--- title: Trump's Lawyer Defends Son's Meeting With Russian Lawyer description: Jay Sekulow defended Donald Trump Jr. following his controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign canonical: https://time.com/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-16T16:13:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:34:35.533Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting og:description: He denied the President played a role in the meeting og:url: https://time.com/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12f286d75c1fab09/6988d5d97cdbacad55d59384/jay-sekulow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3151 og:image:height: 1772 og:image:alt: Jay Sekulow og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting twitter:description: He denied the President played a role in the meeting twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12f286d75c1fab09/6988d5d97cdbacad55d59384/jay-sekulow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times 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.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jul 16, 2017 4:13 PM UTC  Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel American Center for Law and Justice, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Feb. 6, 2014. Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel American Center for Law and Justice, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Feb. 6, 2014. Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Jul 16, 2017 4:13 PM UTC 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 and continuing to deny the President had any role. “The president was not aware about this meeting, did not participate in this meeting. As far as other meetings go, look, the president has said that he was not aware of it, wasn’t involved in it. And there’s been no indication otherwise.”” [Sekulow told CBS News’ John Dickerson. ](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-jay-sekulow-on-face-the-nation-july-16-2017/)Trump Jr. had previously told Fox News’ Hannity that he had not told his father about the meeting. But throughout his appearances on network Sunday shows, Sekulow did reiterate that Trump Jr.’s decision to hold the meeting did not break any laws. Speaking on [_ABC News’ This Week,_ ](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-16-17-jay-sekulow-rep-adam/story?id=48655945)Sekulow implied that the Secret Service could ultimately be at fault if there was anything wrong with the meeting because they let the attendees into Trump Tower. “I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in. The President had Secret Service protection at that point, and that raised a question with me,” he told ABC News. Earlier this month, the New York _Times_ reported Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. Although Trump Jr. initially said the meetings were about Russian adoption policies, [subsequent reports by the _Times_ revealed](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-russia-email-candidacy.html) he was promised compromising information about Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. released the email chain last week on Twitter, which [showed he was promised ](http://time.com/4852783/donald-trump-juniors-email-bombshell/)“very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” More revelations about the meeting keep unfolding. The Associated Press reported Friday that a Russian-American lobbyist also said he attended the meeting, [which Trump Jr. failed to disclose. ](http://time.com/4858397/donald-trump-jr-meeting-russian-lobbyist/?iid=sr-link1) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/"},"headline":"Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting","datePublished":"2017-07-16T16:13:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:34:35.533Z","description":"He denied the President played a role in the meeting","url":"https://time.com/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12f286d75c1fab09/6988d5d97cdbacad55d59384/jay-sekulow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12f286d75c1fab09/6988d5d97cdbacad55d59384/jay-sekulow.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Jay Sekulow","caption":"Jay Sekulow","creditText":"Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP","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/4860014/jay-sekulow-donald-trump-jr-russia/","name":"Trump's Lawyer Defends Donald Trump Jr.'s Controversial Meeting"}}]}] ```