The Trump Tower Meeting: Campaign Officials Met with a Russian Lawyer Promising Dirt on Clinton, Then Trump Dictated a Misleading Cover Story
Tier 3Documented2016-06-03 to 2019-04-18
Factual Summary
On June 9, 2016, three senior members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign met at Trump Tower in New York City with a Russian lawyer and several associates after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. The meeting attendees included Donald Trump Jr., Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The meeting was arranged by publicist Rob Goldstone on behalf of his client, Russian pop singer Emin Agalarov, whose father, Aras Agalarov, was a Russian oligarch with business ties to Trump.
On June 3, 2016, Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. to relay an offer from the Agalarovs. The email stated that a "Russian government attorney" wanted to provide "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia" as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. responded: "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer." He then arranged the meeting for June 9.
The Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, arrived at the meeting along with Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, translator Anatoli Samochornov, and others. According to testimony and subsequent reporting, Veselnitskaya did not deliver the promised Clinton dirt but instead discussed the Magnitsky Act sanctions and Russian adoption policy. Trump Jr. later acknowledged that the meeting was "a waste of time."
When the New York Times broke the story in July 2017, Trump Jr. initially issued a statement claiming the meeting was "primarily" about the adoption of Russian children by Americans. This statement was misleading because it omitted the reason Trump Jr. had agreed to the meeting: the promise of damaging information about Clinton from the Russian government.
The misleading statement was dictated by President Trump himself. While traveling on Air Force One from the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump personally took charge of drafting his son's response, working with communications director Hope Hicks and overriding the advice of legal counsel who had recommended issuing a truthful account. The White House initially denied that Trump had dictated the statement, with press secretary Sarah Sanders saying Trump "certainly didn't dictate" it. Trump's own attorneys later acknowledged in a confidential letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which was subsequently reported by the New York Times, that Trump had in fact "dictated a short but accurate response" on behalf of his son.
The Mueller Report documented the meeting and the subsequent misleading statement. Mueller declined to charge Donald Trump Jr. with a crime, concluding that prosecutors could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump Jr. had the requisite intent to violate campaign finance law by soliciting a foreign contribution or that the opposition research had sufficient monetary value to constitute a criminal violation.
Primary Sources
1. Email chain between Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr., June 3-7, 2016 (released by Trump Jr. on Twitter, July 11, 2017)
2. Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, March 2019 (Volume I, Section IV.A.5)
3. Senate Judiciary Committee transcript of Donald Trump Jr.'s testimony, September 7, 2017 (released May 16, 2018)
4. Letter from Trump attorneys Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, January 29, 2018 (reported by New York Times, June 2, 2018)
Corroborating Sources
1. New York Times: "Trump Team Met With Lawyer Linked to Kremlin During Campaign," July 8, 2017
2. Washington Post: "Trump dictated son's misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer," July 31, 2017
3. CNN: "Trump lawyers say he 'dictated' statement on Trump Tower meeting, contradicting past denials," June 2, 2018
4. PBS Frontline: "A Meeting in Trump Tower. A Response Dictated on Air Force One," 2018
5. NBC News: "Mueller declined to charge Donald Trump Jr. for meeting with Russian lawyer," April 18, 2019
Counterarguments and Context
Trump and his defenders argued that the meeting produced nothing of value, that opposition research is a normal part of political campaigns, and that no underlying crime occurred. Trump Jr. testified that nothing came of the meeting and that he did not inform his father about it in advance, though Trump Jr.'s phone records showed calls to a blocked number before and after the meeting, and investigators were unable to determine whether the blocked number belonged to Donald Trump Sr. Mueller concluded that the evidence did not establish that Trump Jr. intended to violate the law, though Mueller did not exonerate the participants. Trump's supporters also characterized the misleading Air Force One statement as a minor drafting exercise rather than an obstruction effort. However, Trump Jr.'s own email exchange explicitly stated that the offered information was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," and his response of "I love it" demonstrated an eagerness to receive foreign government assistance in the campaign. The willingness of the campaign chairman, the candidate's son, and the candidate's son-in-law to attend such a meeting, and the subsequent effort by the president to craft a misleading public account of its purpose, are documented facts regardless of whether the conduct crossed the threshold for criminal prosecution.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the key facts are documented through primary evidence, including Trump Jr.'s own emails (which he released publicly), sworn congressional testimony, the Mueller Report, and Trump's attorneys' own written acknowledgment that Trump dictated the misleading statement. The meeting is significant not because it produced a criminal charge but because it demonstrated the Trump campaign's receptiveness to receiving assistance from a foreign adversary and the president's subsequent involvement in crafting a false public narrative about the encounter. The email exchange between Goldstone and Trump Jr. remains one of the most direct pieces of evidence that the Trump campaign was offered, and eagerly accepted the prospect of, Russian government support.