2016 meeting with Donald Trump campaign officials
A meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City on June 9, 2016, between three senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign – Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort – four other U.S. citizens, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The meeting was arranged by publicist and long-time Trump acquaintance Rob Goldstone on behalf of his client, Russian singer-songwriter Emin Agalarov. The meeting was first disclosed to U.S. government officials in April 2017, when Kushner filed a revised version of his security clearance form.
Donald Trump Jr. made several misleading statements about the meeting. He initially told the press that the meeting was held to discuss adoptions of Russian children by Americans. On July 8, 2017, after news reports stated that Trump Jr. knew the meeting was political, he admitted in a tweet that he had agreed to the meeting with the understanding that he would receive information damaging to Hillary Clinton, and that he was conducting opposition research. When "The New York Times" was about to report on email exchanges between Goldstone and Trump Jr., Trump Jr. himself published the emails. In early July 2017, it was reported that then-President Donald Trump himself drafted Trump Jr.'s initial misleading statement. The report was later confirmed by the president's attorneys. In July 2018, the president denied knowledge of the meeting.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel of the Department of Justice in charge of Russia-related investigations, investigated the emails and the meeting, and their relation to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Background.
Prior to the Trump Tower meeting, Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos met at least twice with Joseph Mifsud, who asserted his awareness that Russians had thousands of emails that were damaging to Hillary Clinton. This occurred before the hacking of the DNC computers had become public knowledge. Papadopoulos later shared this information with at least two other people, including an Australian diplomat to Britain. At a meeting on March 24, 2016, the professor brought along a Russian woman, Olga Polonskaya. Papadopoulos made multiple unsuccessful attempts to set up meetings in Russia between Trump or members of his campaign and Russian officials. He communicated his proposals and interactions to several Trump campaign officials. In October 2017 he pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI about his actions.
On June 3, 2016, before the public was made aware of potential Russian interference in the presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. was contacted by Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist whose association with the Trumps dates back to the Miss Universe 2013 pageant held in Moscow; at that time, Trump Jr.'s father, businessman Donald Trump, had been co-owner of the pageant. Goldstone's client, Emin Agalarov, an Azerbaijani singer, performed at the Miss Universe event. His father, Aras Agalarov, is a wealthy real estate developer in Moscow.
In his June 3 email to Trump Jr., Goldstone wrote:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.
Trump Jr. responded:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;
In a June 7 email, it was agreed that the material would be delivered to Trump Jr. by an unnamed "Russian government attorney". At the meeting, Goldstone introduced this person as Moscow-based attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. She stated that she was not a government official; however, she is known to have ties to the Russian government and later described herself as an "informant" to the office of the Russian prosecutor general. According to Goldstone, she had planned to be in New York for a court appearance on June 9. Trump Jr. offered an in-person meeting that afternoon, which Goldstone confirmed. Trump Jr. forwarded the email thread to Kushner and Manafort.
Meeting.
The arranged meeting took place at Trump Tower in the afternoon of June 9, 2016. At least eight people attended. When the meeting first became known, conflicting accounts of who attended circulated. With time, more names came forward. At first, Donald Trump Jr. did not disclose that Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze, Rob Goldstone, and Anatoli Samachornov attended the meeting. ;ref name="Bertrand_8/31/2017" ; ;/ref ;
Purpose.
Trump Jr. initially told reporters that the meeting had been "primarily about adoptions". He then released a statement saying it had been a "short introductory meeting" concerning "a program about the adoption of Russian children". A few days later Trump Jr. acknowledged that he went into the meeting expecting to receive opposition research from Veselnitskaya that could hurt Clinton's campaign, adding that none was presented and that the conversation instead focused on the Magnitsky Act. Later a statement from Trump Jr.'s lawyer said Veselnitskaya had claimed to have information "that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton" but "it quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information". Trump Jr. said he felt the adoption issue was her "true agenda all along" and the claims of helpful political information were a pretext. After learning that the New York Times was about to publish the series of emails setting up the meeting, Trump Jr. himself published the email chain via Twitter, and explained that he considered the meeting to be "political opposition research". He summarized the meeting as "such a nothing... a wasted 20 minutes".
Both Donald Trump and Trump Jr. have claimed this was "opposition research", but Steven D'Amico, an expert on the subject, denies the claim and describes proper opposition research: "All information gathered must be lawfully obtained...and you certainly don't sit in on meetings where a foreign attorney promises sensitive information obtained by a rival government." ;ref name="D'Amico_7/15/2017" ; ;/ref ;
Veselnitskaya said that she intended to provide allegations to the Trump campaign about a firm connected to William Browder, a financier who lobbied for the Magnitsky Act. She said that the firm committed tax evasion in Russia and donated to Democrats. She said in an interview, "I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that." She initially denied the allegation that she was or is connected to the Russian government. At a later date she disclosed that she was in regular contact with the Russian Prosecutor General's office and with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, about sharing information she acquired in her investigation relating to the Magnitsky Act.
On July 14, Akhmetshin stated in an interview that Veselnitskaya had claimed to have evidence of "violations of Russian law by a Democratic donor", and added that she "described her findings at the meeting and left a document about them with Trump Jr. and the others."
Disclosure timeline.
The meeting, which took place on June 9, 2016, first came to the attention of authorities in April 2017, when Kushner reported on a revised security clearance form that he had met with Veselnitskaya. On July 8, 2017, "The New York Times" first mentioned a June 2016 meeting with "a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin", arranged by Trump Jr. and including Kushner and Manafort. Later that day, Trump Jr. released a statement calling it a "short introductory meeting" about American adoption of Russian children and "not a campaign issue". The next day it emerged that Goldstone had told Trump Jr. that the meeting would provide the Trump campaign with negative information about Clinton, and that this offer was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump", without mentioning adoptions or the Magnitsky Act. Trump Jr. reacted by acknowledging that he had been expecting information about Clinton. Over the next few days the identity of the attendees was established.
On July 11 Trump Jr. tweeted the entire email chain leading up to the meeting, a few minutes before "The New York Times" published it as well. Trump Jr. stated that he would have preferred to just have a phone call but that didn't work out. He told Sean Hannity that the meeting had been fully arranged by email, and that he had received no further details by phone. He would later contradict this statement during a closed-door interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 7, acknowledging three short phone calls with Agalarov prior to the meeting.
On July 12, 2017, President Trump stated in a Reuters interview that he had only known about the meeting for a couple of days, and that "many people would have held that meeting". Trump praised his son Don Jr. for his transparency in releasing the emails, and claimed that they were victims of a "political witch hunt". The same day Trump Jr. denied having told his father about the meeting. On July 13, Corey Lewandowski was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" why he had not been invited to the meeting. He replied that he was at a Trump rally in Florida on the meeting date, but there was in fact no rally in Florida that day. ;ref name="Kruzel_7/14/2017" ; ;/ref ; Instead, Trump attended a Trump Victory fundraising lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, and returned to Trump Tower at 1:02 PM, where he "remained for the rest of the afternoon". According to emails, the Veselnitskaya meeting was scheduled for 4:00 PM. ;ref name="Merica_7/12/2017" ; ;/ref ;
The July 8 statement by Trump Jr. became controversial in its own right because of conflicting stories about who had written it. On July 11 it was reported that the statement had been drafted by presidential advisers aboard Air Force One on the way home from the G20 summit in Germany, and that it had been approved by President Trump. On July 12 Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow insisted that it had been written by Trump Jr. in consultation with his lawyer, and that Donald Trump "wasn't involved in that". He repeated these statements on July 16. On July 31 "The Washington Post" reported that Trump had indeed personally dictated, worked on, and released the statement in Trump Jr's name, with claims that "were later shown to be misleading". According to "The Post", Trump had "overruled the consensus" of Trump Jr., Kushner, aides, and lawyers, who favored issuing a transparent account "because they believed the complete story would eventually emerge." Some advisors reportedly feared "that the president’s direct involvement leaves him needlessly vulnerable to allegations of a coverup." The next day, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that Trump "certainly didn't dictate, but ... he weighed in, offered suggestions, like any father would do". In January 2018, in a confidential letter from Trump's legal team to special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump's lawyers acknowledged for the first time that Trump had in fact dictated the first statement put out about the meeting in Trump Jr.'s name, thus contradicting prior representations.
Although Goldstone's emails described Veselnitskaya as a "Russian government attorney", Scott Balber, formerly a lawyer for Trump and now for Agalarov, said in a July 14, 2017, interview that she had no association with the Russian government. For his part, Akhmetshin denied having ties to Russian intelligence, and said that the efforts by Veselnitskaya and himself "were not coordinated with the Russian government." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government didn't know Akhmetshin or Veselnitskaya, or anything about the meeting. In a November 2017 statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Veselnitskaya said "I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer." However she also stated in April 2018: "I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” adding that "since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general," Yury Chaika.
CNN reported on October 9 that Balber had obtained the memo which Veselnitskaya took to the meeting, ;ref name="Brown_Herb_10/9/2017" ; ;/ref ; and it was released by "Foreign Policy". ;ref name="Groll_10/16/2017" ; ;/ref ;
Veselnitskaya was Balber's only source for the document, as well as the only source of the claim that this is the same document that was brought to the Trump Tower meeting; this matters because