Pageant with an individual who i was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked jared and paul to attend. Jared kushner and Paul Manafort and told them nothing of the substance. We had a meeting in june 2016 and after pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to russia were funding the Democratic National committee and supporting miss 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, she then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of russian children and mentioned the mag nifky act. They were a pretext to the meeting. I interrupted her and advised her my father was not an elected official, but rather a private citizen and her comments were better addressed if and when he Held Public Office and the meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. My acquaintance apologized for taking up our time. That was the end of it and there was no followup of any kind. My father knew nothing of these meetings or these events. The president was not aware of this meeting and did not attend. Lets get out to our reporter, cnn Global Affairs correspondent, elise labott and shimon pr shimon prok. Donald trump, junior said he didnt know who he was meeting with and this was an introduction with an acquaintance from the Miss Universe pageant and what he doesnt say is that Miss Universe pageant was held in 2013 in a suburb of moscow. In essence, a contact, trump junior made through that pageant was trying to set him up with someone who had info that could help the campaign, and if as donald trump suggests, that person ended up being a russian attorney trying to talk about policy. The question is why didnt he report it especially given the questions that have followed boo russia trying to interfere in u. S. Democracy. This meeting did happen about a year ago as we said when donald trump first clinched the nomination. We are learning the name of the attorney, natalya vesanelskaya, founded a group purporting to adoption ban. Its important to know why this program was ended and the russians put the ban in place years ago as a retaliation for an american law passed in 2012, also mentioned by mr. Trump, junior, known as the magnitsky act and oligarchs thought to have violated human rights and the lawyer has sought the repeal of that magnitsky act and we havent been able to reach here, but she did tell the New York Times she was not asking on behalf of the russian government and never discussed these matters with any representatives, but she is known as someone who tried to work to repeal this u. S. Legislation damaging to russian officials and the adoption ban. So you have again, a Russian National thinking to reach out to the Trump Campaign before he was even in the white house. Why thats something we still dont know. Shimon, we know there are multiple investigations,a the least a handful in congress both in the house and the senate investigating the russia meddling in the election and then we have the special prosecutor who is looking into whether there was collusion on behalf of the Trump Campaign working with russians and their meddling of the election. How does this new Information Impact the ongoing fbi investigation in particular . Right. So the fbi, they started their investigation of the Trump Campaign after this meeting, you know. When comey testified before the hill, he said the investigation started in july of 2016, so this meeting happens before, and we have been told, you know, our team here at cnn that has been working this investigation has been told that it was a different issue that started this investigation that caused the fbi to start looking at this. Now were a year into this. It could be that the fbi may have gone back and has looked at this and may have made some decisions about it. Whats interesting is that, you know, this doesnt come to light until Jared Kushner has to refile his sf86. This is a security clearance form where he goes back and he has to tell the government all his foreign contacts, and this is where this comes up, and he admits that he has this other meeting with a potential person from the russian government. She, this lawyer, has been on the fbis radar previously. The key issue here probably for the fbi is was she there on behalf of the russian government . Was she sent there on behalf of Vladimir Putin . I dont know that and as part of the counterintelligence investigation, they would want to know that. We want to hear back from the fbi if this was part of the investigation and it would be fair to speculate and this raises some additional questions about what was going on here during the campaign, and you know, ana, its important also, how much vetting was the Trump Campaign doing before meetings with folks . We know that even after he won the election there were theres been a lot of questions raised about who his folks attached to his campaign and some of the people close to him had met with. Its no surprise that maybe the vetting here wasnt so good and they may not have known exactly who they were meeting with and obviously, these are all questions that the fbi will probably look to answer and may have already answered and we just dont know. Shimon pr shimon prokupetz. I want to bring in david gergen, and lynn sweet, former cia operative, bob baer, and Michael Zeldin. He is a cnn intelligence and security analyst and former cia operative. Michael zeldin is with us, too, former federal prosecutor, so i want to start with you, Michael Zeldin and ask you the question about the significance as you see it with this latest development . Potentially, this has a lot of significance. Potentially its a red herring and turns out to be nothing. On the significance, Positive Side of it, you have Jared Kushner meeting with russians who have information, presumably data about Hillary Rodham clinton, and Jared Kushners role is Data Analytics. He is in charge of their data operation who used targeted date at to push out information positive about their candidate and negative about their opponent. We also know that a few weeks after this, july 22, i believe, wikileaks drops its first dump of data from the dnc. You have this coalescing of events that could be causal or coincidenceal of a meeting with a person who has data, and wikileaks all occurring within a few weeks of one another. Potentially, theres significance there in that the fbi and special counsel mueller will want to look at it. On the other hand, potentially, and just coincidence and not much of anything. I apologize for stepping on you there. Okay. Im sorry. Let me bring in lynn sweet and earlier this year going back to the time line and this information thats coming out in drips and drab, lynn, President Trump said no one on his campaign met with russia. Last night his son admit that he and others did meet with the russian lawyer and it was about adoption and the original purpose of the meeting wasnt about adoption, but about information that would be helpful to his dads campaign and perhaps