Holy shit... Trumps lawyer's knew about emails three weeks ago.. yet trump just said that he only found about them a couple days ago.. and a couple days ago... he signed off on that fabricated statement that trump jr put out over the weekend.
I can't post the article. ... I need an assist.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sources-trump-lawyers-knew-russia-emails-back-june-000320831.html
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s legal team was informed more than three weeks ago about the email chain arranging a June 2016 meeting between his son Donald Jr. and a Kremlin-connected lawyer, two sources familiar with the handling of the matter told Yahoo News.
Trump repeated that assertion in a talk with reporters on Air Force One on his way to Paris Wednesday night. “I only heard about it two or three days ago,” he said, according to a transcript of his talk, when asked about the meeting with Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016 attended by Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chief, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
But the sources told Yahoo News that Marc Kasowitz, the president’s chief lawyer in the Russia investigation, and Alan Garten, executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, were both informed about the emails in the third week of June, after they were discovered by lawyers for Kushner, who is now a senior White House official.
But the information that Trump’s lawyers were told about the emails in June raises questions about why they would not have immediately informed the president. Trump’s campaign is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion with Russian government officials. The emails appear to be the first hard evidence of contacts between top campaign officials and someone connected to the Kremlin.
A spokesman for Kasowitz declined to comment, saying the matter involved “privileged information.” Garten did not respond to an email request for comment.
Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush told Yahoo News Thursday night that he finds it “weird” and “unbelievable” that Trump’s lawyers would not have informed the president about a matter so sensitive relating to the Russia investigation. “You have a professional obligation to inform the client about information that he needs to make informed decisions,” he said. That would be especially true for a client “who feels the need to comment on every last thing in the world,” he added.
The president himself repeatedly described the Russia investigation as “fake news” and ridiculed television networks’ reports about it. “With four months looking at Russia … under a magnifying glass, they have ‘zero tapes’ of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!” the president wrote in two tweets on June 26.
But questions were raised about President Trump’s account of when he learned about the meeting, in light of a statement he made on June 7, 2016 — before the meeting, but after the email exchanges with Donald Jr. On that day, Trump promised a major address the following week that he said would describe Clinton’s “corrupt dealings” to give “favorable treatment” to foreign governments, including “the Russians.” White House officials have said the timing of Trump’s statement was a coincidence and that his promised address about the Clintons was postponed when, a few days later, an Islamic State-inspired security guard went on a rampage at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., killing 49 people.
Aside from questions about the credibility of White House statements, the disclosure of the emails potentially has raised new questions about Kushner’s security clearance. He initially filed his SF-86 on Jan. 18, leaving out any mention of meetings with foreign government officials during the transition and the campaign. His lawyers have said this was inadvertent and that a member of his staff had prematurely hit the “send” button for the firm before it was completed. Within twelve hours, they have said, Kushner notified the FBI that he would make amendments and disclose his meetings with foreign officials.
The revised security clearance led to Kushner’s first FBI interview about the matter in mid-May, the sources said. The bureau is now reviewing Kushner’s second amended form following the new disclosure about his meeting with the Russian lawyer. His lawyers are confident that it won’t raise any additional problems since, as they have asserted, Kushner had forgotten the meeting — he was only briefly present — and had no intent to conceal it. In the meantime, he has an interim security clearance, sources said.