White House: Trump Helped With Son's Russia Statement

Seemingly contradicting the president's own lawyer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that President Trump "weighed in" on his son's misleading statement regarding a 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney, Politico reports. Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, has said Trump "was not involved in the drafting of the statement." But a report this week claimed Trump was not only involved in the statement but dictated it fully against the wishes of his advisers. While Huckabee Sanders said Trump "certainly didn't dictate" the statement, he "weighed in, offered suggestions, like any father would." However, Trump himself had claimed to not know much about the meeting and implied he assumed his son wrote the statement with his lawyers, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In the statement in question, Donald Trump Jr. said he took a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign to discuss adoption; it was later revealed he met with her because she claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Huckabee Sanders maintained Tuesday that Trump Jr.'s statement was "true" with "no inaccuracy," the Washington Post reports. She also claimed it "was disclosed to the proper authorities," despite Jared Kushner—who also attended the meeting—failing to disclose it on government forms as required. Huckabee Sanders said the whole story is of "no consequence" and went on to give a list of stories about Clinton and Russia she feels the media should focus on instead. (More Donald Trump Jr. stories.)