On May 22, in the Rose Garden Trump let it slip (accidentally?) that his son called him in the runup to the Trump Tower meetup with Russians in June of 2016. A couple of people posted Trump’s comment as soon as he said it: one, a twitter user; also Josh Marshall posted it. His words deserve attention. He admitted more that day than he had in written answers to Mueller.
Trump remarked (about his son): “he had a meeting and he called me and then he had the meeting after. Then he made 2 more calls. ….”
You can play it. Here are the words transcribed.
"They actually found who made the calls. One was a friend of ours a real estate developer. Great guy. Most of you know him. Nice guy. Loves our country. And the other one was the head of NASCAR. Two of them.
"So of the three calls that were so horrible
that he had a meeting and he called me and then he had the meeting after. Then he made 2 more calls.
"And they were written about like this, little lines, couple of lines.”
”Nobody wanted to admit it."
Here’s a longer set of these remarks, it has a little more context at the start, from Trump’s point of view.
The other person that Trump Jr phoned, real estate developer Howard Lorber, had traveled to Russia with DJT in 1996 to scout for sites for a Trump tower development in Moscow. Lorber is CEO of the Vector Group, real estate holding company. The phone contacts with Lorber, and with the chief executive of Nascar, were disclosed, around Jan. 31, after Senate investigators obtained phone records of Don Jr. The disclosures by “two people briefed on the matter” could either have been people close to Don Jr, or close to the President, or affiliated with Senate staff; it is not clear from the NY Times article.
However, Trump’s reveal about being called by his son, as the meeting rolled out, shines more light on Trump’s comments to ABC on Wednesday that he “would take” info from Russia or other countries. As we know, Russia poured info and propaganda into Facebook and other social media to transform the electoral landscape.
Two more fun facts about Howard Lorber: he is executive chairman of Nathan’s Famous — as in Nathan’s hot dogs. And an investor in Lorber’s Vector Group is one, William Barr.
Barr’s financial disclosure shows dividends received from Lorber’s Vector Group between $5,001 and $15,000.
Oh.