Release of congressional testimony sheds light on 2016 Trump Tower meeting

Donald Trump jnr told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year he couldn't remember whether he had discussed the Russia investigation with his father and said he didn't think there was anything wrong with meeting a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 presidential election, according to transcripts released on Wednesday of his interview with the panel.

Trump jnr deflected multiple questions during the interview, saying he couldn't recall whether he discussed the Russia probe with his father and whether he spoke with his dad on the day the meeting was arranged.

"I did not collude with any foreign government and do not know of anyone who did," the President's son said in the interview with the committee's staff on September 7, 2017. He said he was sceptical about the value of such a meeting and "as it later turned out, my scepticism was justified".

Trump jnr said Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya told him only "very generally about individuals connected to Russia supporting or funding Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee".

Donald Trump jnrCredit: AP

Asked if he thought it would be a problem to take a meeting billed to him as part of a Russian government effort to aid his father, Trump jnr said no.

"I didn't think that listening to someone with information relevant to the fitness and character of a presidential candidate would be an issue, no."

This marks the first time that Trump jnr's account of what unfolded has been made public. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley had announced in January he would release the transcripts of the private staff interview with Trump jnr and others who attended the meeting.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.Credit: AP

Collusion Questions

As soon as reports of the June 2016 meeting surfaced last summer, it became the focus of questions about possible collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election, issues under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Even Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee who staunchly rejected that portrayal criticised the decision to take the meeting as poor judgment.

"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry," Trump jnr said on Wednesday in a statement released by a spokesman. "The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the committee."

About 2500 pages of documents were released on Wednesday, including the interviews with Trump jnr and Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who arranged the meeting and said in text messages it was part of a Russian government effort to aid the Trump campaign. Among those attending was lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin.

Akhmetshin told Senate interviewers that Trump jnr led the meeting, telling them, "He was definitely in charge". After small talk about the view from Trump Tower and a recent win in the primaries, the younger Trump got down to business, Akhmetshin said, telling the Russian visitors, "So I believe you have some information for us".

'You just have to get the meeting'

Goldstone, who promised Trump jnr over email that Veselnitskaya would provide dirt about Clinton in June 2016, said he made the offer because he had been assured the Moscow attorney was "well connected" and had "damaging material".

Music promoter Rob Goldstone.Credit: AP

The promoter told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between the President's son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstone's own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.

"He said, 'it doesn't matter. You just have to get the meeting'," Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.

Goldstone said that he, like Trump jnr, attended the meeting expecting Veselnitskaya would deliver a "smoking gun" to help Trump's campaign. He testified that he was embarrassed and apologetic when she instead used the session to press her view that the sanctions imposed on Russia for human rights abuses, known as the Magnitsky Act, should be lifted.

Trump jnr acknowledged he too was disappointed that the Russian lawyer did not provide more information that could be used in the campaign: "All else being equal, I wouldn't have wanted to waste 20 minutes hearing about something that I wasn't supposed to be meeting about," he told the committee.

Manafort and Kushner

Others attending the meeting were Paul Manafort, then the chairman of Trump's presidential campaign; Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Ike Kaveladze, a California businessman who was born in Russia; Akhmetshin; and Anatoli Samochornov, serving as a translator for Veselnitskaya, who doesn't speak fluent English.

The documents also included interviews with Akhmetshin, Kaveladze and Samochornov. Veselnitskaya also submitted written answers to the committee.

Kushner, who Grassley previously said had been "spooked" out of testifying, and Manafort, who has since been indicted on money laundering and assorted other charges, did not appear before the committee.

Kushner did provide the panel with a 12-page statement, also released by Grassley.

Donald Trump jnr's email back-and-forth with Rob Goldstone.

Last July, when the New York Times published a report about the meeting, a statement was crafted aboard Air Force One as the President returned from Germany.

The statement's assertion that the meeting primarily concerned a program for adopting Russian children turned out to be false when emails revealed that Trump jnr had agreed to the meeting after being offered damaging information on Clinton.

Last December, Trump jnr told House lawmakers that he couldn't answer questions about what he told his father after the meeting, citing attorney-client privilege, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said afterward.

Schiff said Trump jnr invoked the privilege because his lawyers claimed that the discussion with his father took place in the presence of legal counsel, which Schiff and other Democrats argued is a situation not covered by the privilege.

Trump jnr also met behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

'One piece of a much larger puzzle'

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats say the released interview transcripts are just "one piece of a much larger puzzle".

The Democrats say the transcripts do not tell the full story of the meeting because some participants were not interviewed and Grassley was unwilling to subpoena them. Without interviews of Manafort, Kushner and others, Democrats say "much of the truth remains hidden".

In a list of findings, the Democrats say that Trump jnr's willingness to take the meeting with Veselnitskaya "confirms that the Trump campaign was willing to accept Russia's assistance."

Bloomberg, Washington Post and AP