During a closed-door interview before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday Donald Trump Jr. offered a statement on his controversial 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer and several other Russian nationals and members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, insisting he agreed to speak with Kremlin-affiliated officials to determine “the fitness, character or qualifications of” rival Hillary Clinton.
In a statement, obtained by the New York Times, Trump Jr. insisted he believed he “should at least hear them out,” referring to the Russian operatives who promised Trump’s eldest son dirt on Clinton. “Depending on what, if any, information they had, I could then consult with counsel to make an informed decision as to whether to give it further consideration,” Trump Jr. added.
Senate investigators are probing the role Russian hackers played in the 2016 election, and whether any members of the Trump campaign assisted the foreign adversary in its efforts to sway the vote in favor of Trump. Trump Jr. met with Judiciary Committee members to discuss his infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower.
“I had never worked on a campaign before and it was an exhausting, all-encompassing, life-changing experience,” Trump Jr. said in a statement to the committee. “Every single day I fielded dozens, if not hundreds, of emails and phone calls.”
The internet on Thursday rolled its eyes after learning Trump Jr. once again changed his story about the nature of that meeting, with users describing the president’s son as “impossibly stupid,” among other things.
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