Trump's Son Changes Story on Russia Meeting
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Someone named Donald Trump just admitted meeting with a Russian during the campaign. THE LEAD starts right now. And then there were five. President Trump's son now admitting he met with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties in the heat of the 2016 race, reportedly to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. A tough hill to climb on Capitol Hill. Republicans return from recess eight votes in the hole on health care. Can they twist enough arms before they go away again? Plus, army of hate, a neo-Nazi facing a lawsuit for allegedly unleashing bigoted, racist trolls on a Jewish woman and her young son. A starting to look at the level of hate possible in the United States of America right now. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin with breaking news in the politics lead today. An admission of the oldest son of the president of the United States who runs the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr., in no uncertain words, acknowledging that last year he took a meeting with a Russian lawyer with connections to the Kremlin after being told she might have information helpful to the campaign about his father's opponent, Hillary Clinton. Today, Donald Trump Jr. tweeting sarcastically: "Obviously, I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent. Went nowhere, but had to listen." This comes in response to "The New York Times"' reporting that Trump Jr. took this meeting because he was promised damaging information about Clinton. He wasn't the only one in the room. Also there, President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is now in the White House inner circle, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Trump Jr.'s admission seems something of a reversal from a statement he had given just hours earlier when he said that meeting was to "primarily discuss the issue of American families adopting Russian orphans." And while there remains no evidence yet that anyone on the Trump team knew at the time about the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee, it is worth noting that a few weeks after that meeting, after the hack and leak of DNC e-mails was made public, Trump Jr. was quite dismissive of Clinton's campaign manager blaming Russia.</s>DONALD TRUMP JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Well, it just goes to show you their exact moral compass. They will say anything to be able to win this. This is time and time again lie after lie. Notice he won't say, well, I say this. We hear experts. His house cat at home once said that this is what's happening with the Russians. It's disgusting. It's so phony.</s>TAPPER: That is a bit of moral outrage from someone who just weeks beforehand had met with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. For months, the Trump team insisted falsely that there were no contacts. Here's Vice President Pence in January.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign? Chris, this is all a distraction, and it's all a part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of this presidency.</s>TAPPER: Here's President Trump one month later.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.</s>TAPPER: Now, to the best of our knowledge, at least five former or current members of President Trump's team have not only had some contact with the Russians. They have lied, changed their stories or not been forthcoming with information about those contacts with Russians. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned after lying to the vice president about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Then there's Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, whose stories have changed. Also Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who under oath did not disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador. Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner omitted at least three meetings with Russians on his security clearance forms, since amended. And now, of course, Donald Trump Jr. If these contacts and conversations with Russians were so innocent, as is being claimed, the obvious question, why so many lies about them? So how is the White House responding to this news? CNN's Jeff Zeleny has the details.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House faced a new round of questions today over potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians during last year's election. Fresh off President Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin, it is another meeting in June of 2016 between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer that's drawing fresh scrutiny. The Russian lawyer, known for her opposition to U.S. sanctions against Russia over human rights, said she had damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The White House on the defensive again today, insisting President Trump didn't know about the session in Trump Tower that came only two weeks after he clinched the Republican nomination. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president only learned about it in the last few days.</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would certainly say Don Jr. did not collude with anybody to influence the election. Our position is that no one within the Trump campaign colluded in order to influence the election.</s>ZELENY: But the meeting, first reported by "The New York Times," is the first acknowledgement people in Trump's inner circle were willing to accept help from Russians. The question of whether they did is the subject of a special counsel's session and inquiries on Capitol Hill. The president's older son said he, Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort agreed to meet up with the Russian lawyer to hear about what she was offering up about the Clinton campaign. It turned out to be nothing, Trump said, telling</s>CNN: "Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense." The meeting was arranged by Rob Goldstone, a publicist for a Russian pop singer, who worked with President Trump on the Miss Universe Pageant hosted in Moscow in 2013. Trump is also seen in this music video. On CNN's "NEW DAY," a senior adviser to the president, Kellyanne Conway, downplayed the meeting.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: I don't think anybody had to look very far to find damaging information on Hillary Clinton or negative information.</s>ZELENY: Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, said the revelation puts potential collusion closer to Trump.</s>ROBBY MOOK, FORMER HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: What's disturbing is at each and every juncture, the Trump campaign gets closer and closer to Russia and the connections become more direct.</s>ZELENY: All this as the White House deals with the fallout from the Trump-Putin meeting on Friday at the G20 summit. On Sunday morning, the president wrote, "Putin and I discussed forming an impenetrable cyber-security unit, so that election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded." That statement sparked an unusually swift rebuke, and that's just from Republicans, who blasted the president for being naive.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: When it comes to Russia, he's got a blind spot. And to forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber-attacks is to empower Putin, and that's exactly what he's doing.</s>ZELENY: By Sunday night, Trump had reversed himself completely, saying: "The fact that President Putin and I discussed cyber-security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't."</s>ZELENY: Now, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, she said she wants Donald Trump Jr. to come before the Intelligence Committee to explain what happened in that meeting. And, Jake, just a short time ago, the president's oldest son seemed to acknowledge that he would. He sent out this message on social media. Let's take a look. He said: "I'm happy to work with the committee to pass on what I know." And, Jake, we're just learning moments ago that he's hired a Washington lawyer to help him through this process here. The lawyer says he has not received any direct comment from Capitol Hill. But, Jake, this is all coming at a time when the White House had thought it had changed the subject, turned the page beyond this Russia investigation. The reality here is there is still a sense at this White House, are there more meetings? Is there still more information to come out? At the White House press briefing today, answers were in short supply -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Jeff Zeleny at the White House for us today, thank you so much. Does any of this change some Democrats' assessment that they had yet to see any evidence of actual collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Stick around.