Emails reveal Donald Trump Jr. wanted to work with Russia to get Hillary Clinton dirt

Donald Trump Jr. releases emails that show he wanted to work with Russian government sources

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published July 11, 2017 11:31AM (EDT)

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Donald Trump Jr. has just released emails on Twitter that may make his case look worse than it did prior to the scathing story by The New York Times over the weekend.

In a series of Twitter posts that he insisted were intended to be "totally transparent," Trump Jr. revealed a series of emails that he exchanged with former tabloid journalist Rob Goldstone. Perhaps the most damning exchange occurs on the fourth page, when Goldstone writes:

"The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."

He added, "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.

Later Goldstone even pointed out, "I can also send this info to your father."

According to The New York Times, Trump Jr. replied, "If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer."

The emails posted by Trump Jr. actually undercut some of the claims made in the introduction he writes at the beginning of the chain.

"The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official," Trump Jr. wrote. Yet in the emails Goldstone explicitly stated that the information was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr.'s glib attempt to talk around this fact is reminiscent of a similar line used by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who insisted that his source was "not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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