Donald Trump Jr. has been taking L after L today after the Senate Judiciary Committee released a trove of his excruciatingly unconvincing testimony, emails, and other documents relating to the now notorious 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a group of Russian operatives who almost certainly promised to deliver damaging oppo on Hillary Clinton.
The committee released transcripts of five hours worth of testimony, taken in September of last year, where Trump Jr. painted himself as a hapless innocent with convenient bouts of amnesia who just happened to have wandered into a meeting with a group of foreign agents eager to tip an election in his father’s favor. One of Junior’s blindspots included the presence of Russian lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer Rinat Akhmetshin, who is suspected of having ties to the Kremlin.
Junior couldn’t recall all sorts of things, including Rinat Akhmetshin being at the meeting. pic.twitter.com/NaZcWeHHgU
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) May 16, 2018
You’d figure that Trump Jr. would remember Akhmetshin considering he was dressed in a highly inappropriate and overly casual pink outfit. Another meeting attendee, Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a businessman from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, described the outfit in great detail to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rinat Akhmetshin did not dress up for the Trump Tower meeting. pic.twitter.com/8Or97hxECt
— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) May 16, 2018
Although Trump Jr. claims not to remember Akhmetshin, the lobbyist told senators that he certainly remembered the president’s eldest son because he was apparently running the meeting and eager to learn what the Russians had to offer on Clinton. From Fortune:
Rinat Akhmetshin, a lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer, recalled that Trump Jr. led the meeting.
“He was definitely in charge,” he said. After small talk about the view and a recent win in the primaries, the younger Trump got down to business, Akhmetshin said. “Mr. Trump, Jr., said, ‘So I believe you have some information for us.’”
Akhmetshin said that [Natalia] Veselnitskaya, the Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer at the center of the meeting, began discussing some wealthy contributors to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Akhmetshin recalled, “So Mr. Trump, Jr., said, ‘So can you show us how does this money go to Hillary?’ Like specifically, do you have paperwork? Or just indicate how money goes to Hillary. And she kind of said, ‘No. I am just a Russian lawyer.”
Donald Trump Jr., opening a sketchy, possibly illegal meeting with “So I believe you have some information for us,” took all his cues on how to conduct evil from bad movies, which makes sense given that he comes from the tackiest family in America.
