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Warner: 'Unbelievable' Trump wasn't told
Sen. Mark Warner is dubious no one informed the President last year about a meeting with Russian lawyer
Warner: 'Unbelievable' Trump wasn't told about meeting
Story highlights
- Warner said he wanted to question everyone at the meeting
- A lawyer for Trump maintained the President had not been told about the meeting
Washington (CNN)The
top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said Sunday he did
not believe no one told President Donald Trump about a meeting last year
between top members of his campaign and a Russian lawyer.
Virginia
Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union"
that he wanted to question everyone involved in the meeting as part of
the committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election.
"Whether we'll
be able to get the Russian nationals to come over and testify is an open
question," Warner said. "Those people that our committee has
jurisdiction over, the Americans, I sure as heck want to talk to them."
But
Warner said he wanted to get documents from them first so that the
committee members have as much information as possible before
questioning them.
"Clearly if we
don't have all the information," Warner said. "What we'll see, and what
I'm afraid of, is these individuals don't seem to disclose everything,
or don't tell the whole truth, until they have evidence put in front of
them."
Maine
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the committee, said in an interview
later on the program that she too wanted the committee to ask for all
documents related to any contact between the campaign and "the Russian
government or its emissaries."
The June meeting involved
Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, then-campaign manager Paul
Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, publicist Rob Goldstone,
Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and at least two other
people, sources famliar with the meeting told CNN. The meeting has drawn
widespread scrutiny since The New York Times reported on it last
weekend. In the wake of the Times' reporting, Trump Jr. posted a series
of emails on Twitter between himself and Goldstone, an acquaintance who
pointed to the Russia attorney as the source of potentially damaging
information on Hillary Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's
support for Mr. Trump."
Trump
Jr. accepted Goldstone's offer to meet with the Russian lawyer and went
on to set up the meeting at Trump Tower. The President has maintained
having no knowledge of the meeting until the Times' reporting.
Jay Sekulow, a member of the President's legal team, reiterated on "State of the Union" that Trump was unaware of the meeting.
"The President was not engaged in this, was not aware of it," Sekulow said.
Warner, however, questioned that assertion.
"Frankly,
it's a little bit unbelievable that neither the son or the son-in-law
ever shared that information with their dad, the candidate," Warner
said.
Warner said several times
that there was reason to doubt the credibility of senior members of the
Trump administration -- of which Trump Jr. is not a member -- and
accused Trump Jr. of lying about the meeting.
"We
don't know because we don't know really what happened at the meeting,"
Warner said. "What we do know is Donald Trump Jr. did not tell the truth
a variety of times."
Trump Jr., in a statement, initially described
the meeting as primarily about adoption policy before conceding in a
subsequent statement that he had agreed to the meeting in the hope he
might get damaging information on Clinton.
Following his release on Twitter of the email exchange between himself and Goldstone, Trump Jr. did an interview
with Fox News' Sean Hannity, a staunch supporter of the President.
Trump Jr. said he would be willing to go under oath to speak about the
meeting.
Sekulow pointed to Trump Jr.'s comments in the interview that he had now disclosed everything about the meeting.
"I think it speaks for itself," Sekulow said.
Sekulow
also maintained the meeting was legal and said people should not
criticize the Trump campaign members for attending the meeting given the
breakneck speed of the presidential campaign.
"I don't think that's fair to Donald Trump Jr., to Jared Kushner or to Manafort for that matter," Sekulow said.
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