The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed President Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to answer questions about his claim to have just limited knowledge of an ultimately aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, NBC News reported Wednesday.

Trump Jr.'s prior testimony was called into question earlier this year by new testimony from President Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who said he had briefed Trump Jr. repeatedly about the effort to develop a Trump Tower there.

A person close to Donald Trump Jr. blasted the subpoena to CNBC as "an obvious PR stunt from a so-called 'Republican' senator" — Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina — "too cowardly to stand up to his boss [committee ranking Democrat] Mark Warner and the rest of the resistance Democrats on the committee."

That person said people should expect Trump Jr. to fight the subpoena.

Trump Jr. testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 that "I was peripherally aware" of an effort to build that project in Russia, which was being pursued as his father was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. That effort was not known to the public at the time.

But Cohen in February told a House committee that he had met with both Donald Trump Jr. and his sister, Ivanka Trump, "approximately 10" times to brief them about the Trump Tower plan.

"The company [the Trump Organization] was involved in the deal, which meant that the family was involved in the deal," he testified.

Cohen on Monday began serving a three-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to crimes that included having lied to Congress in 2017 about details of the Trump Tower project.

Cohen originally falsely told Congress that the project was dropped in January 2016 — months before the elder Trump had locked up the GOP presidential nomination — when it actually had continued being pursued through June 2016, when Trump had the nomination well in hand. </s> US President Donald Trump’s eldest son and a former campaign manager will testify before Congress next week, a Senate panel announced Wednesday, in what could be a crucial step in the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation.

 Donald Trump Jr and Paul Manafort are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday at 10 am (1400 GMT). —APP </s> • The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.
• Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, which has drawn scrutiny over what was supposedly discussed.

Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Below are documents of testimonies and information gathered by the committee from the meeting's attendees. </s> In 2017, Donald Trump Jr. told congressional investigators that in June 2016 he had informed just two people about his upcoming meeting with a Russian government emissary during which Trump Jr. hoped to obtain incriminating information about Hillary Clinton: his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. But special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed a different story, noting that the president’s eldest son boasted of his efforts during a meeting of campaign staff attended by his brother Eric and sister Ivanka, among others. This apparent contradiction—and concerns that Trump Jr. also was not forthright about his knowledge of the Trump Organization’s pursuit of a Trump tower in Moscow during the 2016 campaign—led the Senate Intelligence Committee to subpoena Trump’s eldest son, according to Senate sources.

These discrepancies in the testimony by Trump Jr., who appeared before three congressional committees in 2017, underscore that the Trump-Russia scandal continues to pose a threat to President Donald Trump, his family, and his associates, confounding efforts by Trump and his allies to shut down the controversy.

In a September 7, 2017, interview with staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump Jr. faced a slew of questions about his June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with that Russian emissary. One issue was whom he had told about a June 3 email he received from Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop singer whose father, Aras Agalarov, was a real estate mogul with Kremlin ties and who was Trump’s partner in the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow. A senior Russian prosecutor, Goldstone wrote Trump Jr., had “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” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. responded enthusiastically—“If it’s what you say I love it”—and agreed to meet with the Russian representative, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chair, and Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, also attended the meeting.

Trump Jr. told the Judiciary Committee that he informed “only Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort” about Goldstone’s offer. And he stuck to that claim when a committee lawyer asked if there was anyone else. “No,” Trump Jr. said. “Not to my recollection.” Trump Jr. also said that he recalled telling Manafort and Kushner of the meeting only via email. “I sent them the email and asked if they could attend.”

The Judiciary Committee interview is public. Transcripts of Trump Jr.’s interviews with the House and Senate Intelligence committees, both in December 2017, have not been released. But a Senate source says that Trump Jr. also told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had only alerted Kushner and Manafort about Goldstone’s offer before the meeting.

Mueller’s report, a redacted version of which was released last month, included a different account. It stated that Rick Gates, who was deputy Trump campaign manager, said in interviews with the special counsel’s office that before the sit-down with Veselnitskaya, “Trump Jr. announced at a regular morning meeting of senior campaign staff and Trump family members that he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation.” Gates said that Eric Trump, Hope Hicks, Manafort, Ivanka Trump, and Kushner also attended the meeting. Gates also recalled that Trump Jr. claimed the information came from a group in Kyrgyzstan, where Agalarov does business. According to Gates, Trump Jr.’s announcement sparked a discussion, with Manafort warning the group that “the meeting likely would not yield vital information and they should be careful.”

