In contrast to most stories in the Trump-Russia genre, the Donald Trump Jr. story actually has some substance. Unfortunately, much of the reporting on it has distorted the matter.
As it stands, here’s what we know about the story.
Donald Trump Jr. was contacted via email by Rob Goldstone, who offered to set up a meeting between Trump Jr. and a person who can provide incriminating information on Hillary Clinton.
In the email, Goldstone says this offer of assistance to Trump was proposed by the “Crown prosecutor of Russia”, but it’s not clear whether the meeting was going to be with the same person. Goldstone subsequently refers to the person who will meet Trump Jr. as a “Russian government lawyer”. Goldstone explicitly says in the email that the information is “part of Russia and its government’s support” for Trump.
Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting and it happened in June 2016. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, then-campaign chairman, also attended the meeting.
The Russian lawyer in question was Natalia Veselnitskaya. It turns out Veselnitskaya’s position is nowhere near the level of “crown prosecutor”–which isn’t actually a real position in Russia, but would imply the top government attorney. Instead, Veselnitskaya is actually a successful private attorney who specialized in litigating land disputes. So contrary to the emails, she is not a “government lawyer” at all.
After explaining Veselnitskaya’s background and connections, Bloomberg ultimately characterized her status as “several notches below the Kremlin”. New information can always come to light, but as it stands, she would not appear to be in Putin’s inner circle.
The meeting itself did not end up focusing on the presidential campaign. Instead, they discussed the US’s Magnitsky Act, which imposes sanctions on Russia and is a pet issue of Veselnitskaya and one of her clients. All parties to the meeting appear to agree this was the content of it, as summarized by The Washington Post. And of course, Donald Trump never deployed any new incriminating information about Clinton, which further suggests they didn’t get anything. (The campaign did make reference to the various Wikileaks emails, but it only did so after these were already released publicly and everyone had access to them.)
The last key detail in this story is the background on Rob Goldstone, who set things up in the first place. As reported by The Guardian, Goldstone is a British music publicist and former tabloid journalist who represents the pop star Emin Agalarov. Trump appeared in one of Emin’s music videos in 2013, along with participants in the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time. Emin’s father, Aras Agalarov is a Moscow-based developer who served as Trump’s partner in the Miss Universe pageant. So in effect, Goldstone knows some famous Russian people, but it’s not clear Goldstone is plugged into into the upper echelons of the Russian central government.
Given this sketch of the events, two significant observations can be made:
- Donald Trump Jr. was willing to get opposition research that was purportedly from the Russian government. That is new and noteworthy. To my knowledge, this is the first clear indication that a vital member of the Trump team was willing to court such assistance.*
- In this case, that assistance did not materialize.
Both of those facts matter, and one would hope they’d be front-and-center in the reporting.
The first observation is getting some attention. But there’s a bonus inference that seems to be drawing as much or more attention in the media. It’s subtle, but you might be able to spot it if you look closely at the following headlines:
Reuters: Trump Jr. was told of Russian effort to help father’s campaign: NY Times
NY Daily News: Donald Trump Jr. knew Hillary Clinton info came from Russian government prior to meeting with Kremlin lawyer: report
The Daily Beast: Report: Trump Jr. Knew Russia Wanted to Help Dad’s Campaign
NPR: Emails Reveal Trump Jr. Knew Russia Wanted To Support Trump Campaign
New York Times: Trump Jr. Was Told in Email of Russian Effort to Aid Campaign
The Washington Post: Trump contradicts his son’s emails, suggests Russia preferred Hillary Clinton
Let’s review.
It is true that Trump Jr. was told of a Russian effort to help the Trump campaign in an email. But–and this is kind of important–most of the other claims in that email chain now appear to have been false. If the “crown prosecutor” did have secret incriminating dirt on Clinton, it wasn’t provided. The “Russian government lawyer” actually wasn’t a government lawyer. And the ultimate meeting, when it did occur, wasn’t about the presidential campaign. About the only true pieces we can discern with any certainly is that the sender was indeed named Rob, and he and Trump Jr. share a mutual contact named Emin.
Given this knowledge, does it really make sense to cite this same email source as further evidence that the Russian government was supporting the Trump campaign, as the above stories imply? I would suggest not.
In this regard, Reuters and NYT should be commended for running with the slightly less assertive headlines. However, the following title would likely be a more faithful description of Goldstone’s emails:
Unreliable Source Claims Russian Government Helped Trump During Campaign
That aside, I think there is actually some substance to this story. In a way, that makes it even more infuriating that many mainstream outlets seem determined to bungle it by inflating and distorting the story’s significance.
This practice benefits no one, except perhaps Donald Trump. At least for now, he’s going to remain safely in power because his antagonists are much better at destroying their own credibility than they are at challenging his.
*And yes, for this purpose I am excluding Trump’s tongue-in-cheek remark at a campaign rally suggesting Russia find Clinton’s missing emails. But if one wants to treat jokes as compelling evidence for Russiagate, I hear The Washington Post is hiring.
