Here are highlights from the 2,500 pages of transcripts and other documents from interviews conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee.<\/b>
\nA meeting two years ago between members of Donald Trump\u2019s inner circle and a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer has been the focus of multiple investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Transcripts of Senate Judiciary Committee interviews with some of the participants released on Wednesday are shedding new light on the June 2016 sit-down, which took place at Trump Tower in the heat of the presidential campaign.
The meeting was attended by Donald Trump Jr., who agreed to attend the meeting after organizers dangled the promise of damaging information on his father\u2019s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Other attendees included Paul Manafort, then the chairman of Trump\u2019s presidential campaign; Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and several Russians, including the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and their representatives.
The committee released 2,500 pages of transcripts and other documents from interviews it conducted with some of those who were present. Here are highlights from the documents:
\u2013 Trump Jr. in \u201ccharge\u201d
Rinat Akhmetshin, a lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer, recalled that Trump Jr. led the meeting.
\u201cHe was definitely in charge,\u201d he said. After small talk about the view and a recent win in the primaries, the younger Trump got down to business, Akhmetshin said. \u201cMr. Trump, Jr., said, \u2018So I believe you have some information for us.\u2019 \u201d
Akhmetshin said that Veselnitskaya, the Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer at the center of the meeting, began discussing some wealthy contributors to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Akhmetshin recalled, \u201cSo Mr. Trump, Jr., said, \u2018So can you show us how does this money go to Hillary?\u2019 Like specifically, do you have paperwork? Or just indicate how money goes to Hillary. And she kind of said, \u2018No. I am just a Russian lawyer.\u201d
Senate investigators asked Trump Jr. about an email he sent to Rob Goldstone, the British music promoter who arranged the meeting, concerning the prospect of receiving damaging information about Clinton from the Russian lawyer. \u201cI love it, especially later in the summer,\u201d Trump Jr. had written.
In the interview, Trump Jr. deflected, saying he didn\u2019t know how to gauge the credibility of the offer and dismissed the expression as colloquial.
But, he acknowledged, \u201cI wanted to see if there was anything to it.\u201d
Trump Jr. also testified that he had no reason to believe Russia supported Trump before getting a message from Goldstone that the promised information was \u201cpart of Russia and its government\u2019s support for Mr. Trump.\u201d
A Democratic Senate panel lawyer challenged him on the promise of Russian government help. \u201cDid you also love that?\u201d the lawyer asked.
Trump Jr. said he didn\u2019t recall, and dismissed a followup question about whether such support from Russia would be \u201cproblematic.\u201d
\u201cI didn\u2019t think that listening to someone with information relevant to the fitness and character of a presidential candidate would be an issue, no,\u201d he said.
The president\u2019s son said that, in the end, the information offered at the meeting didn\u2019t amount to anything, it was apparent they weren\u2019t representing the Russian government and he didn\u2019t discuss it beforehand with his father. \u201cMy skepticism was justified,\u201d Trump Jr. said.
The day after the Trump Tower meeting, Goldstone said that Aras Agalarov, the founder of Crocus Group, one of Russia\u2019s largest real-estate companies, and his pop-singer son Emin wanted to send a \u201csizeable birthday gift\u201d for the senior Trump to his offices.
In an email to Trump\u2019s executive assistant Rhona Graff the next day, Goldstone said he ran into Trump\u2019s bodyguard, who he identified as Keith. The bodyguard told Goldstone that any packages would have to go through \u201cTSA-style scanning,\u201d Goldstone wrote in a reference to the Transportation Security Administration. Keith Schiller was Trump\u2019s longtime head of security.
Graff responded to Goldstone via email, saying any package would have to come through the building\u2019s sub-cellar, where it would be screened by the Secret Service.
