Donald Trump Jr. On Russian Campaign Aid Offer: 'I Love It'

NEW YORK, NY — Donald Trump Jr. tweeted emails Tuesday that show, for the first time, that he and other top-level associates of his father were aware months before votes were cast for president in 2016 that the Russian government intended to sway the election. The emails outline and describe a June 2016 meeting between a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties and the president's son, who was joined by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, is senior White House adviser and worked on the campaign. Manafort was Trump's campaign manager at the time.

The president himself, many of his aides and Trump Jr. have denied any knowledge of the Kremlin's attempts to mess with the campaign. Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday night, Trump Jr. denied that Trump his father was aware of the meeting or the contents of the email, according to the Associated Press.

Manafort left the campaign in late summer after a New York Times report suggested he had connections to pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. He has said that he had no involvement in the Russian effort to influence the election, and Kushner failed to disclose the meeting in question. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

According to the emails Trump Jr. posted, his acquaintance Rob Goldstone, a British former tabloid reporter, wrote the following:

"The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offer to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and this would be useful to your father," Goldstone writes. "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."

In response, Trump Jr. writes: "If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer."

According to Adam Goldman of the New York Times, who worked on the reports that first revealed the meeting publicly, the newspaper was working to publish the emails before Trump Jr. preempted the release.

"Why are these emails public?" Goldman tweeted. "The @nytimes."

The emails show the planning stages of a recently revealed meeting between Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort, and the lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who said she was bringing intelligence that could harm Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Previously, Trump Jr. denied that any such meeting with Russians took place. When the Times first reported on the meeting, the president's son said that the meeting was primarily focused on the issue of Russian-American adoption policy. Then, after the Times reported that the meeting was arranged to discuss potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton, the president's son said this was a "pretext" for the meeting. On Monday, Trump Jr. began retaining a criminal defense attorney, who told the Times the story was "much ado about nothing."

In his interview with Hannity, Trump Jr. said the meeting was "a nothing." He added, "I wouldn’t have even remembered it until you started scouring through this stuff. It was literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame."

Watch: Trump Jr. Embraced Help Said To Be From Kremlin

"There's no escaping it: the Trump Campaign's inner circle met with an agent of a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of an American election," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "The American people face a White House riddled with shadowy Russian connections and desperate to hide the truth."

Asked about the new revelations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the committee investigations will "get to the bottom of whatever may have happened."

Through Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump released a statement on the matter saying, "My son is a high-quality person, and I applaud his transparency."

Trump has repeatedly denied that there was any "collusion" with Russia during the campaign. The White House says the president only learned of the meeting with Veselnitskaya recently.

The president has even cast doubt on the the findings of the CIA, FBI, NSA and the office of the director of national intelligence, which have all said that Russia intentionally engaged in cyberattacks against the United States to influence the 2016 election and help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. At the summit last week, Trump said of the hacking, "I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and or countries. I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure."

At the summit, Trump met with Putin for more than two hours.

"No longer a question that the Trump campaign sought to collude with a hostile foreign power to subvert American democracy," tweeted Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Vice President Pence, who has repeatedly denied any meetings or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, had his press secretary release the following statement in response to the emails: "The vice president is working every day to advance the president's agenda. He was not aware of the meeting. He is also not focused on stories about the campaign -- especially those pertaining to the time before he joined the campaign."

In an apparent reference to the Clinton email investigation, former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee tweeted: "Liberal media in a frenzy because Donald Trump Jr released all his emails. Should've just deleted them. We know that's fine with them!"

Trump Jr. does not work for the government, though he runs the Trump organization, which the president still owns. However, Kushner does work for the government, and he did not disclose the meeting in question when he applied for a security clearance. If he intentionally concealed the meeting, this is a potentially criminal act; even unintentionally neglecting to mention the meeting could result in his losing his security clearance.

Asked about the revelations, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters, "If there's an email from a Russian suggesting that the Russian government wants to help, that would be very problematic."

A few hours before posting the emails, shown below, Trump Jr. tweeted, "Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the desperation!"

Along with the emails, he also released a statement: "To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldston about the meeting on June 9, 2016."

In line with his previous comments, Trump Jr. said Veselnitskaya provided no actionable intelligence. Goldstone, the acquaintance who set up the meeting, said her supposed intel was "the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it."

Trump Jr. said in the statment that the Veselnitskaya "was not a government official." However, the emails he posted show Goldstone identifying her as a "Russian government attorney."

In July, after the Democratic National Committee's emails were hacked and released, Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook said that the leaks were an attempt from the Russian government to hurt the Clinton campaign and help Trump. The intelligence community has since officially reiterated the findings, though Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the findings. On July 24, Trump Jr. himself said that claiming the Russian government was behind the hack was "disgusting" and "so phony."

"It just goes to show you their exact moral compass; they'll say anything to try and win this," Trump Jr. said of Mook's comments. "This is time and time again, lie after lie. Notice: he won't say, 'Well, I say this'; 'We hear experts.' You know, his house cat at home once said that this was happening. It's disgusting; it's so phony. I watched him bumble through the interview, I was able to hear it on audio a little bit. I can't think of bigger lies."

It's now clear that Trump Jr., at that time, had already been informed that the Russian government was trying to help his father.

Some have said Trump Jr.'s admitted actions may be a crime.

"Right now, there is probable cause to charge Donald Trump Jr. with a federal offense,” said Paul Butler, professor of law at Georgetown University and former prosecutor.

What is the crime? According to Butler: "What is a federal offense is soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, like a Russian government operative. 'Campaign contribution' is defined in the statute as 'anything of value,' so it could be money, but it's also a service, like opposition research, like dirt on Hillary Clinton."

Even before it was revealed that Trump Jr. knew the information was coming from the Russian government, Richard Painter, White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said on MSNBC: "Let’s cut through the baloney here. We know what the Russians have been doing.”

Painter continued: “When the Russians call or someone calls on behalf of the Russians and offers derogatory information about a former secretary of state who is a presidential candidate, the first person you call is the FBI.”

He said the president son's decision to meet with the lawyer "borders on treason if it is not itself treason.”

“This is a sad day for our country," said Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who sits on the House Oversight Committee. "The email chain confirms that the President’s son was both aware of and supported the Russian government’s efforts to help the President get elected. Our country has a fundamental principle that a foreign adversary should not and cannot interfere with our sacred elections, period. The soul of our very democracy depends on it.

He continued: "I remind my colleagues from both parties—the Constitution does not give Congress the right to remain silent in the face of this threat. We must investigate. And we must act on our findings."

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