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WH Confirms Trump Weighed In on Son’s Statement About Russian Lawyer Meeting

HeadlineAug 02, 2017

The White House has confirmed President Trump weighed in on his son Donald Trump Jr.’s misleading statement about his meeting with a Russian lawyer promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. This is White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “The president weighed in, as any father would, based on the limited information that he had. … He certainly didn’t dictate, but, you know, he—like I said, he weighed in, offered suggestion, like any father would do.”

The misleading statement, which Trump helped craft, described the meeting as short and not focused on campaign-related issues, withholding important details despite objections from Trump’s senior advisers. Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter says he thinks Trump’s role constitutes obstruction of justice.

This comes as President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner claimed in a speech Monday to a group of congressional interns that Trump’s campaign couldn’t have colluded with Russia—because the campaign was too dysfunctional. Foreign Policy reports Kushner said, “They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices.”

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