US intelligence agencies have been investigating the alleged possible links between President Donald Trump and the Russian government, the Kremlin, and his counterpart Vladimir Putin, pretty much since he got elected last November.
There’s been a huge step forward in that investigation in recent days, as it’s come to light that the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., met with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya during the Presidential election campaign in order to gather some dirt that the Trump campaign team could use against Hillary Clinton.
Veselnitskaya may have ties to the Kremlin
Reports have come through that Veselnitskaya has ties to the Kremlin, but she has denied this herself, saying that she simply wanted to meet with Trump, Jr. so that she could press him on the topic of her client’s interest in the Magnitsky Act. She had no interest in giving him incriminating information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign to use against her, nor did she even have such information at her disposal. But Trump, Jr. had different ideas.
Trump despises the investigation into his potential ties to Russia, and even fired the head of the FBI, James Comey, simply for carrying it out. That may have been obstruction of justice, which is unconstitutional and therefore grounds for impeachment, but that’s a very complicated process so we’ll leave that to Congress.
However, it’s worth noting that Trump’s opposition to the investigation against him shows that maybe he does have something to hide and he wants his tantrums to wear down the intelligence agencies and get them to call off the investigation before it goes any further and they find out some dark, shady stuff he did back on the election campaign.
If he didn’t have anything to hide, he’d just let them get on with their jobs until they come to the conclusion that he didn’t have any ties to Russia during the campaign. But here we are with proof that he did.
Trump team wanted to smear Clinton campaign with information from Russia
Anyway, this is a huge leap in the rumours about Trump’s possible Russian connection and a big confirmation that Trump, his son, and the rest of the Trump team at least wanted to work with Russia to smear the Clinton campaign, even though this particular person didn’t have that information at hand.
Three people’s accounts of the email that set all these reports off all concur, so it’s definitely true. Basically, when Trump, Jr. thought that Veselnitskaya was going to give him information that could end Clinton’s campaign, he was sent an email by Rob Goldstone to tell him that wasn’t going to happen and instead it was part of a boost to Trump’s campaign from the Russian government (so, still shady). Goldstone brokered the meeting between Trump, Jr. and Veselnitskaya, which took place in June of last year. Goldstone is a publicist now and used to be a tabloid journalist over on our side of the pond.
The New York Times made the initial report
The three accounts of the email went to the staff of The New York Times, which isn’t exactly President Trump’s favourite paper – in fact, he once called their reporters “the enemy of the American people,” Richard Nixon-style.
From what they’re saying, it sounds like the scandalous information about Clinton did exist; it was there. It was just sourced by the Russian government as opposed to the lawyer who Trump, Jr. spoke to.
There was definitely a wider conspiracy by the Russian government operatives in Moscow to aid Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, but the Goldstone email and the Trump, Jr./Veselnitskaya meeting don’t make it exactly clear what that is. But we’ll see. Just wait a few more days for more information to come through, more people to come forward etc.
