. He has an email that says its the russian government looking to pass this information on. Thats a different ball game. Its not just im going to look from any corner possible. Its what campaigns do. Its been donald trump jr. s defense. It said in the email, it was the russian governments effort to help his Fathers Campaign. That was the purpose this woman wanted to sit down and meet. It seems to change where the significance is. Not just the meeting, its what was known before walking into the meeting, because then he still walked in. Also significant, if you could, put it in context with the folks. What was happening within the Trump Campaign . What was this, june 9, 2016, when this russian attorney walked into trump tower. Remember, donald trump just wrapped up the primary season, secured enough delegates to become the nominee. We are several weeks before the convention. Its a moment of transition. Remember, also, this is when the staff shake up was starting to brew. The children of donald trump, right, wanting lieu wan dough ski out. You have Jared Kushner and manafort in this meeting. Lewandowski was not in the meeting, which i find interesting. You have a small operation covered like a business z. That didnt look like every other campaign you or i covered. They took pride in that. It was z. It was a different operation. This is just as they were trying to expands and be the general election nominee. All of that is the context. We know donald trump, his schedule that darks he was in trump tower for part of it and at a fundraiser at the four seasons with Paul Manafort for part of it. What we dont know is, was he with Paul Manafort before he sat in that meeting or after . And we dont know, other than we have heard from the white house and his lawyer that donald trump knew nothing of the meeting, did not know about it or anything about it. That seems odd, if hes with with Paul Manafort that same day. We have to wait to see. We have heard from the president s attorney, not the president. Tim kaine, Hillary Clintons running mate tells cnn, he thinks with this, trumps son might have committed treason. Republican lawmakers are not going there yet, of course. Senator john mccain has concerns and spoke out a short time ago. Listen to this. Your reaction to donald trump jr. Being infompled by i have said many times in the past, theres another shoe that will drop and there will be other shoe that is drop. Reporter is this the first sign of coordination we have heard of many stories of meetings and communications and stuff, yeah. There will be many more shoe that is will drop. Reporter how serious do you think this shoe is . I dont know. Theres another shoe that is dropped that needs to be pursued and looked at. The white house story is evolving. It has been for the last several months. Reporter does it concern you i told you it would. Reporter that its a Family Member . I cant get into all the details. We dont know all the details. We know its serious. I said a long time ago, its serious. This is a serious situation. We have new breaking news coming in just now. Bear with me, its just handed to me. Donald trump jr. , as we were discussing with david, he just released a new statement. That was just tweeted out. He is also released, it appears to be the emails that we are discussing or part of an email we are discussing. Let me read the statement to you in full. This, from donald trump jr. To everyone in order to be transparent, i am releasing the entire email, chain of emails with Rob Goldstone about the meeting on june 9th. The first on june 3rd was relating from someone i knew from the Miss Universe pageant. They have a highly respected company in moscow. The information, suggest, they had about Hillary Clinton, i thought was political Opposition Research. I wanted to have a phone call. When that didnt work out, they said the woman would be in new york and asked if i would meet. I decided to take the meeting. The woman, as she has said publicly was not a Government Official. As we said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy. To put this in context, its before the current russian fever was en vogue. As said in the press, the entire meeting was the most nonsense i ever heard and i was actually agitated by it. That is the new statement coming out from donald trump jr. Let me bring in with me right now, cnn legal analyst, paul is here. Cnn legal analyst, kristen powers is here. Matthew rosenberg, cnn contributor ken, who is a former attorney general of virginia. David. I roped him back into staying with us as well. Im going to acknowledge, i have not been able to look through the email. David, on your phone, its probably way too small. Looks like he is releasing an email chain that goes back and forth with Rob Goldstone. Paul, this is really interesting stuff to be putting out in the face of all this. Im not surprised. He knows hes going to be under oath and have to answer questions. Hes trying to get in front of the story. This is a wise move. This is nothing criminal. This is Opposition Research that happens to emanate from the soviet union or russian federation, i should say. Hes trying to get in front of the story. Let me read part of this. It looks like this is the first email from Rob Goldstone. This print is extremely small. It says good morning. Ameen just called and asked me to contact you with something interesting. The crown prosecutor of russia met with his father and offered to