After the NY Times reported that Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner had a meeting with a lawyer with Russian ties, the White House shifted into crisis mode.
Junior's first response to the report was that the meeting was primarily about Russian adoptions. Nothing to see here.
But not much has been made of the fact that the White House and Trump crafted Donald Trump Jr's first response to the NY Times article which we now know, was not at all true.
Ultimately, the people said, the president signed off on a statement from Donald Trump Jr. for The Times that was so incomplete that it required day after day of follow-up statements, each more revealing than the last. It culminated on Tuesday with a release of emails making clear that Mr. Trump’s son believed the Russian lawyer was seeking to meet with him to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
The media frenzy caused by this explosive news was justified and it's now put Jared Kushner's security clearance in jeopardy once again.
It's not only Democrats that are pushing for this.
Rick Tyler, communications director for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign and now an MSNBC contributor, told Business Insider in an email. "He has consistently failed to make mandatory discloses of meetings with foreign nationals including this one which is a felony."
"Jared should, at a minimum, have his clearances rescinded making his utility as an advisor, which itself is suspect, impractical," he continued.
In the last few months I've found myself in agreement with many more conservatives than I used to. Bill Kristol tweeted this out:
"WHOA. Don Jr.'s false statement Sat. was drafted by WH aides & seen by Trump. This wasn't Jr being dopey. This was an attempted WH cover-up."
Once again Trump and his administration have been caught lying to the American people. It seems to be all they know how to do.