On June 14, just days after the meeting, Goldstone wrote to Emin Agalarov and Ike Kaveladze, a California businessman who was born in Russia. Goldstone said he was concerned that the press seemed to be focusing on Trump\u2019s close ties to Russia, pointing out a Bloomberg story, \u201cTrump\u2019s long romance with Russia.\u201d
\u201cTop Story right now\u201d Goldstone wrote, apparently referring to another story related to a hacking attack on Democratic National Committee. \u201cSeems eerily weird based on our Trump meeting last week with the Russian lawyers etc.\u201d
The publicist who set up the meeting offered to arrange for Russia\u2019s largest social network to promote Trump\u2019s candidacy to more than 1.6 million Russian-American members of the network, according to some of the documents.
\u201cI can get massive exposure for Mr. Trump on the site for sure \u2013 and it will be covered in Russian media also \u2013 where I noticed your campaign is covered positively almost daily \u2014 which (sic) extremely gracious comments from President Putin etc.,\u201d Goldstone wrote on Jan. 19,2016, to Trump Jr. and his father\u2019s assistant, Graff.
Graff replied hours later, calling the offer a \u201cterrific opportunity\u201d and referring Goldstone to Dan Scavino, the Trump campaign\u2019s social media director.
About six months later, just after the Trump Tower meeting, Goldstone reiterated his offer in an email to Trump Jr., Scavino and Graff.
\u201cIt would merely require Mr. Trump to drop in a short message to Russian American voters \u2013 or a generic message depending on your choice \u2013 and the page can be up a running very quickly,\u201d Goldstone wrote.
The email included a sample campaign page on the social network using the hashtag #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.
Five weeks after Trump launched his presidential campaign, he received an invitation to an oligarch\u2019s birthday party in Moscow where the prospect of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was eventually dangled.
The invitation came in July 2015, in an email from Goldstone to Graff, Trump\u2019s executive assistant, asking whether Trump would be able to attend Aras Aragalov\u2019s 60th birthday party. Citing Trump\u2019s busy schedule, Graff declined.
Goldstone then followed up with a suggestion of a meeting with Putin. \u201cI totally understand re Moscow \u2013 unless maybe he would welcome a meeting with President Putin which Emin would set up,\u201d he wrote on July 24,2015.
Trump didn\u2019t travel to Moscow, but the emails show focus on the part of people working on behalf of Russian interests to establish close ties with him shortly after he launched his campaign.
Trump Jr., said he was at the time not aware of this supposed offer, and that he was not aware of any other instances in which Goldstone sought to arrange meetings between Russian government officials and the Trump campaign.
The participants scrambled to square their stories in July 2017 after public scrutiny began of the Trump Tower meeting that had occurred a year earlier, according to various emails.
Goldstone, who instigated the meeting, messaged with key participants, Emin Agalarov, whom he had worked with on Trump\u2019s Miss Universe pageant, and Kaveladze about how to respond to the media furor.
Though the early contacts described a meeting with a \u201cRussian government attorney\u201d and an \u201cultra sensitive\u201d matter, Goldstone after the fact suggested the meeting was \u201cin no way connected with the Russian Government or any of its officials.\u201d
Then Trump Jr.\u2019s lawyer sent a proposed statement for Goldstone to issue. In an apparent effort to keep their stories consistent, Goldstone then forwarded that proposal to Kaveladze, who worked for an Agalarov company.
The proposed statement read: \u201cAs the person who arranged the meeting, I can definitely state that the statements I have read by Donald Trump Jr. are 100 percent accurate. The meeting was a complete waste of time and Don was never told Ms. Veselnitskaya\u2019s name prior to the meeting.\u201d
But Trump Jr.\u2019s shifting explanations had complicated the task. The president\u2019s son ultimately released a series of his emails that revealed the Trump team was seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton as reporters pieced together the story and pressed meeting participants for details. The attempt to quiet the controversy caused some consternation.
A subsequent email has the sender\u2019s name redacted. \u201cWhy did he release this e-mail admitting to collusion?\u201d the unidentified person wrote Kaveladze. The subject line was \u201cdt jr.\u201d
Bloomberg\u2019s David Kocieniewski, Andrew Martin, Jeffrey D Grocott, Stephanie Baker, Gregory L. White, David S. Joachim, Caleb Melby, Vernon Silver, Greg Farrell, Steven T. Dennis and Billy House contributed to this story.
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