--- 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: 2026-02-23T16:48:46.371Z 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Report Says President Trump Dictated His Son's Misleading Statement on Russia Meeting by [Reuters](https://time.com/author/reuters/) ## Reuters Aug 1, 2017 3:30 AM UTC  President Donald Trump at the White House on July 25, 2017. President Donald Trump at the White House on July 25, 2017.Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images 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.” ```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":"2026-02-23T16:48:46.371Z","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"}}]}] ```