The June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower didn't become "breaking news" until July 2017, when The New York Times found a reference to it in one the several amendments that Jared Kushner made to his national security form. The Times gave Donald Trump Jr. a heads up so that he could publicly acknowledge the meeting before the Times broke the story. Jr. then proceeded to give one of what proved to be several versions of what happened at the meeting. Subsequently, when Fox show host Shawn Hannity asked Jr. if he told his father about the meeting, Jr. said he did not, because "nothing happened."
In spite of the claim that "nothing happened," President Trump felt the matter important enough to call a meeting abroad Air Force One to put out a statement, creating a cover story that the June 9 meeting was about adoption. Trump's lead lawyer at the time, Jay Sekulow, publicly declared that Donald Trump Jr. was the author of the statement. Jr. was actually not at the meeting, but he was on the phone to Hope Hicks, President Trump's long-time spokesperson. After it had became accepted fact that President Trump dictated the statement, Sekulow had to sheepishly admit that he had "bad information." Note here that when Rudy Guiliani initially said that Michael Cohen was an "honorable man," who had done nothing wrong, and later called him a pathological liar after Cohen became a serious threat to the president, Guiliani used the Sekulow claim of having "bad information."
After the claim that the June 9 meeting was solely about abortion became increasingly difficult to sustain, President Trump shifted to claiming that the meeting was about getting opposition research about a political opponent, and "everybody" would have "taken the meeting." Within the past two weeks, President Trump has, in effect, thrown his "wonderful" son under the bus by claiming that the meeting was a legal effort to get political opposition research. Jr. had taken the meeting, even though it had been presented as providing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, with official government backing. There is a law that makes it illegal to conspire with a foreign government in a political campaign. President Trump has put his son in serious legal jeopardy.
ADDENDUMS:
*Hope Hicks was photographed getting into Air Force One on President Trump's flight to hold a campaign event for an endangered candidate for the U.S. House from Ohio's 12th District. One interpretation of this is that Trump and Hicks will be trying to get their stories straight in regard to any future legal action against Trump.
*Both Rudy Guilani and Sarah Huckabee Sanders made much of President Trump using "shall" not "must" when he tweeted that A.G. Sessions fire Mueller.
*In an unusual move, the Department of Justice admitted that Trump lied to Congress when he said in a February 28, 2017 speech the "the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came from outside the country."
*Trump proposes short-term health insurance policies good for 12 months at a time, subject to renewal. They won't need to cover pre-existing conditions and certain of the coverage provisions found in the Affordable Care Act.
No comments:
Post a Comment