In February, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified before the House Oversight Committee that he overheard a conversation in which he believed Trump Jr. told his father about the meeting in advance. If that is true, it contradicts claims both the president and his son made to investigators.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is also scrutinizing Trump Jr.’s statements about Trump’s efforts during the 2016 campaign to develop a Trump tower in Moscow. As a candidate, Trump claimed he had no business interests in Russia, despite signing a letter of intent regarding this deal and encouraging Cohen to privately pursue the project until at least the summer of 2016. Cohen even sought Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for the venture, contacting Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov to seek help. (Cohen ended up talking to Peskov’s personal assistant and requested assistance in securing financing and land for the project.) Cohen recently began a three-year prison term in part because he lied to Congress in 2017 about the project, in what he says was an effort to align his story with Trump’s false claims. Trump Jr. also downplayed the deal in congressional testimony. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee he was only “peripherally aware” of the effort. A Senate aide says Trump Jr. made similar claims to the Intelligence Committee. Cohen, by contrast, testified that he briefed Trump Jr. or Ivanka Trump on the Moscow deal “approximately 10 times.”

The Intelligence Committee’s subpoena to Trump Jr., issued more than two weeks ago according to multiple reports, has drawn fierce attacks against the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, from members of his own party. “Apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn’t get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted on Wednesday, referencing a recent floor speech by Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Burr’s fellow North Carolina Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis, who faces a primary challenge in 2020, also slammed Burr in a tweet. “It’s time to move on & start focusing on issues that matter to Americans,” he wrote. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on CBS News that it was “bad form” for the committee to subpoena Trump Jr. without giving the White House a “heads-up.”

Trump Jr. appears poised to fight the subpoena. The New York Times reported he may invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than testify. In a statement sent to various outlets, a person close to Trump Jr.—who would not allow reporters to identify him or her—said that “no lawyer would ever agree to allow their client to participate in what is an obvious PR stunt from a so-called ‘Republican’ senator too cowardly to stand up to his boss Mark Warner and the rest of the resistance Democrats on the committee.” The statement also asserted that “there was an agreement between Don and the Committee that he would only have to come in and testify a single time as long as he was willing to stay for as long as they’d like, which Don did.”

A committee spokesperson says there was no such deal with any witness: “Throughout the investigation, the Committee has reserved the right to recall witnesses for additional testimony as needed, as every witness and witness counsel has been made aware.”

It is unclear how aggressively Burr will pursue Trump Jr. On Tuesday, before news of the subpoena, Burr told the Washington Post that he was not inclined to press for the Justice Department to prosecute Trump Jr. or other witnesses facing questions about the veracity of their testimonies for perjury, given that Mueller had declined to charge them. Discrepancies between their testimonies and Mueller’s report apparently “weren’t criminal or they weren’t chargeable,” Burr told the Post, noting that Mueller had access to his own committee’s transcripts. But Burr had also previously said the panel will not tolerate dishonest witnesses. “If you lie to us, we’re going to catch you and we’re going to prosecute you, period, end of sentence,” he said last year. </s> Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has released congressional testimony transcripts and other material related to the committee's inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer.

President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya were among those attending the meeting that raised questions about the role Russian interference played in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump Jr. told told Senate investigators in September 2017 that he had agreed to a meeting with Veselnitskaya who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton because he wanted to determine her "fitness" for office.

Grassley signaled that he wanted to release the transcripts from interviews of his committee's investigation into the June 2016 meeting back in January.

In total, the transcripts and related documents are approximately 2,500 pages. CBS News will be posting the highlights from the material, which was released just after 9 a.m. ET.

Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he couldn't remember whether he had discussed the Russia investigation with his father, according to transcripts released Wednesday of his interview with the panel.

Trump Jr. deflected multiple questions during the interview, including whether he discussed the Russia probe with his father. He also said he didn't think there was anything wrong with attending the Trump Tower meeting in which he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. </s> Mary Clare Jalonick and Jonathan Lemire, The Associated Press 

 



WASHINGTON -- The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., calling him in to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its probe into Russian election interference.

That's according to two people familiar with the subpoena who discussed it on condition of anonymity. It's the first known subpoena of a member of President Donald Trump's immediate family, and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own Russia investigation even after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the same subject.

It's unclear if Trump Jr. will comply with the subpoena from the committee, which is chaired by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina. A person close to the president's eldest son, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, said Wednesday that Trump has continued to co-operate by producing documents and answering written questions.

The committee had renewed interest in talking to Trump Jr. after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified earlier this year. Cohen told a House committee in February that he had briefed Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow before the presidential election. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 he was only "peripherally aware" of the proposal.

