President Donald Trump came to the defense of his son, Donald Jr., caught in a web of possible criminal charges after he attempted to solicit political dirt on Hillary Clinton. After he called his namesake transparent and high quality, Trump just declared Donald Jr. innocent in a Tweet.
My son Donald did a good job last night. He was open, transparent and innocent. This is the greatest Witch Hunt in political history. Sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2017
At the same time, the president again called the Russian investigation as "the greatest witch hunt in political history," despite evidence that came from emails posted by his son, which held that it was part of Russia's plan to make him win the 2016 election.
Trump also used the opportunity to hit media outlets by reminding people not to trust media when it uses "sources say." He said the sources are often just made up or non-existent.
New York Times report
The story of Donald Jr. meeting the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was broken by The New York Times on Sunday after the president's son said in a statement on Saturday the meeting with the Russian lawyer was about the Magnitsky Act. Confronted by the newspaper, Donald Jr. admitted he agreed to meet Veselnitskaya out of the belief that she had intelligence reports the Trump campaign could use against Clinton.
In the story, The New York Times named all the people involved, from Rob Goldstone, the publicist who asked her to meet Donald Jr., to Emin and Aras Agalarov, and Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general of Russia, who claimed to have documents against Clinton.
Not a 'mea culpa'
Now that he is caught in a web of different versions of the story, Donald Jr. told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Tuesday night that in retrospect he probably would have done things a little differently. The Washington Post, however, said that statement by the first son should not be mistaken for a mea culpa.
While he dismissed the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower as a wasted 20 minutes, two reporters of the newspaper, Rosalind Helderman and John Wagner, pointed out that, based on the emails, Donald Jr.
understood the meeting as an opportunity to move information directly from a hostile nation to the U.S. Goldstone confirmed it is very high level and sensitive information that is part of Russia and its support for Trump.
Based on events the past six months, the emergence of the details of Trump's campaign and how it is paralyzing the White House are indicators that "the president is in way over his head." The Washington Post wrote that Trump won because of the assumption by voters that his wealth and successful reality TV show are proof the billionaire could effectively lead an organization when his competency as a manager is dubious.
