Rep. Adam Schiff took apart the Trump administration and Jay Sekulow's defenses of Trump Jr. over the 2016 June meeting with the Russians.
July 16, 2017

Rep. Adam Schiff told ABC News that Donald Trump Jr.'s words depicting his June meeting with the Russians painted the clearest picture yet of the Trump campaign's willingness to collude with a hostile foreign government like Russia.

Earlier in the show, guest host Jonathan Karl interviewed Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and he made the case that what Trump Jr. said was the truth.

Rep Schiff responded, "Now, to believe that, though, we have to rely on two things. We have to rely on Don Jr.'s representation of what happened at that meeting, and we have already seen, many times we can't rely on that, because of course he first said no such meeting ever happened."

"So, we can't accept anything Don Jr. says."

Outside of Sean Hannity and a few Fox News cultists, that idea should hold true for most Americans. And Trump's record low approval rating seems to indicate that.

Rep. Schiff painted a clear picture of what we've all seen during the run-up to the 2016 election.

Then-candidate Trump, alerted people that information was going to be released about HRC and then applauded it openly to his followers a week later. Trump went as far as publicly asking Russia to hack Hillary.

Karl asked, "Is there any evidence whatsoever tying this meeting or that Russian lawyer to the centerpiece of this Russian influence campaign, which was the hack of the DNC, the hack of the Clinton campaign emails? Is there anything whatsoever tying this meeting to that activity by the Russians?"

Schiff replied, "Well, you know, it is certainly tied in the sense this is about as clear of evidence you could find of intent by the campaign to collude with the Russians, to get useful information from the Russians."

He continued, "More than that, though, a willingness not only to accept, but to indicate to Russia what the best timing was. Of course, Don Jr. says in the emails late summer. And what do we know about late summer? That's when the Russians start dumping this information."

And let's not forget that some of the people in the Russian meeting were Trump's former business colleagues and friends.

Anyone who believes Don Jr., didn't tell his father about the meeting is worse than naive.

It's only going to get worse for Trump and his son, the nastier version of Fredo, as the days drag into summer.

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