Senate committee reveals details of Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russia

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Details of Donald Trump Jr.’s campaign meeting with Russians promising dirt on his father’s Democratic rival were revealed.

Details of Donald Trump Jr.'s campaign meeting with Russians promising dirt on his father's Democratic rival were revealed Wednesday as the Senate Judiciary Committee released thousands of pages of testimony.

The Republican-led panel released more than 2,500 pages of testimony, notes and statements from the eight people who attended the June 9 , 2016 Trump Tower meeting with President Trump's son.

Trump Jr. told the committee that he couldn't remember whether he had discussed the Russia investigation with his father, according to the transcripts.

He also said he didn't think there was anything wrong with accepting the sit-down after being told of a Russian government effort to help his father win the White House.

"I didn't think that listening to someone with information relevant to the fitness and character of a presidential candidate would be an issue, no," he said.

The meeting — and a misleading statement about the face-to-face reportedly penned by the President — is being eyed by investigators working on special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

In addition to Trump Jr., the committee interviewed four other people who attended the conference — music publicist Rob Goldstone, who set up the meeting; Rinat Akhmetshin, a prominent Russian-American lobbyist; Ike Kaveladze, a business associate of a Moscow-based developer, and a translator.

The committee did not interview Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer at the center of the meeting who later admitted to having deept ties to the Kremlin and acting as "an informant" in the past. She has denied she was acting on behalf of the Russian government

Donald Trump, Jr. is seen leaving Manhattan Criminal Court on February 28, 2018. (Alec Tabak/for New York Daily News)

The panel released Veselnitskaya's written responses to a letter that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent her last year.

Goldstone set up the meeting because he had been assured that Veselnitskaya was "well connected" and had "damaging material."

The panel was not able to interview Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, or Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, even though both attended the meeting.

Trump Jr. admitted to lawmakers that his father may have weighed in directly as his lawyers drafted the initial official response to reports about the meeting.

"He may have commented through Hope Hicks," Trump Jr. told the Senate, referring to one of the President's closest and longest-serving aides. "I believe some (of Trump's comments) may have been (included in the formal response), but this was an effort through lots of people, mostly counsel."

The first public response said the focus of the meeting was the adoption of Russian children.

Trump Jr. added that Hicks asked him if he wanted to talk to to his father about the statement, but he "chose not to because I didn't want to bring him into something that he had nothing to do with."