Trump Jr Should Be Concerned After Giuliani’s Pivot On Campaign Collusion, Analyst Says
A political analyst speaking on MSNBC suggested on Thursday morning that new revelations disseminated by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer — claims made the night before — may spell trouble for the commander-in-chief’s eldest son.
MSNBC political analyst Mike Barnicle, speaking on that network’s program Morning Joe, seemed to think that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani made things more complicated in statements he made on CNN the night prior, according to reporting from Raw Story.
“If they are going to move the goalposts on this collusion this evening to the campaign, Donald Trump Jr. is standing right beneath those goalposts,” Barnicle said.
The analyst was referring to comments made by Giuliani on CNN Wednesday evening, in which the personal lawyer to the president made an astounding pivot from claims that he and Trump, as well as other officials in the administration, had made in the past.
Giuliani, speaking to CNN’s Chris Cuomo, suggested that he had never said or implied that the Trump campaign in 2016 didn’t have anyone on staff who may have colluded with Russia, behind the back of the candidate.
“I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign,” Giuliani said, per previous reporting from the Inquisitr.
"I never said there was no collusion": Pres. Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani rants against Mueller investigation in heated interview. https://t.co/i7o1Yjmfi0 pic.twitter.com/Y6BjHncM1V
— ABC News (@ABC) January 17, 2019
Giuliani explained his comments in the past were defending the president alone, and not anyone else in the campaign.
“I said the President of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC.”
Giuliani’s comments were likely in response to other actors in proximity, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had allegedly made contact with foreign officials while working on the 2016 Trump campaign team. But his statement may have grave consequences for Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well.
Trump Jr. was involved in a meeting with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, through a series of other individuals, claimed she could provide the Trump campaign with information detrimental to the Republican candidate’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. That meeting took place at Trump Tower, and involved Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and Manafort.
Recent court documents — unrelated to the investigation involving special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion inquiry — have revealed that Veselnitskaya had deeper ties to the Kremlin than were originally revealed, the New York Times reported.
It’s unclear at this time whether the meeting at Trump Tower was illegal or not. Trump’s defenders maintain that there’s nothing wrong with trying to get information to help a campaign, while others suggest that such collusion could amount to charges of conspiracy against the United States, according to reporting from the Hill.
