--- title: Report: Donald Trump Dictated Misleading Russia Statement description: Trump dictated a statement in which his son said a meeting with a Russian lawyer wasn't related to his father's campaign, a report says canonical: https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-01T03:30:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:26:32.270Z article:section: Politics og:title: Report Says Trump Dictated Son's Misleading Russia Statement og:description: If true, the revelation could bolster a potential obstruction of justice case og:url: https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6710ba819387e0d6/6988d7ea22fb85f523e2232b/gettyimages-822537560.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: President Trump And Lebanese PM Hariri Deliver Joint Statements At White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Report Says Trump Dictated Son's Misleading Russia Statement twitter:description: If true, the revelation could bolster a potential obstruction of justice case twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6710ba819387e0d6/6988d7ea22fb85f523e2232b/gettyimages-822537560.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Report Says President Trump Dictated His Son's Misleading Statement on Russia Meeting > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1967377d-b773-4791-b6f1-7a15bbc9d6fe&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting [Watch (HLS stream): Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/T35WsRpx.m3u8) (1:14)  _Published 2017-07-16. Jay Sekulow, a member of President Donald Trump's legal team, defended Donald Trump Jr. Sunday following his controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign — arguing that Trump's son did not break any laws_ by [Reuters](https://time.com/author/reuters/) ## Reuters Aug 1, 2017 3:30 AM UTC by [Reuters](https://time.com/author/reuters/) ## Reuters Aug 1, 2017 3:30 AM UTC (WASHINGTON) – U.S. President Donald Trump dictated a statement, later shown to be misleading, in which his son Donald Trump Jr. said a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 was not related to his father’s presidential campaign, the _Washington Post_ reported Monday. Trump Jr. released emails earlier in July that showed he eagerly agreed last year to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as part of Moscow’s official support for his father. The _New York Times_ was first to report the meeting. The _Washington Post_ said Trump advisers discussed the new disclosure and agreed that Trump Jr. should issue a truthful account of the episode so that it “couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.” The president, who was flying home from Germany on July 8, changed the plan and “personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said he and the Russian lawyer had ‘primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children,'” the Post said, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the deliberations. It said the statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared to publish the story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.” An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow, issued a statement in response to the _Post_ report: “Apart from being of no consequence, the characterizations are misinformed, inaccurate, and not pertinent.” The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the _Post_ story, nor did Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas. U.S. investigators are probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s Republican presidential campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow sought to hurt Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 election. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia. The president applauded his son’s “transparency” after he released the email exchanges on July 11. “It remains unclear exactly how much the president knew at the time of the flight about Trump Jr.’s meeting,” the _Washington Post_ said. David Sklansky, a professor of criminal law at Stanford Law School, said that if Trump, as reported by the Post, helped craft a misleading public statement about the meeting, he may have bolstered a potential obstruction of justice case against himself. To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. A misleading public statement could be used as evidence of corrupt intent, Sklansky said. “Lying usually isn’t a crime,” he said. But “it could be relevant in determining whether something else the president did, like firing (former FBI Director James) Comey, was done corruptly.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] But to go back a year later and say this is what should've happened when the meeting itself was 20 minutes and in a series of meetings that took place for days and days and months. I think I don't think that's fair to Donald Trump Jr ., to Jared Kushner, or to Manfort, for that matter, because no one was in a situation of that kind of campaigning In the middle of a presidential election. There's a lot of meetings and a lot of discussions about opposition research coming on all sides, Republican, Democrat, and Independent. Donald Trump Jr. said he disclosed everything about the meeting, but I'm one of the counsel for the President of the United States, who was not involved in the meeting and not aware of the meeting. So from my perspective, my answer stands. And the president was not engaged in this. Was not aware of it. Donald Trump Junior made statements that this was everything. He said that on the air of Sean Hannity's broadcast, and I think, again, it speaks for itself. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/"},"headline":"Report Says President Trump Dictated His Son's Misleading Statement on Russia Meeting","datePublished":"2017-08-01T03:30:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-08T09:26:32.270Z","description":"If true, the revelation could bolster a potential obstruction of justice case","url":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/","keywords":["White House","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6710ba819387e0d6/6988d7ea22fb85f523e2232b/gettyimages-822537560.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Reuters","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/reuters/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6710ba819387e0d6/6988d7ea22fb85f523e2232b/gettyimages-822537560.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump And Lebanese PM Hariri Deliver Joint Statements At White House","caption":"President Trump And Lebanese PM Hariri Deliver Joint Statements At White House","creditText":"Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/","name":"Report Says President Trump Dictated His Son's Misleading Statement on Russia Meeting"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting","description":"Jay Sekulow, a member of President Donald Trump's legal team, defended Donald Trump Jr. Sunday following his controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign — arguing that Trump's son did not break any laws","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/T35WsRpx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-07-16T19:04:16.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/T35WsRpx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/","duration":"PT1M14S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4881838/donald-trump-dictated-russia-statement/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```