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Donald Trump Jr. will give his first television interview since releasing a chain of emails related to his June 9, 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on July 11. The oldest son of President Donald Trump will talk to Sean Hannity during the Tuesday, July 11 episode of Hannity on Fox News. The show starts at 10:00 p.m. ET.
The interview will be part of the hour-long show’s regularly-scheduled episode tonight. To find out which channel Fox News is for you, click here to go to TV Guide’s channel listings and chance “provider” to your cable/satellite provider.
Trump Jr. has chosen a friendly environment to give his first interview since Hannity has been on of the president’s biggest supporters in the media. On July 10, Hannity suggested that the mainstream media was “foaming at the mouth” because of the meeting. Since The White House and Trump Jr. have said the meeting resulted in no meaningful information, Hannity doesn’t think the meeting was evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
“Why did the Obama administration let [the lawyer] into the country in 2016?” Hannity wondered during his July 10 episode.
Earlier today, Trump Jr. posted the email chain on Twitter before the New York Times could publish them. The emails show that music producer Rob Goldstone told Trump Jr. that Veselnitskaya was a “Russian government attorney” and he first contacted Trump Jr. on June 3. The last email sent before the meeting had the subject line “Russia-Clinton-Private and Confidential” and was also forwarded to Jared Kushener and then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Kushner is President Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior advisor in the administration.
The emails also show that Goldstone told Trump Jr. that he wanted to set up a meeting between Trump Jr. and Emin Agalarov “about this Hillary info.” Agalarov is a Russian billionaire who worked with Trump to organize the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
In one email, Goldstone writes to Trump Jr.:
Good morning. Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting 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. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin. What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly? I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
Trump Jr. responded “I would love it.” However, a meeting with Agalarov never came to fruition. Instead, Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner met with Veselnitskaya.
Trump Jr. also issued a new statement about the meeting when releasing his emails. That new statement reads:
To everyone, in order to be totally transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldstone about the meeting on June 9, 2016. The first email on June 3, 2016 was from Rob, who was relating a request from Emin, a person I knew from the 2013 Ms. Universe Pageant near Moscow. Emin and his father have a very highly respected company in Moscow. The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research. I first wanted to just have a phone call but when that didn’t work out, they said the woman would be in New York and asked if I would meet. I decided to take the meeting. The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official. And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act. To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue. As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was the “most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it.”
Trump Jr. then spent the rest of the day retweeting messages from conservatives downplaying the story.
Liberal media in a frenzy because Donald Trump Jr released all his emails. Should’ve just deleted them. We know that’s fine with them!
Trump, Jr. smart to release emails. Tabloid guy set him up w Russian lawyer who promised Hillary dirt. She didn’t deliver. That’s the story.
“My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency,” President Trump said in a statement.