provide the Trump Campaign with official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and useful to your father. This is high level and Sensitive Information but as part of russia and its Government Support for mr. Trump. Wow helped along by aras and emin. How do you want to handle the information . This is the first time i eecm reading it. Thats an important line. Its too small to read, but i see someone from the atlantic said she is identified as a russian attorney. This is a person who, by the way, according to that, they know shes coming to talk about russian sanctions. By the way, when russians talk about adoption, that is what they are talking about. So, you know, they should have known that. They should have known that so people understand, the sanctions are against russian Government Officials. Unless she has a hobby of lobbying on behalf of the russian government, shes probably connected to the russian government. In her interview with nbc, she said that. For years, i have worked on this issue of the sanctions. So, again, unless she is a hobbyist and working on getting sanctions lifted against russian Government Officials, its a reasonable assumption she is connected to the russian government. That line you just read in that email where goldstone makes it clear to donald trump jr. That this is Government Support. Exactly. Participant of russia and its Government Support for mr. Trump. To me, that negates the line donald trump jr. Is offering as tweets that the russian narrative was not either and there was no big deal. It doesnt matter if that was a story line or not. Its in this email that he was alerted that the russian government is seeking to help his Fathers Campaign. It goes beyond that in an important way. It talks about an official document of the russian government. Now, this would suggest russian government involvement, not just in leaking information. Was it through hacking or illegal entry into u. S. Computer systems . That gets closer to a link to possible criminal conduct, if, in fact, thats what is being referred to here. Of course we dont know at this point. Ken, we are all seeing this for the first time together. What is your you straddle the political and the legal. What is your reaction to what we are reading right now . First of all, i agree with an earlier comment, in light of this coming out, that it was smart on donald jr. s part to release the emails. If their whole team would take that more open approach, we are talking about an ugly line in one of these emails. We are going to talk about that. Well talk about it in other evidence that comes out, too. It would be so much easier and i think beneficial in the long run for the whole trump team, if they went hunting this stuff down and if they started putting it out. Look, donald trump, the president , has no trouble taking shots on the chin and giving them back. They are going to take shots on this. I think it was smart on jr. s part to lay it out there as ugly as it may be. Ond the line on the email, i havent seen the rest of them, is very, very telling. It suggests to me, if he released these he had, in fact, read them. So you all keep in mind, in the second week of june of 2016, it was very chaotic, not that it ever wasnt in the Trump Campaign, but, you know, everybody is trying to access the campaign and the president. Theres a bazillion emails coming in. It may have been a plausible position to say i never saw these emails, except it came from somebody new. It was about someone they worked with in russia who they apparently held in regard on a business level and obviously, that connection was used on the other end to access donald jr. This is one of the issues, you know, this isnt billy carter. Billy carter wasnt involved with jimmy carter. The family of donald trump has been intimately involved in governments. Because of that, all of them are targets of this dragnet and here is donald jr. In it. We are going to hear more about it as the days go forward. Matthew, let me bring you in as well. In an email, this goes from Rob Goldstone back to don. Great, they just pulled it up on the screen. Pleasant tris, then says amin asked that i schedule with you and the russian government attorney who is flying over from moscow for this thursday. So, that seems to be a problem in the fact this person is not connected to the kremlin at all. Yeah. I mean you know, you can claim, i guess, this is somebody who wasnt in the government with no experience with this. I think they are going to run into a problem. You are taking information to hurt a political opponent in an American Election from somebody that is identifying themselves as coming from the government, information from the russian government. Thats going to raise a ton of questions with the fbi investigators among senators and house members on the hill. I think you saw that with senator mccain. The other question, if i were sitting in an interview with don jr. , i would ask, if you didnt think there was anything wrong with it, why are we only finding out about it a year later . We have months and months and months of revelations met here and there. At some point, its like, theres nothing to see here. Why not tell us all about it . Why not come out and say it . Tell us everything that happened, instead of only coming out with the details after the stories have broken and the news is out. What does this mean, excellent point, matthew. David, what does this mean for the