The NPR Politics Podcast - 'If it's what you say I love it'

Episode Date: July 11, 2017

Newly released emails from June of 2016 show Donald Trump Jr arranged a meeting with a person he was told represented the Russian government and wanted to supply information that would be politically damaging to Hillary Clinton. Presidential advisor Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort also attended the meeting. This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, Paula Poundstone here. I hate to interrupt, but maybe you might like to listen to my new show, live from the Poundstone Institute, where I talk to researchers about interesting studies. It's like Hidden Brain, except our brains are really well hidden. Find it now on the NPR One app and wherever you listen to podcasts. It's the NPR Politics Podcast here at about 1.45 p.m. East Coast time on Tuesday. And we have a lot to talk about. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Keri Johnson, justice correspondent.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. On the dot this morning, Donald Trump Jr. released an email chain that memorializes an apparent indirect offer to help the Trump campaign by the Russian government. It is all right there in writing. And it's so remarkable that I just want to read the whole email now. This is a message that Don Jr. received on June 3rd, 2016. It came from a publicist named Rob Goldstone, who represents a Russian singer, Emin. Yeah. So Emin Agalarov, who is the son of Aris Agalarov, somebody who Donald Trump Sr. had a business partnership with because of Miss Universe in 2013, and who he was going to go into business with to create a Trump Tower Moscow. OK, so those are the names we need to know. Here we go.

From Rob Goldstone. Good morning. Eamon just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father, Aras, this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information, but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump, helped along by Arison Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information? And would you be able to talk to Emin about it directly? I can also send this info to your father via Rona. That's his assistant. But it is ultra sensitive, so wanted to send it to you first. And then in the next email, Trump Jr. responds, So there are a lot of names in there. We will go into more

detail about the entire cast of characters in a few minutes. But the thing to note here is that a meeting did happen. It took place and nobody can deny that now. There were lots of denials in the months that passed between the nomination and the inauguration and even afterward. Now, it's clear that senior officials in the Trump campaign, including one who now works in the White House, had a meeting with a Russian lawyer to talk about dirt. This is a big deal, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a big deal. I mean, you have the son of the person who wins the nomination for the Republican nomination. Now it turns out to be president of the United States. And there's this ongoing Russia investigation. Donald Trump Jr. at one point said that there was no meeting that he had attended at all that he had set up or had

represented the campaign to do. And he lied. He actually did meet with them. And we only find out now after reporting from The New York Times and after he releases his own emails. Not just Donald Jr. The other people who attended this meeting were the campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, and presidential son-in-law, soon to be presidential son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Also, Tam, in that email you just read, Goldstone mentioned Donald Trump himself and his assistant. Now, the White House, as the president, was not involved, did not attend this meeting, only just found out about it in the last few days and was not happy about it. But boy, lots of questions left to be answered about that. And this email

is talking about a Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign, as if it's like a thing that exists that we know about. And that is the exact point where that stood out to me where you see this there. And not only does it apparently not raise red flags for Donald Trump Jr., it didn't raise flags for Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, as Kerry noted, or Jared Kushner. And, you know, if you follow this chain of emails, it was forwarded to them before this meeting. It's not like he said, hey, Kerry, come along with me. There's a couple of people I want you to meet. Like that's not what he did. He forwarded them this chain days before the meeting and they still went along.

OK, so just to rewind a little bit, this is how over about the last 48, 72 hours or so, this has all unfolded. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that in June 2016, there was a meeting at Trump Tower with this Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer and three top campaign officials. Then on Sunday, the Times reported that the meeting wasn't about what Donald Trump Jr. had said the meeting was about. He had said it was just to discuss adoption issues between Russia and the U.S. Well, it turns out that the meeting was actually set up on the premise of this lawyer having damaging information about Hillary Clinton. And then last night, The Times reported that this had all been laid out in email and that Trump, Jr. had been told that the Russian government was seeking to aid his father's campaign.

That alone was a pretty huge deal. And then this morning at 11 o'clock, we get the emails. Can I just say, as somebody who spent half of last year and parts of this year covering somebody else's emails in connection with 2016, it's really something to be back in this lane again. What about his emails? There have been all these questions about what about her emails? Well, it turns out, I mean, like, there is a rule, right? Like, don't put it in email.

Well, in fact, I don't think the president of the United States, Donald Trump, does use email. The irony here is that people are trying to get to him, at least according to this publicist Goldstone, and they're communicating with Donald Trump Jr. via email in order to get information to the dad. You know, and I have to say, you know, having seen the email scandal, quote unquote, you know, evolve from last year with Hillary Clinton from March of two years ago, March of 2015, before the campaign started, you know, until through the entire campaign where every month there was this new trove, these new troves of emails that we had to wade through. None of those emails came close to this email.