The panel has also investigated a meeting between Trump Jr., other campaign staff and a Russian lawyer. Emails leading up to the meeting promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Mueller's report, released last month, says Cohen recalled being in Trump's office "when Trump Jr. told his father that a meeting to obtain adverse information about Clinton was going forward." The report notes that Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, that he did not inform his father about the emails or the upcoming meeting.

Cohen reported to federal prison this week to start a three-year sentence for crimes including tax evasion and campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments made to protect his former boss.

A spokeswoman for the committee would not confirm the subpoena. But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, hinted after Cohen spoke behind closed doors to the Senate intelligence panel that the committee would want to talk to Trump Jr. again. She said senators "clearly need to re-interview some witnesses whose accounts (Cohen) contradicts."

The Senate intelligence committee has been investigating Russian election interference and Trump's ties to Russia for the last two years. The panel is expected to try to call in several witnesses as it winds up its investigation over the next several months.

Burr told The Associated Press last week that he doesn't expect to have any more public hearings and that he hopes to be finished with the investigation by the end of the year.

The subpoena puts Burr at odds with some of his Republican colleagues who want to move on after the release of Mueller's findings. The Mueller report said he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a floor speech Tuesday in which he declared "case closed" on the probe.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took a shot at Burr after the subpoena was reported, tweeting that "apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn't get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed."

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Trump Jr., declined to comment on the subpoena.

The subpoena was first reported by Axios.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report. </s> The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, which has drawn scrutiny over what was supposedly discussed.

Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Below are documents of testimonies and information gathered by the committee from the meeting's attendees.

Notes Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort took during the meeting

Read the rest of the documents here » </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., calling him in to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its probe into Russian election interference.

That's according to two people familiar with the subpoena who discussed it on condition of anonymity. It's the first known subpoena of a member of President Donald Trump's immediate family, and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own Russia investigation even after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the same subject.

It's unclear if Trump Jr. will comply with the subpoena. A person close to the president's eldest son, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, said Wednesday that he has continued to cooperate by producing documents and answering written questions.

The person called the new request a public relations stunt and criticized the chairman of the panel, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, for calling Trump Jr. in.

The committee had renewed interest in talking to Trump Jr. after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified earlier this year. Cohen told a House committee in February that he had briefed Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow before the presidential election. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 he was only "peripherally aware" of the proposal.

The panel has also investigated a meeting between Trump Jr., other campaign staff and a Russian lawyer. Emails leading up to the meeting promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Mueller's report, released last month, says Cohen recalled being in Trump's office "when Trump Jr. told his father that a meeting to obtain adverse information about Clinton was going forward." The report notes that Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, that he did not inform his father about the emails or the upcoming meeting.

Cohen reported to federal prison this week to start a three-year sentence for crimes including tax evasion and campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments made to protect his former boss.

A spokeswoman for the committee would not confirm the subpoena. But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, hinted after Cohen spoke behind closed doors to the Senate intelligence panel that the committee would want to talk to Trump Jr. again. She said senators "clearly need to re-interview some witnesses whose accounts (Cohen) contradicts."

The Senate intelligence committee has been investigating Russian election interference and Trump's ties to Russia for the last two years. The panel is expected to try to call in several witnesses as it winds up its investigation over the next several months.

Burr told The Associated Press last week that he doesn't expect to have any more public hearings and that he hopes to be finished with the investigation by the end of the year.

The subpoena puts Burr at odds with some of his Republican colleagues who want to move on after the release of Mueller's findings. The Mueller report said he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a floor speech Tuesday in which he declared "case closed" on the probe.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took a shot at Burr after the subpoena was reported, tweeting that "apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn't get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed."

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Trump Jr., declined to comment on the subpoena.

The subpoena was first reported by Axios.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report. </s> WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, who met with Russians in June 2016 after being promised political dirt about Hillary Clinton, according to people familiar with the committee’s decision.

The younger Mr. Trump is the first of President Trump’s children to be subpoenaed in the continuing congressional investigations into Russia’s 2016 election interference, and the move by the Republican-led committee is a sign that some members of the president’s party are not aligned with his desire for a swift end to all of the Russia inquiries.

News of the subpoena came a day after Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, sought to lower the curtain on the drama in Congress surrounding Russia’s efforts to sabotage the 2016 election. The end of the Mueller investigation, he said, meant “case closed.”

But the subpoena of the younger Mr. Trump shows that the Intelligence Committee, which is under Mr. McConnell’s jurisdiction, is proceeding with its vigorous investigation that — for the most part — has not degenerated into a partisan morass like a parallel investigation by the House.
Donald Trump Jr., son of U.S. President Donald Trump, is subpoenaed to testify before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the Trump Tower Moscow project and his Russian contacts in June 2016.