Government aid, investigators are taking another look at potential evidence collected as far back as 2015 according to the wall street journal. Minutes ago the president boarded Air Force One En Route to france where hell meet tomorrow with french president emmanuel macron. The last time the president was on Air Force One was a few days ago. It was at the g20 where he held his first face to face meeting with president putin. During that trip the president was involved in producing the false Statement Given to the New York Times about the previously held meeting last summer. A small cadre of president s advisers huddled in a cabin helping to craft a statement for the president s eldest son explaining why he met last summer with a lawyer connected to the russian government. Ultimately, the times reports, the president himself signed off
i wouldnt have even remembered it until you start scouring through this. It was a wasted 20 minutes which was a shame. The president responded to his sons Tv Appearance in a tweet this morning. My son donald did a good job last night. He was open, transparent, innocent, this is greatest witch hunt in political history. Sad. Today the president defended his son and insisted he was personally in the gark his sons meeting last summer. No, i didnt know until a couple days ago when i heard about this. I think many people would have held that meeting. The emails released yesterday races ad new round of questions about what the president knew and who his wraids in contact with, when. Even causing they will to reexamine the material. U. S. Intelligence agencies, starting in the spring of 2015, detected conversations in which russian Government Officials discussed associates of donald trump several months before he
declared a candidacy for president. The conversations were confusing, the journal reports. Wasnt clear which were being discussed and investigators didnt know what to make of it. Now in light of emails tuesday, investigators are going back to the early reports to see if they can understand them better. The emails have also raised new questions about a little noticed speech he then candidate donald trump gave last year on june 7th. Earlier that day at 5 16 p. M. , donald trump sent an email confirming the time and date for the russian lawyer to collect dirt on his fathers point. Almost exactly four hours later, his father made the following announcement. I am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week, and were going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. I think you will find it very informative and very, very interesting. Im joined now by sheldon whitehouse. Down on your targets. And you want to get past narrowing point and i dont think theyre there yet. Theres a lot out there. The former u. S. Attorney sheldon whitehouse. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Joining me now, robert pittinger, do you think it is a bad idea to take a meeting with someone who offers aid from a Foreign Government in bringing down your political adversary . I think, you know, what materially illegal is there about that, i dont know. Im not a lawyer. Do you think it is bad . Like if someone you were advising said to you, i just got an email from an adversarial government that says they have dirt on my point. Should i go to the meeting . Ill listen to anybody for whatever they have to say. But at the end of the day, you wade through the facts. Would you take a meeting, let me ask you. You would take a meeting, tlob what anyone would say. An agent of the venezuelan government to give you Opposition Research on an point . Would you do that . Again, youre coming one some conjecture here of things. These are hypothetical things. Ill sorry. You just said, you think it is okay i would listen to people and what they had to say. I want to let you know that i respect what you just said a minute ago. You said that all this has been a lot of speculation and conjecture. And lets get down to the facts. Weve been Hearing Speculation and conjecture for the last six months. Issue after issue after issue. This has been trial by democrat. Trial by media. Theres an obsession of trying on find something kflt we get something on this guy trump to nail him. We just keep looking. So i think at the end of the day, there hasnt been anything shows any collusion. I want to be clear about what is speculation and what is fact. Do you agree that donald trump
jr. Published emails yesterday that he received from a reported intermediary for i commend him for doing that. Thats not speculation. Those emails exist, correct . Absolutely. Very straightforward. And they offered an offer to collude with the russian government to collu thats your interpretation. This is obviously very high level sensitive information, and it is, im quoting here, part of russia and its governments support for mr. Trump. Do you agree thats what that email says, right . Im not getting into what is a material fact relative to aiding and abetting, the takedown. I think you want to be a prosecutor right now. Great. Go back to law school and be a prosecutor. We shouldnt have trial by media. I agree with you. Thats why we have mr. Mueller. Thats why i commend President Trump for the nomination he has
