There's lots of information in the Senate's just-released documents on Russian attempts to assist the Trump campaign during the 2016 elections. Among the most significant may be further details about the June meeting at Trump Tower between top Trump campaign officials and Kremlin-tied Russian intermediaries. We learned that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was "infuriated" when the Russians did not produce the damaging information about Hillary Clinton that he had been promised when the meeting was set up; we also learned that Trump lawyers had a good idea, when it became clear news of the meeting was going to become public, just how much trouble the team could be in if the meeting's participants gave conflicting explanations.
According to the documents, Futerfas contacted three participants in the meeting—publicist Rob Goldstone, Russian singer Emin Agalarov and Russian executive Ike Kaveladze—to discuss their memories of the day.
On July 10, two days after a New York Times report first revealed the Trump Tower meeting in 2016, exhibits released by the committee show that Goldstone forwarded Agalarov and Kaveladze a proposed “statement drafted by Trump lawyers which they have asked me to release.”
It also looks like Trump Jr. has been consistent in running interference for his father, even though it makes his own testimony look implausible. Not only was he vague as to just what role Donald Trump played in drafting his initial statement acknowledging the meeting—from other reporting, we've learned that Trump may have dictated part or all of the statement from Air Force One on his way back from Europe—but he claimed to the Senate that he has never talked with his father about the investigation into their campaign at all.
Trump Jr. told the Senate panel that he could not recall ever talking with his father about the government’s ongoing investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with the Trump campaign.
The Senate committee concurs with U.S. intelligence analysis that Russia's actions were meant to benefit Trump specifically, but Senate Republicans appear to believe that their investigative work is now done—even though one of the most central topics to the investigation, the extent to which the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian efforts both before and, especially, after the Trump Tower meeting—has been left dangling. And this attempt to close up shop early isn't sitting well with Senate Democrats.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted Grassley’s investigative efforts: “To call the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Trump-Russia investigation halfhearted is too generous.”
Indeed. There are far too many questions still unresolved. But a final report on just what Donald Trump himself knew and what his campaign did in response to Russian overtures may, at this point, depend entirely on the special counsel's investigation. Senate Republicans appear unwilling to press too deeply into the implications of what they've already uncovered.
