WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman met with Senate investigators Tuesday, providing his recollection of a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer and agreeing to turn over contemporaneous notes of the gathering last year, according to people familiar with the closed-door interview.
The appearance by Paul Manafort came the same morning that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner returned to Capitol Hill for a second day of private meetings, this time for a conversation with lawmakers on the House intelligence committee.
Both Manafort and Kushner have been cooperating with the committees which, along with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, are probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and possible collusion with Trump associates.
The two men have faced particular scrutiny about attending the Trump Tower meeting because it was described in emails to Donald Trump Jr. as being part of a Russian government effort to aid Trump’s presidential campaign.
On Tuesday, Manafort met with bipartisan staff of the Senate intelligence committee and “answered their questions fully,” his spokesman, Jason Maloni, said.
Manafort’s discussion with committee staff was limited to his recollection of the June 2016 meeting, according to two people familiar with the interview. Both demanded anonymity to discuss details because the interview occurred behind closed doors.
Manafort had previously disclosed the meeting in documents he turned over to the committee. He has now provided the committee with notes he took at the time, one of the people said. The other person said Manafort has also said he will participate in additional interviews with the Senate intelligence committee staff on other topics if necessary. Those meetings haven’t yet been scheduled.
Emails released this month show that Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, accepted a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya with the understanding that he would receive damaging information on Democrat Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help Trump’s campaign. But, in his statement for the two intelligence committees, Kushner said he hadn’t read those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.
Kushner’s statement was the first detailed defense from a campaign insider responding to the controversy that has all but consumed the first six months of Trump’s presidency. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to tip the 2016 campaign in Trump’s favor.
In addition to the Senate and House intelligence committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee has also been investigating Russia’s election interference. The committee has been negotiating terms of a private, on-the-record interview with Trump Jr. about the meeting with Veselnitskaya.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein had also issued a subpoena for Manafort to testify publicly during a Wednesday hearing before the committee. But late Tuesday the committee rescinded the subpoena.