What To Expect At Donald Trump Jr's Senate Testimony
President Donald Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr., as well as the former campaign chairman of his 2016 presidential campaign Paul Manafort, made a deal with leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee which will see them avoid being subpoenaed for a public hearing in exchange for testifying privately, it was reported Friday.
The private testimony is expected to explore a number of issues specific to the recently revealed 2016 meeting at Trump Tower where Trump Jr. met with Russians in an attempt to get information that would jeopardize Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The deal for the private interviews also requires both Trump Jr. and Manafort to hand over records to the panel but it does not mean they will not be asked to testify publicly in the future. Panel Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dianne Feinstein issued a joint statement, saying: "(W)e will not issue subpoenas for them tonight requiring their presence at Wednesday's hearing but reserve the right to do so in the future."
However, no date has been set for either of the two private interviews, according to CNN.
Read: What Is Collusion? Donald Trump Jr Email Fuels Controversy Over Russian Meeting
Whenever the interviews do take place, especially Trump Jr.’s, it is expected that one of the first lines of inquiry would be why he allowed the Trump Tower meeting on June 9 to go ahead with “Russian government attorney” Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Trump Jr.’s earlier statement to explain the meeting said Veselnitskaya “had no meaningful information” on Clinton and Russian funding of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). This could imply disappointment on his part at not being given solid information against Clinton. That may be backed up by his use of the words “I love it” in the email exchange where he was told Veselnitskaya had incriminating material against Clinton she wanted to hand over to him.
Given the benefits of incriminating material on Clinton to the Trump campaign, questions are expected to be asked on whether he was aware campaign finance laws made it illegal to accept valuable contributions from foreign nationals, The Guardian reported.
A campaign finance lawyer, Robert Bauer, told NPR opposition research could be considered a contribution.
It was also revealed the meeting had another Russian present, albeit a Russian-American lobbyist but also a former Soviet military officer, Rinat Akhmetshin. While Veselnitskaya’s presence at the meeting was confirmed by Donald Trump Jr. the attendance of Akhmetshin was not.
Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya had a folder with printed documents she claimed showed the flow of illicit funds to the Democrats and that exposing it would help the Trump campaign. “This could be a good issue to expose how the DNC is accepting bad money,” she told Trump Jr. and other Trump associates, according to Akhmetshin.
He did not however say if the folder was handed over to any Trump associates, although he thought it was still left behind by Veselnitskaya, Associated Press reported.
This could be the focus of another question. What was in that folder? Additionally, just days after this meeting came the release of the first batch of hacked e-mails from the DNC – a hack that has been described as almost certainly Russian in origin. The timing of both events, according to the Guardian, could beg the question if it was just coincidence or more.
Trump Jr. had also said while Veselnitskaya was “vague” and had “no meaningful information” on Clinton, her “true agenda” was to discuss the Magnitsky Act, the American law that punishes Russian human rights violators, according to CNBC.
This could reportedly form the basis of another line of enquiry on whether Trump Jr. offered to do anything to help in that regard.
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