of chris are wray. This man is outstanding. He will get to the facts. I agree entirely. Chris rey will help get to the bottom of it. Lets agree on this. You and i both, anyone in the country genuinely wants to know truthful the actual facts. Particularly sir. Six months of this issue after issue, conjecture and speculation. Particularly if it is exculpatory. From your perspective firgtss turns out this is a witch hunt. We have something we havent had in a long time. Concrete facts. The chain of what happened are real things that happened in the world that arent speculation. Im asking you as a human being, a politician, do you think it is okay what the campaign did when offered this . Is that an okay thing that you approve of . You would advise a friend to do . Is it illegal . Was it a Material Reality that what they did was wrong . It was illegal . Well get to the facts on that. Im not an attorney. I think you can take information from anyone. I think so you think it was okay. Im asking for your opinion. Im just asking, like its okay to do that. You can i hear information from people all the time on the many things. And i think you need to understand in a campaign, ive been in many campaigns, particularly in a national campaign. Donald trump probably had 25 meetings a day. You run through a lot of people during course of the day. I get it. A lot of hangers on and people who come through your door. I know that first hand. When you get the son of Donald Trumps attention. Ive got something for you. Have you personally ever met with someone who represented themselves as a Foreign Agent to
give you dirt about a political point . Never have. No. I appreciate you being here. Good being here too. Thank you. Im joined by ted lu from california. It strikes me, is this an okay thing to do is something that people would have had a clear answer four days ago. Not only is it an okay thing to do. It is a violation of federal law. Donald trump jr. Clearly violated the federal Election Campaign act by conspiring to solicit something of value from a Foreign National. As a Foreign National i can tell you that he took an app. Not only did he write an email back saying i love it. Getting the dirt on Hillary Clinton. He also sat in on a meeting that more than completes the crime of conspiracy. I want to play devils
advocate here. There was six months in this nations history when extremely literal readings of statutes was being used to Construe Criminality by Hillary Clinton. You can make an argument for it. It seems very few prosecutions would be brought on the facts that we know now. Isnt that true . Thats not true. Lets say the someone emails you and says i have a bag of cocaine. And you email back and say i love it. You show up at that meeting. If the bag of cocaine turns out to be sugar, you still committed conspiracy and you will be prosecuted. So you actually think, and i talked on lawyers on both sides of this. 24 hours. You think that it is, of what revealed yesterday is prosecutable. Absolutely. Congress went to Great Lengths to put in a prohibition against accepting or soliciteding
anything of value from a Foreign National or the a Foreign Government. Bends foreign influence can be very corrupting. Thats straight up in the law. This is a straight up violation. This sort of goes back to both interviews saying we need to get to the bottom of it. We want the facts and not trial by media. Everyone is accorded a certain degree of innocence. And the discussion about how long this takes. What is your expectation about what happens next given how remarkable the last 48 hours have been . These emails are facts. Theyve been Authentic Ated by donald trump jr. There would be a grand jury and he would be indicted and then a jury can decide if he should be found guilty. Do you think that it is that Black And White . Ive talked on people who say, i dont know. I dont know if theres a case
here. You think that. Absolutely. This is right there in the emails. Theres an open question about whether a sitting president can be indicted but theres no question at all about whether his son can be indicted. People went to jail well before the president was impeached. Theres to protection for people in the president s orbit is what youre saying. Thats correct. If this meeting wasnt a big deal, why would the president himself, as you noted earlier in the show, to go Great Lengths to cover it up and help his son put out a false and misleading statement when this New York Times story first appeared . Thank you for your time tonight. Coming up, is donald trump jr. Still withholding information with the meeting with the russian lawyer . We noticed something odd in his email thread that hasnt gotten much attention. Did donald trump jr. Speak with
anyone in moscow . Michael, can we get this data to. . Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. You used to be the yes guy. What happened to that guy . Legacy technology can handcuff any company. But yes is here. So, youre saying we can cut delivery time . Yeah. With help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. With the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. We now know that donald trump jr. Received a series of emails last june in which he was offered unspecified dirt on Hillary Clinton. Dirt he was told would come from the russian government. Trump junior admits taking a meeting with what was described in those emails as russian government attorney in order to get that dirt. He maintains, however, he was offered nothing of value. Last night on fox news, sean hannity asked trump junior if before the meeting he had been be given any indication as to what the information with Hillary Clinton might be. And listen carefully to his answer. At any point were you told either in Phone Conversation or otherwise, what they might tell you . What goldstone seemed to be implying . As i recall, it was all this email coordination. Lets try to set up a meeting and see what happens and that it would be interesting information. In the end, wasnt about that at all. He said no, as i recall, it
