Monday, May 6, 2019

The Other Thing the Mueller Report Proved: Journalists Were Right

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/mueller-report-journalism-was-right.html?fbclid=IwAR05DJRNCIMQSriU6BEqeb6fAfaMgwvobdfgachWHKa3tgUxv0IwgTMCrHA
"If Mueller’s report feels familiar, it’s because so many of the incidents it documents have already been reported. Take the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who a Trump associate claimed had dirt on Hillary Clinton. When the New York Times first reported this story in July 2017, Trump Jr. claimed that the “short introductory meeting” was innocuous; in a subsequent appearance on the Fox News program Hannity, Trump Jr. called the meeting “such a nothing” and “literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame.” Sean Hannity noted that “liberals in the destroy Trump media once again have worked themselves into frenzy. They’re frothing at the mouth.” According to Mueller’s report, the Times had it right all along: Trump Jr. had quickly responded to the potential offer of opposition research on Clinton with the words “if it’s what you say I love it,” and set about arranging a meeting. We knew this before the Mueller report was issued, because Trump Jr. released his emails after learning that the Times was about to publish them and expose the falsity of his initial story. But the extent to which the Trump campaign was eager to get its hands on this Hillary dirt was fleshed out in the Mueller report in a way that further vindicated the Times’ journalistic efforts. Former Trump campaign official Rick Gates told Mueller’s team “that in the days before June 9, 2016, Trump Jr. announced at a regular morning meeting of senior campaign staff and Trump family members that he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation.” Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told the Mueller team that he “recalled being in Donald J. Trump’s office on June 6 or 7 when Trump Jr. told his father that a meeting to obtain adverse information about Clinton was going forward.” Trump has denied that he was aware of the Russian meeting, and Cohen may not be the greatest character witness. Still, if you listened to Trump Jr., you would’ve gotten the facts all wrong."