So here's the question. Is this collusion? We've been talking about collusion so much. Well, so here's the thing, right? Donald Trump has said nine times since May through his presidency just on Twitter. He said that there's no collusion, you know, either between what he'd said or retweeted of people that there was no collusion. Fake news. Fake news. It's a hoax.

Witch hunt. It's a witch hunt. to something that looks at least like Donald Trump Jr. was open to working with the Russians when it comes to getting in that opposition research as he thought he was getting. All right. I'm going to make a stand here. I object to the word collusion. We're now talking about investigations on the Hill and by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Collusion is not a federal crime. You know what is a federal crime? Conspiracy. So to the extent these interactions and ties are being investigated, a possible route would be a conspiracy charge, conspiracy of some kind or another, to evade federal election laws, to

mislead the public or investigators. Those are the kinds of things that the folks in the FBI and the special counsel's office are going to be looking for. Well, I want to throw out another word. Tim Kaine, who is a senator and also was Hillary Clinton's vice presidential nominee, was stopped in the hallway by a crowd of reporters today. And this is what he said. We're now beyond obstruction of justice in terms of what's being investigated. This is moving into perjury, false statements, and even into potentially treason. Okay, so that's as serious as a heart attack. And you know why? Treason is a crime that's actually defined in the Constitution of the United States as levying war against the United States, adhering to enemies of the country, or giving

enemies aid and comfort. This is really big, big stuff. We are not there yet. We're not close to being there yet. But it's a mark of how big a bombshell this email exchange was that people like Tim Kaine are talking about. The last person convicted of treason, I think, was in 1952. So it's not something that is used often. I mean, even when remember the American Taliban who went overseas, John Walker Lind, was the treason discussion started to come up when he was overseas. So it's not something that's used often. But even the fact that it's passing our lips as part of the conversation is a pretty big deal. One more thing to add to all of this is that as The New York Times, which has been doing some incredible reporting, as this story was sort of dripping out in The Times, Donald Trump Jr. and his lawyer never denied what they were reporting. Now, they have said that, you know, this isn't anything unusual. This is just a guy who could get some information from some people.

Well, his lawyer said this is much ado about nothing in a statement to you last night, right, Tam? Yeah, that's right. Boy, that's... He hasn't given you a statement today, has he? No, he hasn't. And if this is nothing, I'd love to see what something is. Yeah. OK, so let's go back to some of these people and who these players are, because this is quite the cast of characters. So the guy who sent the email to Donald Trump Jr. that said, hey, the Russian government has some info that you might want. His name is Rob Goldstone, and he's the president of We Too Entertainment.

He's British. OUI. Yes, we. Very classy. But entertainment. He's British born. He's a music promoter, and he has ties to this Russian real estate billionaire named R.S. Agalarov.

Goldstone himself is like quite the character. Well, yeah, he's a former British tabloid journalist. He is the publicist. The big connection here with Rob Goldstone is that he is the publicist for Amon Agalarov. And Amon is the son of Aris Agalarov. And Aris has this connection with Trump Sr, where they knew each other in 2013. Trump was able to give the Miss Universe pageant to him. This is somebody with Buku Bucks in Russia. OK, he's considered an oligarch. He's a real estate developer in Russia. And the Trumps have

been trying to get into the Russian market for 30 years. And this was an opening. OK, Trump had finally made an in with somebody who had some money and some connections who he could then try to exploit and then use that connection to help build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He had tweeted about this. He had talked about it very publicly. He even appeared in a music video with Eamon, which brought in some of those Miss Universe pageant contestants. OK, you mentioned a music video. I think we need to hear the music. Now, the concept of this video is that Eamon, the musician, is like sleeping through a board meeting with Trump. Eamon, wake up. Come on. Now, we don't know it's Trump until the very end. What's wrong with you, Eamon?

They make the big reveal. Eamon, let's get with it. You're always late. You're just another pretty face. I'm really tired of you. You're fired. And just as a reminder, Emin and Aris are mentioned in these emails as being the connection to this source of Russian aid potentially to the campaign. And that's where the Russian lawyer comes in, this woman, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who winds up being the person who Rob Goldstone sets up the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. with. Now, Trump Jr. then decides that he's going to bring in Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law. He obviously thought that this was a big deal, so much so that he had written back very excitedly to Goldstone, said that he loved the idea that he in this Friday

email and that he wanted to set up a call first thing next week. Yeah. And in several of these emails, there's like a lot of logistical back and forth about when this meeting might happen. And at one point, Goldstone is like, he's on stage in Moscow right now, but he'll be off within 20 minutes and I'm sure you can call. And then there's a lot of like, well, we'd like to have this meeting at this time, but the Russian lawyer is still going to be on a plane from Moscow at that point. So there's like really no question that she is like literally coming from Russia and going to have a meeting with them. We've seen some stories start to trickle out. She is a lawyer who has worked at least in Russia. We saw that Goldstone says that she's a government attorney. In one of the emails. Right. And notes that this is part of a government attempt by Russia to help his father win the election and that she could be somebody who could provide some useful information to her.