was all basically this email coordination. Basically. Someone saying they had information to provide. And the meeting which he said was a dud. But nbc news Investigative Reporter noticed something interest. A careful reading seems to suggest that don junior in fact did have a conversation on the phone before the meeting with the person in moscow offering information despite claiming he had no such contact. Just last night on camera. The emails were between don junior and his aquabltance ron goldstone. Now goldstone references his source, thats the pop singer. At 12 30 he wrote, hi, don, let me know when you are free to talk with emin by phone about this hillary info. You had mentioned earlier this week so wanted to try to schedule a time and day. He says, could we speak now . Goldstone responds, let me track him down in moscow. What number he could call . One minute later mirgs cell. Okay. Hes on stage. Thats the guy at the center of thought. Hes stage in moscow but should be off in 20 minutes so im sure can call. And then nearly an hour passes. And don junior writes, rob, thanks for the help. So what happened during that hour . It appears there was a phone call. Did that phone call take place . That thanks for the help an hour after suggesting the call might have. He asked that i suggest a meeting with you and the russian government attorney who is flying over from moscow this thursday. I believe you are aware of the meeting. So wondered if 3 00 p. M. Or later on thursday works for you . I believe you are aware of the meeting. That seems to be a reference to them having a form of communication. Perhaps a phone call. Making don junior aware of the meeting. Later he mentions for the first time the other participant he plans to bring. It will likely be paul manafort, campaign boss, my brotherinlaw and me. The former u. S. Attorney from michigan, Professor Of Law at the university have michigan. You noticed this. It sure does look like a phone call happened. It sure looks like it. It sure does. It is a logical influence. And why it is important is because Rob Goldstone is not the man with the connections to the kremlin. Emin and his father are the guys close to the kremlin. And this could explain a few things. One, the day after this
arrangement, this phone call may have taken place, don junior made a speech where he promised to make some announcement about Hillary Clinton and her dealings. And of course, he never did that. But he was intimating that he had some dirt on Hillary Clinton. The other issue is theres a huge disconnect between the email that very explicitly promises Incriminal Nighting Information OnHillary Clinton and the explanation of how this meeting actually played out with the lawyer who was talking about the adoption and donald trump are jr. Saying i didnt really get anything. There is no real explanation for that disconnect. Maybe this phone call explains it. Barbara, you were a federal prosecutor. What would you want to see . All we really have is one little nugget about this whole scenario. So what you want to do is get as much information as you can around it to see what else
happened. So number one, getting the Telephone Records of donald trump jr. Might be one way to confirm whether there were additional phone calls. You get get phone calls after the fact but you can determine whether they occurred. I would want to talk to Rob Goldstone as well. Now, he of course is a British National so you cant just use your subpoena to pull him in. But we do have Treat Business the british government. So an interview could be arranged. So i would want to find out as much as i can. I want to find out about what happened afterwards. Were there any subsequent emails . I would be using a Search Warrant to try to get the content of the emails between donald trump, jared kushner, goldstone, all of these players. To barbaras point about what happened after, thats the story that were getting which seems a little unresolved. So lets say, if everything that donald junior is saying is true. It is weird and disappointing and doesnt involved what he thought. Do you just let it go . Do you say what the heck was that . You wasted my time. You made me look bad in front of paul manafort. Theres a lot you can imagine would happen after that other than a shrug. There are sole unanswered questions. When he gets email about the effort to help your father. He doesnt say what effort . So he is acting like he understands there is such effort. Then again this disconnect between had very explicit promise of help and what theyre saying was a nothing burger. Did you get that same line . A lot of people are talking about this. It says the russian effort to help her father. It is not like heres some crazy
bombshell news, bruh. It is going to help your dad get elected. When you think about what muellers mission is, is a quest for the truth. Although people want to see accountability for anyone who has committed crimes here. The really bigger quest for truth that we want is what was the russian government up to in this Counter Intelligence investigation . What were they doing . What was their game . And that quest for truth is what Robert Mueller will want to know. And i cant help but note the irony, we went through an entire campaign. Weve read a opportunity of emails that the secretary turned over to the state department. We read criminal records. This is first time that weve
read an email from the Trump Campaign on the inside. It does make you wonder what else is in those inboxes. In the absence of hard facts, what weve gotten is speculation from current Government Officials. They say this is right out of russian play book. They believe there is a dangle. They believe it is russian tense trying on see how the trump team would respond to an offer of assistance. Wasnt much of an offer but it showed they were eager for more. Thank you for making time. Coming up, as the trump email cont