While on a plane headed back to the U.S. from the G-20 summit in Germany on July 8, President Trump personally dictated the statement on his son Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, saying they "primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children," several people with knowledge of the incident told The Washington Post Monday.
This statement, sent to The New York Times before it ran an article about the meeting, was misleading, and it came out after more reporting that Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting after being told in an email that the lawyer had damaging information about Hillary Clinton, courtesy of the Russian government. The original plan was to release a statement that accurately spelled out what the meeting was about, so once the full details emerged, it would show they were being honest, the Post reports. Hours later, Trump became involved, and switched gears, dictating the statement himself.
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