February 11, 2020

Don Jr. Defends Trump Tower Meeting: “I’m Allowed to Have a Conversation With People, Aren’t I?”

The president’s son didn’t want to talk about Russia.

Donald Trump Jr.

Donald Trump Jr. speaks at a 2019 campaign rally in Cincinnati.John Minchillo/AP

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Mother Jones’ David Corn was eating breakfast on the campaign trail in Manchester, New Hampshire, Tuesday morning when Donald Trump Jr. walked into the diner. Corn took the opportunity to ask the president’s son about the infamous June 2016 Trump tower meeting, when Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met with a Russian lawyer in an effort to obtain incriminating information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. In an email arranging the meeting, Trump Jr. had been told that this was “obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Why, Corn asked Trump Jr., had he agreed to meet with the Russian emissary?

 

“We’ve spoken about this a thousand times,” Trump Jr. responded. “I’ve testified about it, unlike Hunter Biden.”

When Corn pressed further, Trump Jr. added that he is “always happy to hear [what’s on] people’s minds. I’m allowed to have a conversation with people, aren’t I?”

“Of course you could do it,” Corn responded. “I’m asking why you thought it was appropriate to do it. Because you were told it was part of a Russian government effort to help the campaign.”

“No, he wasn’t told that,” replied Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is a Trump campaign adviser and Trump Jr.’s girlfriend.

But yes, he was.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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