Donald Trump Jr. and the Kremlin-linked lawyer he met with in June 2016 to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton both say now that their get-together at Trump Tower was a bust. But Russian President Vladimir Putin may not see it that way, even if Trump Jr. and the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, really do, NBC's Katy Tur said on Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly. Tur spoke with Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo, critical Trump biographer Tim O'Brien, and John Sipher, a longtime CIA agent who was once station chief in Moscow.
The meeting was likely set up to see how far Trump Jr. was willing to go to break the rules to help his father, Sipher said. "In our world, that's clearly a trap; you're clearly setting someone up so that you can determine whether they bite," he said. "If I send you something that that's blatant, and you bite, then I have a lot of information on what I might be able to use next time. I know that if you're willing to step over the line, I can then push a little further." Offering dirt on Clinton was "like human fishing: They're putting bait out there to see if you're willing to swallow it. And the Trump campaign team swallowed it whole." And Putin, Sipher said, "learned that Mr. Trump is willing to compromise himself, to make a choice that puts him in an awkward and potentially vulnerable state."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Zohran Mamdani: the young progressive likely to be New York City's next mayorIn The Spotlight The policies and experience that led to his meteoric rise
-
The best film reboots of all timeThe Week Recommends Creativity and imagination are often required to breathe fresh life into old material
-
'More must be done'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidentsThe Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
Senate advances GOP bill that costs more, cuts moreSpeed Read The bill would make giant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, leaving 11.8 million fewer people with health coverage
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custodySpeed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulingsSpeed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood fundsSpeed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat goneSpeed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensiveSpeed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer saysSpeed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
