The following article by Nicholas Fandos was posted on the New York Times website September 6, 2017:
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, is set to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee investigators behind closed doors on Thursday to answer questions about his June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, committee officials said.
Committee aides said the interview, Mr. Trump’s first with congressional investigators, will be transcribed and could last for much of the day. It will largely focus on the meeting in Trump Tower, which appears to have been set up to deliver harmful information about Hillary Clinton to the Trump campaign, according to emails disclosed in June.
Democrats, led by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, said on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had also agreed to testify at a public hearing before the committee and that he would probably be subpoenaed if he did not follow through on that agreement. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the panel’s chairman, declined to discuss the committee’s dealings with Mr. Trump. Lawyers for Mr. Trump could not be reached for comment.
The closed-door interview is the clearest indication yet that the Senate Judiciary Committee — after months of being eclipsed by the Senate and House intelligence committees — is emerging into a higher-profile role in investigating the president, his family and his associates in the coming months.
The committee is trying to get answers about the firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director this spring and has staked out a broad investigation that aims to look at everything from the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia to the Obama Justice Department’s handling of the Clinton email case last year.
The Judiciary Committee investigation, which began this summer, has received less public attention than the intelligence committees’, which have been looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election since early this year. But with the committees now jockeying for witnesses and documents, and the potential for public hearings this fall, that is likely to change.
The Senate panel’s leaders sought to tamp down excessive expectations on Wednesday.
“This is not going to be quick. It is certainly not going to be easy,” Ms. Feinstein said. “Give us time.”
Mr. Grassley said he would not release any information until he and Ms. Feinstein agree to do so.
Like their counterparts on the Intelligence Committee, the two senior senators have taken pains to present a united front, issuing letters and subpoenas jointly and agreeing on the scope of the inquiry this summer.
Committee and staff members have been hesitant to put a timetable on the investigation, saying that additional document and witness requests are likely in the coming weeks. Just how far Mr. Grassley, who as chairman has considerable power over any investigation by the committee, is willing to go remains a matter of speculation. Democrats said they were cautiously optimistic that they would be able to advance in a bipartisan fashion.
“I think the chairman has been a very straight shooter,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the panel. “He has a very serious commitment to uncovering the truth.”
Committee members originally wanted Donald Trump Jr. to testify publicly before the committee, along with President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Glenn Simpson, the founder of the firm that produced a dossier of sensational claims about President Trump and Russia. But Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyers negotiated an agreement for the closed-door meeting and the production of communications related to the meeting.
The interview on Thursday was expected to be largely handled by staff, though several senators said they planned to attend. Besides the Trump Tower meeting, Mr. Blumenthal said the staff would question Mr. Trump on the Trump Organization’s financial dealings with the Russians and on his father’s decision to fire Mr. Comey.
Mr. Trump set up the June 2016 meeting after he had been told by an intermediary that a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had damaging information about Mrs. Clinton to share. Also in attendance were Mr. Manafort and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, now a White House adviser.
Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner have both met with investigators from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Those interviews have been the cause of some tension between the two Senate panels, and Judiciary members said they were still hopeful that they, too, would get a chance to question the men.
At the same time, the Judiciary Committee has been in consistent communication with Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump’s Russia ties and related matters, to make sure the two investigations did not overlap or cause legal issues down the road, committee aides said. The special counsel’s team has also made copies of Mr. Comey’s written memos available to Mr. Grassley and Ms. Feinstein, who have continued to press for their own copy.
The committee has a long to-do list for the coming weeks. In addition to Mr. Manafort, it is still trying to schedule interviews with Loretta Lynch, who was attorney general during the Clinton email investigation, and two top F.B.I. officials — James Rybicki and Carl Ghattas — who worked alongside Mr. Comey.
Investigators expect to receive a new trove of documents from the Trump campaign, Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Manafort and Mr. Simpson, a committee official said, and will continue to press for copies of others. Investigators are also likely to be interested in an unsent letter drafted by President Trump and a top aide laying out his rationale for firing the F.B.I. director.
Mr. Grassley was also trying, so far unsuccessfully, to schedule an oversight hearing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the coming weeks. Mr. Sessions, who was a prominent Trump campaign surrogate, is sure to face questions about his role in Mr. Comey’s firing and the president’s links to Russia.
For now, investigators are still combing through around 20,000 pages of documents turned over by the Trump campaign. They are also in possession of notes taken by Mr. Manafort during the Trump Tower meeting, a committee official said.
The committee is also weighing what to do with a transcript of its interview with Mr. Simpson. Investigators questioned Mr. Simpson for roughly 10 hours in late August, and Mr. Grassley has suggested he is willing to call for a committee vote to eventually release the transcripts, though there have been no steps taken to do so.