other two people in that meeting, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort . Maybe don jr. Didnt share this ahead of time . That would be the best case scenario. You know, i think its reported Jared Kushner was in and out of that meeting. It is because of Jared Kushner remember, he initially filled out his security clearance form and did not include, initially. It was submitted prematurely. They filled it out and put it in to detail contacts with russia, right . It wasnt that initial one. It was a supplement supplementa information from Jared Kushner that this meeting appeared on a form of Jared Kushners. All the detail is important for the investigation. If we take a ministep back in what this kind of confirms, does this mean now that donald trump jr. Went into a meeting looking for help from the russian government . It suggests he was open to it. Look, if you took i have been hearing trump defenders saying, oh, this happens all the time. Jason miller was saying it happens all the time. This doesnt happen all the time. Many would have forwarded this to the fbi. If you give this to the average High School Student and asked them to identify what was wrong with it, they would be able to tell you. It is hard to believe that donald trump jr. Did not understand what he was doing here. Let me add to the conversation, if you could stick with me. Lets get the view from capitol hill. Republican from utah sits on the house Intelligence Committee. Thanks for coming in, i appreciate it. Good morning. We are getting new information. Im not sure how much you have been able to hear our conversation or to see. Of this news about the meeting that donald trump jr. Had, donald trump jr. Released the entire email chain he had with his go between. Here is an important line i would like to get your reaction to in this email. This go between Rob Goldstone writes to donald trump jr. , this is obviously very high level and Sensitive Information, but, is part of russia and its governments support for mr. Trump. What does that tell you, congressman . I dont know, honestly. Its something thats just revealed to me as we speak. Its something we would want to look into. Im not here to defend mr. Trump or mr. Trump jr. , im here to discover the truth. The house intelligence has been committed to that. We are going to investigate and report to the American People. Having you read it, i wish i could be more helpful, but its too soon. Does it raise new questions for you . I think so. Any one of these things raises questions. I know theres a lot of people who dream of donald trump being impeached and the russian collusion being proven. Again and again, we have been disappointed in that in the sense that most of these things turn out to be, you know, not much there. When you talk to natalia, she says we didnt discuss this. At least as far as i know. She said i never had negative information or damaging information on secretary clinton. From what i understand, h says we discussed the russian adoption issue. The emails set up a dimfferent story for why they met but the context didnt discuss this. If donald trump jr. Knew going in that it was to help the russian government to help or the russian government wanting to help trumps campaign. She is coming and she is a russian government attorney. Does that seem appropriate to you . No. I mean, thats obviously concerning to us. Its a thing, again, we want to question that and dive into that. Again, my understanding is she says i wasnt a russian official. I wasnt working for, as an agent of the russian government. This seems to indicate that maybe she had some affiliation. I dont understand that. Lets ask the question and try to find out. Do you want donald trump jr. To come before you and testify before your committee . Oh, for sure. This is one of the things the American People are going to wonder about. Its going to have a lot of unanswered questions, i think, unless hes willing to testify. I have to give him credit and thank you for releasing these emails and doing it very quickly. It gives you and i and the media and those of us on the committee a chance to digest them. Thats a good, positive step. Theres more questions that the emails will raise. We look forward to having a chance to speak with mr. Trump jr. About this. Does it seem clear at this point, though, from the email just the sentence i read to you that donald trump jr. Went into this meeting, if not seeking, at least open to working, getting information from the russian government to help his Fathers Campaign . Again, i know it would seem that way, but i hate to prejudge it. Theres so many times in this investigation where it seems something is a, then when you put it in context and learn more about it, its not. To be fair to the process and mr. Trump and frankly, natalia as well, i would like to hold judgment. Its obvious theres questions that arise that we look forward to asking and getting answers to. Should he have notified the fbi about the email, about the meeting . You know, i dont know. Again, its kind of early. I would say this, if they had a meeting and negative information about the secretary was shared, yeah, the appropriate response was you need to share that with the fbi or share that with the justice officials. But i tell you, you know, in politics and probably in life, we hear lots of things and often it turns out not to be much there. So, i dont know that you would share based on just this one e