Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says he’d like the committee to hear from Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort about their meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin:
“They claimed this meeting had nothing to do with the campaign, and yet the Trump campaign manager is invited to come to the meeting and there’s no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul Manafort or Mr. Kushner or the President’s son if it wasn’t about the campaign and Russia policy,” he said.
He said the meeting is indicative of the fact that Russia was “obviously” trying to “influence one of the candidates” and that the explanations given from the administration so far don’t “make sense.” He said his committee would like to “get to the bottom” of what happened at the meeting and he plans to question everyone who was at the meeting.
It will be interesting to watch them try to get out of this one—since Junior and Manafort don’t currently work for the (U.S.) government, the White House would have to get pretty creative in attempting to claim executive privilege to protect them from testifying. And does anyone think Junior is quick on his feet enough to get through Adam Schiff’s questioning unscathed?