Let's take a pause here. So in writing, which nobody involved in this meeting has denied, is the notion that we're preparing to meet at Trump Tower with a lawyer from Russia who may or may not be connected to the government, but is described as a government lawyer. In this email, certainly. In this email, with the purpose of getting information that could help the Trump campaign and damage the Hillary Clinton campaign. Unbelievable. All in writing. That is not normal opposition research. No, that's just I mean, if we're going to tangent on that, for sure. I mean, the fact is, like, that is not what happens. I mean, there is opposition research.

Let's not conflate the two things, though. A campaign conducts its own opposition research, finds out of days and said, this is not how it works. In our campaign, we were mailed some information, an opposition research binder that we thought was sketchy, and they sent it to the FBI. And again, nobody on this Trump campaign did that or thought at all that there was enough of a red flag to not even take the meeting. We should also note that this meeting took place on the 25th floor of Trump Tower, one floor below now President Trump's office. And the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was on NBC this morning. She was interviewed and she had sort of a very different story to tell than what was described in these emails. They had the impression... That's Keir Simmons. It appears that they were going to be told

some information that you had about the DNC. How did they get that impression? It's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. They wanted it so badly. Have you ever worked for the Russian government? Do you have connections to the Russian government? Yep.

No. Uh, fact check? Well, you know, on one side, we have Donald Trump Jr. who lied about these meetings. And on the other side, we have this Russian lawyer who may or may not be sharing all of the information she knows with NBC. I got to tell you, this cries out for special counsel Robert Mueller. So another weird thing that kind of came up about Veselnitskaya was that she was photographed behind Ambassador Mike McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Obama, in 2014 when he was at a hearing. And it shows her with her phone out while he has his laptop open. She is directly behind him at a congressional hearing looking straight at his laptop.

And, you know, this was tweeted out today. And McFaul actually responded and said, creepy. She's sitting right next to my sons. You know, you can't make this stuff up. No. You really cannot make this stuff up. That would get cut from a plot line of this novel. Yeah.

Okay, so that is Natalia. And just to go back to where we started, Rob Goldstone, who is this entertainment promoter from We Too Entertainment, he also has been on NPR's air before. And this is really random. This was in November of 2010. He was apparently a former travel writer and had written a piece for The New York Times called The Tricks and Trials of Traveling While Fat. And he appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation to talk about it. Rob Goldstone is a former travel writer and joins us today from our bureau in New York. Nice to have you with us. Nice to be here. And you describe a routine

you've developed with flight attendants every time you step across the threshold and get aboard an airplane. It's true. I've done it for many years now. And I think people are getting wise because I'm not the only person. But as soon as I get on the plane, the most important thing for me is to locate the very, very scarce seatbelt extender. Okay, so this was a 16-minute segment. Russia did not come up, though, given his clients in Russia and, you know, his involvement in the Miss Universe pageant and all these other things, presumably he has gotten extender belts for flights to and from Russia, which are long flights. Makes sense. Yeah, I was talking to a former Clinton campaign official today who was telling me that he was sort of shocked at how fast this all came out and that if they were having this sort of brazen conversation

over email in June, he wonders what kind of conversations they were having this sort of brazen conversation over email in June. He wonders what kind of conversations they were having in July and August and September when emails were coming out. And close people to Donald Trump were tweeting out that John Podesta is going to be in the barrel. And all of this other stuff was happening. Yeah, well, you know what? It's only Tuesday. We got a long week left to go. So update Tuesday afternoon. Okay, so I want to just go out on one final thought, which is it comes from John Brennan, the former CIA director, and he said in congressional testimony this year, frequently individuals who go along a treasonous path do not even realize they're along that path until it gets too late.

There's that T word again. I don't know. I don't know that we're there yet, but boy. But what did he know when he said that? It's classified. Okay, we will no doubt have more twists in this story that we can't even predict right now. And at this rate, it looks like our next episode

will be Thursday, our regular weekly roundup, when we'll cover this and other non-Russia related stories. Like, for instance, we just learned that the Senate is postponing its August recess by a couple of weeks. Sad trombone. It means they are buying a little extra time to work on health care also. They are, yeah. And Donald Trump Jr. will be giving an interview to Sean Hannity tonight on Fox News, which could be interesting.

That's going to be a must watch. And by the way, we are now headed back to our desks where we will be annotating all of these emails between Donald Trump Jr. and Rob Goldstone setting up these meetings. So you can find that linked on the NPR Politics Facebook page. And definitely worth reading all of these emails for yourself. And make sure you support the podcast by supporting your local public radio station. There's a link where you can do that in our episode information. Find your station, donate, and please tell them that we sent you. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Carrie Johnson, Justice

Correspondent. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, Political Editor. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.