Trump Jr. untroubled by meeting Russian

Committee releases more than 1,800 pages of interview transcripts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump’s son told Congress he didn’t think there was anything wrong with meeting a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in hopes of election-season dirt on Hillary Clinton. That’s according to transcripts released Wednesday.

Donald Trump Jr. was asked if he was troubled by the idea that the meeting in June 2016 was part of a Russian government effort to help his father in the presidential race. He said he didn’t give it much thought.

“I don’t know that it alarmed me, but I like I said, I don’t know and I don’t know that I was all that focused on it at the time,” Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in the closed-door interview last year.

The committee released more than 1,800 pages of transcripts of interviews with Trump Jr. and others who attended the New York meeting at which they expected to receive compromising information about Trump’s Democratic opponent. The panel also released more than 700 pages of exhibits including numerous emails, heavily redacted phone logs and court depositions.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee said it stands behind a 2017 assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia intervened in the election to hurt Clinton and help Trump. That conclusion differs from a House intelligence committee report released last month.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate panel, said his staff spent 14 months “reviewing the sources, tradecraft and analytic work” conducted by the intelligence agencies. He said the committee uncovered no reason to dispute the conclusions of the intelligence assessment released in 2017.