Donald Jr.'s meeting is a legal game-changer - By Eugene Robinson
By Eugene Robinson
From now on, ignore the conventional wisdom about how the Russia scandal is not “resonating” with President Trump’s still-loyal base. The question at this point is what strikes a chord with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and what kind of legal jeopardy Trump’s closest associates, including his eldest son and son-in-law, might eventually face.
Trump spent Monday morning live-tweeting fawning segments from his favorite cable news show, “Fox & Friends.” Within the cozy confines of that alternate universe, the story “everyone is still talking about” was said to be video of the president, before boarding his helicopter at Andrews Air Force Base, retrieving a Marine’s wind-blown hat.
In Mueller’s office suite, though, I’m confident there was much more talk about Donald Trump Jr.’s stunning admission over the weekend: In June of last year, he summoned Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer — described as having close connections with the Kremlin — in hopes of receiving derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.
The meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya was first reported Saturday by the New York Times. Initially, Trump Jr. told the newspaper that the “short” meeting was to discuss “a program about the adoption of Russian children.” On Sunday, however, he acknowledged that he had agreed to the meeting because he had been told that Veselnitskaya “might have information helpful to the campaign.” The lawyer’s dirt about Clinton was “vague, ambiguous and made no sense,” however, and Trump Jr. ended the meeting after “20 to 30 minutes.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-jrs-meeting-is-a-legal-game-changer/2017/07/10/bb2a39b0-65a0-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html