damaging to Hillary Clinton. What do you make of that . Well, i make of it that this is slop owe the part of the trump operation and slop owe kushners part. Lets put that aside. I have a little different point i want to make here and its important in this unfolding story. Just in the last few minutes the Washington Post has put the name of the gobetween out. Rob goldstein. Thats the Miss Universe emissary who is the gobetween who arranged the meeting and he is also a manager for a big, russian pop star, but heres what we dont know. He did this on behalf of a client who is unnamed. So this could be that the lawyer who happens to be russian and dont mistake that for representing the russian government, might have been brought in there to have a meeting that now dealt with someone elses interest. It might have been that theyre feeling their way in. What might be useful for later on. Someone should have known they didnt have any information on Hillary Clinton because they never did. If this, there hear other ways of injecting it to the political system which is why i also think as the story unfolds in four congressional committees and these special prosecutors investigation, that this is an important component that needs a lot more context, but could be an importance of the ongoing puzzle with helping trump get elect president . Cnn has not confirmed the meeting who set up the meeting between the trump family members and jared turner in, pill paul, manafort. You know how russians work. Does Donald Trumps story seem plausible about why he had this meeting . No. If you look at the New York Times story that he agreed to the meeting with the russian lawyer because he thought the lawyer had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. In other words, the Trump Campaign was going out, reaching out to foreigners and an adversary like russia looking for information and at that point, and at that point whatever the nature of the conversation was, you need to go to the fbi. You have a foreign govern, soon to be foreign using a proxy and its what the kgb does and this is coming out a year later and the Trump Administration has been saying we had no contact which is patently false,s and this is what disturbs me. Until we come clean on this russian connection and the possible collusion, were going to be tied up in this. Watergate is starting to look simple. David, you have advised president s. If youre camp calling and someone says they have damaging info on your opponent, would arent you meet with them . I think you do it very, very carefully especially if youre an international person. I agree with whats been said here tonight. I dont think we know the legal significance of this and thats what investigations are all about, and well have to wait and see, but this its one more example of the douk. That contains to plague them and the presidency because they dont play straight with the facts. Just yesterday donald trump junior put out a statement that basically said i met with this person because we wanted on on they were thinking about adoption of russian children. It said nothing about Hillary Clinton and today theyre forced to come clean with a different statement, but why didnt they just pls, a gone, and again, or maybe in europe, it looks like he had a successful meeting with putin and noi its developed and controversy and what the president believes. I think that fuels the political suspicion that is wounding the trump team again and again, and beyond that, i want to make the point that this is extremely abnormal for a campaign to have as many contacts with any foreign nation, but especially with the russians. This is not the way campaigns work. You know, theyre basically interm affairs we have a russian that has the memory. Youre darn careful because you dont know what have some and not bring in the top guns of the campaign. I have more questions for you all, but we have to take a quick break. The breaking news from the New York Times, reporting there was a meeting that happened last june involving donald trump junior, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meeting with a russian lawyer. The impetus of this meeting was because jared or donald trump junior was told that whoever he was going to be meeting with had damaging about Hillary Clinton. He now know it was a russian lawyer. Much more on this breaking story when we come back. 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This is on january 15th when Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday asked pence directly if there was ever contact between trump and the kremlin. Lets watch. Was there any contact in any way between trump or his associates and the kremlin or cutouts they had . I i joined this campaign in the summer, and i can tell you that all the contact by the Trump Campaign and the associates was with the american people. We were fully engaged with taking his message to make America Great again all across this country. Did you ask mr. Trump if there were any contacts, sir . Im trying to get an answer. Of course, not. Why would there be any contacts with the campaign . That is a distraction and part of a narrative to delegitimize an election and to question the legitimacy of this presidency. I want to talk more about this with david gergen, cnn senior political analyst and a former president ial aide to nixon for reagan and clinton. Also cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin. Welcome back, guys. Thanks for sticking around. You have worked for four president s and how significant is this report to you . Its significant, but a piece of a bigger puzzle. The more we learn the more the puzzle begins to make sense and that is that there was an abnormal set of relationships with the russians that people associate with trump or have had over a period of time. We dont know whether there were violations of the law. We dont know, you know, theres a lot the legal significance is still to be determined, but theres no doubt that this is deeply troubling and that in the minds of american americans it connects directly to the kind of relationship that the president is developing with Vladimir Putin and it continues to be an odd relationship and one in which we dont seem to be getting the full story about what was said in this very, very important meeting. Just in the last 48 hours, the chief of staff of the white house has said there was never any talk with putin about sanctions which are a very important issue and rex tillerson, the secretary of state said coming out of the meeting said there was talk about sanctions. I dont know why they cant get their story straight, but it fuels suspicion that is terribly damaging to the president and to his capacity to govern, and frankly, is disparaging for a lot of americans. Michael, we, according to the New York Times report, theyre saying it is still unclear whether the russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya had compromising information about mrs.