Trump Tower Russia meeting: At least eight people in the room

[DonViejo]

Source: CNN




By CNN staff
Updated 2:46 PM ET, Fri July 14, 2017

Washington (CNN)The June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort included at least eight people.

The revelation of additional participants comes as The Associated Press first reported Friday that a Russian-American lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin said he also attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. CNN has reached out to Akhmetshin for comment.

So far acknowledged in attendance: Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Akhmetshin and publicist Rob Goldstone, who helped set up the meeting. A source familiar with the circumstances told CNN there were at least two other people in the room as well, a translator and a representative of the Russian family who had asked Goldstone to set up the meeting. The source did not provide the names.

Akhmetshin is a registered lobbyist for Veselnitskaya's organization, which has focused on lobbying Washington to overturn the Magnitsky sanctions, according to lobbying records. The Magnitsky Act allows the US to withhold visas and freeze the assets of Russians thought to have violated human rights. Veselnitskaya founded a group purporting to seek the removal of Moscow's ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens, which it put in place in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act. She has also sought to repeal that law.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/politics/donald-trump-jr-meeting/index.html

[Motley13]

1. probably more than a 100, since Jared failed to mention more than 100

foreign contacts on his security clearance form because an assistant hit the send button prematurely. Yeah right!

They think we are so stupid, I think they might be right

[George II]

2. But he told Hannity the other night that he laid it all out (that was when it was only four people)

[iluvtennis]

3. And Don the Con came out and said NOTHING came out of the meeting. 8 ppl, yeah right.

[Solly Mack]

4. Probably be up to 12 people by 8 PM.

[juxtaposed]

5. I bet a nickel Trump was there, just saying.

[Blue_Tires]

6. Yeah, at the rate this story is going,

by Monday we'll find out Trump, Pence AND Putin was there...

[juxtaposed]

7. trump was in his building that day from what I've read, so why skip a meeting

[TomCADem]

8. GOP Rep. Gowdy slams Trump team for 'amnesia' on Russia meetings

It is amazing that Republicans even taking some exception to Trump's backdoor deals with the Russians is the exception, rather than the norm.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/341699-gowdy-calls-out-trump-team-for-amnesia-on-russia-meetings

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) says it is time for members of President Trump's campaign to come clean about any meetings they had with Russian figures during the campaign.

Gowdy, who led the House's special investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack, said he was troubled by Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information on then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

He expressed frustration over the failure to disclose the meeting up until now, citing “the amnesia of people that are in the Trump orbit.”

“Someone close to the president needs to get everyone connected with that campaign in a room and say: From the time you saw ‘Doctor Zhivago’ until the moment you drank vodka with a guy named Boris, you list every single one of those, and we are going to turn them over to the special counsel,” Gowdy said during an interview Tuesday on "The Story with Martha MacCallum" on Fox News.

[trof]

9. I think the whole Politburo was there.

Do they still have the Politburo?

[riversedge]

10. k for visibility

[weydowner]

11. frying pans and fires

Most things with this man start off with something preposterous and possibly-illegal and definitely-on the edge of legality and morality and instead of a few days of media comment-comment-comment, further details come out that make the original act seem whiter-than-white.
Is this deliberate or stunningly inept?

Very interesting, if you're a dispassionate observer. Otherwise a nightmare.

[Demtexan]

12. This was a major meeting.

Trump was there or on video with the group.

[Sunlei]

13. and trump listening in 'coaching' his son on what to say. "get the pp tape! or no more 250K hunts!""

[ewagner]

14. I think we're overlooking something about that meeting....

What Jr and the Donald himself have admitted to is that they knew they were going to be offered "dirt" on Clinton and took the meeting with the attorney...but then they say the "Russian Lawyer" changed the subject to the adoption of Russian Children and the meeting quickly broke up...

What we're overlooking is that Russia's ban on allowing non-Russians to adopt Russian orphans was Russia's retaliation for the sanctions imposed on them by the Obama Administration for their interference in the Ukraine. It was known as the Magnitsky Act and it was adopted globally. The act had huge financial as well as diplomatic actions against Russia (the closing the embassies in the U.S. which Trump is in the process of overturning).

My guess is that the meeting was to offer a quid pro quo....to wit: dirt on Hillary in return for a promise to overturn all/sum of the sanctions....the release of Russia's ban on foreign adoptions? Just the "sweetener" to the main menu...release from financial and diplomatic sanctions.

Remember THE ART OF THE DEAL? The Russians do...they sought a deal and apparently they made it with the group meeting in Trump towers. We know this because of the timing of some of the first sets of "damaging" emails which are remarkably similar to what Jr described. (note: please double-check or correct my understanding of this assertion)

I may be paranoid....but this is possible in my opinion