Fox News aired a segment on Tuesday morning discussing the news that Donald Trump Jr. had contact with a Russian lawyer who has extensive Kremlin links. While they were live on the air, Donald Trump Jr. dropped his own emails on Twitter for the world to see—apparently trying to beat the New York Times to the punch, knowing they intended to publish the emails anyway. The emails can be seen here and here, but in summary, they prove Donald Trump Jr. knowingly and eagerly set out to meet with representatives of the Russian government to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
That leads us to this amusing Fox News segment. Host Julie Banderas informed panelists John McCormack and Betsy Woodruff the emails had been released on Twitter during their live discussion and asked if these emails could exonerate Junior.
McCormack replied “it could” before pivoting to remind viewers Bill Clinton’s “illicit, morally wrong relationship with an intern was not illegal, but lying about it, obstructing justice, that’s what got him ...” and that’s when Banderas had to cut McCormack off to say that upon closer inspection, the Don Jr. emails were bad. Very bad. From Think Progress:
“Taking a deeper look at this email, it might not look so good for Donald Trump Jr.,” Banderas continued. “First of all, the Times now has the email to Donald Trump Jr. offering Russia aid and in the email, they basically say they want to incriminate Hillary — nothing wrong with that if he wants to meet with someone who has damaging information on a political rival, nothing wrong with that — a hostile foreign government having information, that wants to help a political campaign, yes, there’s a problem with that. Here is Donald Trump, Jr.,’s reply and I’m quoting out of his email that he in fact just posted on Twitter, quote: ‘If it’s what you say, I love it.’”
Watch Junior’ defense deflate before your very eyes below: