Tag: Donald Trump Jr.

‘A natural’: Donald Trump Jr. emerges as a campaign star, despite Russia baggage

The following article by Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker was posted on the Washington Post website August 12, 2018:

Donald Trump Jr. addresses a standing-room-only crowd at a campaign rally for Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis in Orlando last month. Credit: Willie J. Allen Jr., The Washington Post

President Trump was watching Fox News Channel with aides in his private dining room off the Oval Office recently when Donald Trump Jr. flashed across the giant flat screen.

“Don’s gotten really good,” Trump said, according to someone who was present. “My people love him.”

The remark suggested a swell of unexpected pride from Trump about his namesake son, whose relationship with his father has been difficult at times but who has emerged as the president’s political alter ego and an in-demand campaign celebrity ahead of November’s midterm elections.

View the complete article here.

Sad! Don Jr. uses obviously photoshopped image to falsely inflate Trump’s approval rating

The following article by Aaron Rupar was posed on the ThinkProgress website August 10, 2018:

Donald Trump Jr. took to Instagram on Thursday to tout his father’s approval rating.

“Amazing,” Don Jr. wrote. “I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen and @realdonaldtrump seems to have it. #maga #amreicafirst [sic]”

Don Jr. included a cable news screencap showing President Trump’s approval rating at 50 percent.

CREDIT: SCREENCAP
CREDIT: SCREENCAP

There was just one problem — the screengrab Don Jr. posted was clearly and sloppily photoshopped. “50%” was just pasted over “40%” to make President Trump’s approval rating 10 points higher than it really is.

President Admits Trump Tower Meeting Was Meant to Get Dirt on Clinton Image

The following article by Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt was posted on the New York Times website August 5, 2018:

President Trump with son Donald Jr. Mr. Trump denied a report he is worried about the legal exposure for his son, who hosted a June 2016 meeting between some of Mr. Trump’s top campaign advisers and a Kremlin-connected lawyer. Credit: Samuel Corum for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Sunday that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was misleading.

Mr. Trump made the comment in a tweet on Sunday morning that was intended to be a defense of the June 2016 meeting and the role his son Donald Trump Jr. played in hosting it. The president claimed that it was “totally legal” and of the sort “done all the time in politics.”

But the tweet also served as an admission that the Trump team had not been forthright when Donald Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children.

View the complete article here.

Trump just made 2 problematic admissions about the Trump Tower meeting

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website August 5, 2018:

President Trump’s lawyers now say he dictated Donald Trump Jr.’s response to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, contradicting months of previous assertions. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

President Trump has yet again tweeted about his personal legal issues in a way he perhaps shouldn’t have.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Trump had expressed concerns in the past week about his son Donald Trump Jr.’s legal exposure from the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. In a tweet about that report on Sunday, Trump said, “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Two issues.

Trump acknowledges, defends 2016 meeting between son, Kremlin-aligned lawyer

The following aricle by Ashley Parker and Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website August 5, 2018:

President Trump’s lawyers now say he dictated Donald Trump Jr.’s response to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, contradicting months of previous assertions. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Trump on Sunday offered his most definitive and clear public acknowledgment that his oldest son met with a Kremlin-aligned lawyer at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign to “get information on an opponent,” defending the meeting as “totally legal and done all the time in politics.”

It is, however, against the law for U.S. campaigns to receive ­donations or items of value from foreigners, and that June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya is now a subject of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation.

While “collusion” is not mentioned in U.S. criminal statutes, Mueller is investigating whether anyone associated with Trump coordinated with the Russians, which could result in criminal charges if they entered into a conspiracy to break the law, including through cyberhacking or interfering with the election.

View the complete article here.

Donald Trump Jr. compares Democratic platform to the Nazis

The following article by Emily C. Singer was posted on the Mic.com website August 2, 2018:

Donald Trump Jr. compared the Democratic Party platform to that of the Nazis while hosting the Washington, D.C. premiere of the movie Death of a Nation: Plantation Politics and the Making of the Democratic Party, created by conservative propagandist Dinesh D’Souza, who has long attempted to connect Democrats to the histories of fascism and racism.

“When you look at the movie, you’ll see that there is a very distinct and clear difference between what actually happened and what is being sold to our youth today,” Trump Jr. told One America News Network on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported. “You see the Nazi platform from the early 1930s … and you look at it, compared to the DNC platform of today, you’re saying, ‘Man, those things are awfully similar’ to a point where it’s actually scary. It’s the exact opposite of what you’ve been told.”

The film from D’Souza — who once pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud and received a pardon from President Donald Trump in May — is based on his book of the same name, which sought to highlight alleged ties between Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan. The film also compares Trump to former President Abraham Lincoln.

View the complete article here.

Want to Know More About … The Trump Tower Meeting

John Avalon: “This Is Foreign Governments And Foreign Folks Interfering And Trying To Influence Our Elections.”

JOHN AVALON: “But just to sort of ground this in history, this is something that the founding fathers explicitly warned about. Washington warning about Foreign governments influencing and  interfering in our elections. Nixon’s campaign, now we know a third party was negotiating with the North Vietnamese on their behalf. Something that Nixon might fear would lead to his impeachment. Of course it was something else 44 years to the day that did that Watergate.  So there is legal something of value campaign finance question. But this is not subtle folks, this is foreign governments and foreign folks interfering and trying to influence our elections.” [New Day, CNN, 8/6/18; Video]

John Berman: “You Do Not Often Have A President Of The United States Who Admits As He Just Did That He Willingly Mislead Or, Yes, Lied To The American People.”

JOHN BERMAN: “The President just did that, he just admitted that the statement he dictated on Air Force One, that his lawyers now admit he dictated is wildly misleading. That statement put side by side with this statement he just put out on Twitter for us to see they directly contradict each other. You do not often have a president of the United States who admits as he just did that he willingly mislead or, yes, lied to the American people.” [New Day, CNN, 8/6/18; Video] Continue reading “Want to Know More About … The Trump Tower Meeting”

Senators demand testimony on Don Jr.’s crumbling Russia cover-up story

The following article by Oliver Willis was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 28, 2018:

Senators are demanding that Donald Trump Jr. return to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee after Michael Cohen exposed that his father knew in advance about the meeting between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Donald Trump, Jr., Credit: Alec Tabak, The Daily News via AP, Pool

Senators are demanding that Donald Trump Jr. come back and testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee — this time under oath — after new revelations that his father knew about the clandestine campaign meeting with Russian operatives.

According to Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, the elder Trump knew in advance about the meeting at Trump Tower. At that infamous gathering, Don Jr. was among the senior campaign advisers who met with Russian operatives offering up dirt on Hillary Clinton.

But when he testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the ongoing probe into Russian election interference, Don Jr. reportedly said his father did not know about the event.

View the complete article here.

The Trump Tower meeting increasingly looks as bad for Trump as it initially seemed

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 27, 2018:

President Trump’s lawyers now say he dictated Donald Trump Jr.’s response to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, contradicting months of previous assertions. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

The natural first reaction is: Of course.

Of course Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and others at Trump Tower in June 2016 had closer ties with Russian officials than she let on.

And of course there would now be allegations — secondhand, but credible — that President Trump himself knew that the meeting was scheduled and what it was about before it took place.

View the complete article here.

New York files civil suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’

The following article by David Fahrenthold was posted on the Washington Post website June 14, 2018:

Donald Trump directed millions of dollars to his tax-exempt foundation. Here’s how. (Video: Peter Stevenson, Lee Powell/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

New York’s attorney general filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children Thursday, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity and saying that Trump had repeatedly misused the nonprofit organization to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion-dollar giveaway at 2016 campaign events.

In the suit, Attorney General Barbara Underwood asked a state judge to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. She asked that its remaining $1 million in assets be distributed to other charities and that Trump be forced to pay at least $2.8 million in restitution and penalties. Continue reading “New York files civil suit against President Trump, alleging his charity engaged in ‘illegal conduct’”