Trump insists Trump Tower meeting ‘totally legal’
US president slams media as ‘the enemy of the people’; admits his son met with Kremlin-connected lawyer to get information on Clinton
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BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey (AP) — US President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on two of his favorite targets: the special counsel Russia probe and the news media, while he appeared to confirm that his son’s Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer was aimed at getting information about Hillary Clinton.
Trump, on a working vacation at his New Jersey golf club, began Sunday with a series of searing tweets.
He defended calling the media “The Enemy of the People,” and said journalists “purposely cause great division and distrust” and can “cause War!”
He called the “Fake” media “very dangerous and sick.”
The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
Trump then went after recent reporting about Robert Mueller’s probe into possible links between his campaign and Russian officials, particularly stories on how he may be concerned about his eldest son’s legal exposure.
And Trump once again defended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, in which his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer saying it was “totally legal,” and that he had not known about it.
The president admitted that the purpose of the meeting was to get information about his Democratic rival.
Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, son Donald Jr., and top campaign official Paul Manafort met at New York’s Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who had said she was offering information from the Russian government aimed at helping Trump win the presidency.
Trump Jr respond.ed “I love it,” when first offered the political “dirt” on Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. But he has said since that no “meaningful information” was offered and the meeting focused mostly on the issue of adoptions of Russian children.
Trump, his son, his lawyers and other administration officials have repeatedly said Trump did not know about the now infamous meeting, until news of it broke in July 2017.
However, last month CNN reported that Trump’s former longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, claimed Trump knew in advance about the meeting. CNN cited anonymous sources saying Cohen was willing to share that information with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.