--- title: Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails and Russia Meeting: What to Know description: Donald Trump Jr., along with the Jared Kushner and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer canonical: https://time.com/4852998/donald-trump-jr-russia-lawyer-emails/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-11T18:13:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:07:07.118Z article:section: Politics og:title: What to Know About Donald Trump Jr.'s Meeting With a Russian Lawyer og:description: Trump was promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton og:url: https://time.com/4852998/donald-trump-jr-russia-lawyer-emails/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f38d9fe4e559911/6988a6f2e20a87bb90a92808/donald-trump-jr-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: donald-trump-jr-facebook og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What to Know About Donald Trump Jr.'s Meeting With a Russian Lawyer twitter:description: Trump was promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f38d9fe4e559911/6988a6f2e20a87bb90a92808/donald-trump-jr-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What to Know About Donald Trump Jr.'s Meeting With a Russian Lawyer by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Jul 11, 2017 6:13 PM UTC  Donald Trump, Jr. in Cleveland, on July 19, 2016. Donald Trump, Jr. in Cleveland, on July 19, 2016.Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Jul 11, 2017 6:13 PM UTC [Donald Trump Jr.](http://time.com/4853005/donald-trump-jr-emails-hillary-clinton-russia/), along with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort [met with a Russian lawyer](http://time.com/4852691/russian-lawyer-donald-trump-jr/) who offered them information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. Here’s what you need to know about this fast-moving story. ### The meeting took place at Trump Tower in June 2016 The younger Trump, Kushner and Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June, according to the [New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-russia-email-candidacy.html). The _Times_ said Trump Jr. believed the lawyer “would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton.” Trump initially said in a statement to TIME that an acquaintance asked him to attend the meeting, but did not tell him who he would be meeting with. He added that the meeting was primarily about the Russian adoption program in the United States. ### Trump publicly released the email exchange that led to the meeting On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. publicly released copies of the sequence of emails that led to the meeting, showing that he was promised “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” The information was described as “very high level and sensitive… but… part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” The release came after the _Times_ was given copies of the emails and contracted Trump for comment. The President’s son also released a statement, in which he wrote that he thought the meeting was “political opposition research” for Clinton. “The entire meeting was ‘the most inane nonsense I have ever heard,'” Trump added > [](https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/884789418455953413) The email exchanges between Trump, Kushner, Manafort and Goldstone show that Trump Jr. was open to the meeting. “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” he wrote at the offer of assistance. ### The meeting was set up by publicist Rob Goldstone The Washington _Post_ identified publicist Rob Goldstone as the acquaintance who set up the meeting between Trump and Veselnitskaya. Goldstone said in a statement that the request for the meeting came from his client, Emin Agalarov. “Nothing came of that meeting and there was no follow up between the parties,” Goldstone said. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway echoed these sentiments on [_Good Morning America_](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/conway-meaningful-information-received-trump-jrs-meeting-russian/story?id=48540547) on Monday. “No information was received that was meaningful or helpful and no action was taken \[as a result of the meeting\],” she said. When asked why the meeting was not initially disclosed, Conway said disclosure statements had been amended to reflect the meeting. ### Trump said the meeting went nowhere “Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent… went nowhere but had to listen,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday. > [](https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/884395618784993280) He later tweeted: “Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story. If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the desperation!” ### Veselnitskaya said she never had damaging information on Clinton Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya said she [never worked for and has no connections](http://time.com/4852691/russian-lawyer-donald-trump-jr/) with the Russian government, and that she “never had damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that.” Speaking in an exclusive interview with [NBC News](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-lawyer-who-met-trump-jr-i-didn-t-have-n781631), Veselnitskaya said she was told to come to Trump Tower to meet with members of the Trump presidential campaign, including Donald Trump Jr., last year. When asked why Trump’s team had the impression that they were going to be told some compromising information on then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the Russian lawyer simply said: “It’s quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. They wanted it so badly.” > [](https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/884732642020671488) Veselnitskaya insists she met with Trump to press her client’s interest in the Magnitsky Act. She is a leading opponent of the act, which the U.S. Congress passed in 2012. ### Trump and his associates keep changing their stories Trump has previously denied participating in any meetings with Russian nationals related to his father’s presidential campaign. “Did I meet with people that were Russian? I’m sure, I’m sure I did,” he told the [_Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html?%5Fr=0) in March. “But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly none that I was representing the campaign in any way, shape or form.” He has now said that he invited both Manafort and Kushner to sit in on the meeting with Veselnitskaya, knowing they would discuss information about the Clinton campaign. His confirmation of the meeting also contradicts claims made by several senior Trump aides, including Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks who said shortly after the election last year: “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” ### Donald Trump Jr. has hired a lawyer Trump [hired New York lawyer Alan Futerfas](http://time.com/4852132/donald-trump-jr-alan-futerfas-russia-investigation/), who specializes in criminal defense, to represent him in Russia-related investigations, his office and the lawyer said on Monday. Futerfas would not say when he was retained or whether he played any part in the statements Trump made over the weekend about a meeting with a Russian lawyer. Futerfas told Reuters: “I look forward to assisting Donald Jr. and, quite frankly, there is nothing to all of the media buzz about the June 9th, 2016 meeting. 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