GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, said he wants all the information about Russian involvement in the Trump campaign.
“Let’s get to all the facts, let’s get it all out at once,” he said. “This constant drip drip drip, to be able to get one more piece from one more story of something doesn’t help the White House, doesn’t help our investigation. Let’s get it all.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R.-N.Y., weighed in:
Not surprisingly, Democrats voiced their concern in the wake of the release of the emails.
Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Trump Jr. “has made clear that his father’s campaign was working with an adversary of the United States in order to defeat Hillary Clinton.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, said in a statement that the U.S. has a “fundamental principle that a foreign adversary should not and cannot interfere” in elections.
“The soul of our very democracy depends on it,” Cummings said. “I remind my colleagues from both parties — the Constitution does not give Congress the right to remain silent in the face of this threat. We must investigate. And we must act on our findings.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia and Clinton’s former running mate, went a step further. He told CNN the accusations are beyond obstruction or justice, and into “perjury, false statements and even potentially treason.”
Trump Jr. said he released the emails “in order to be totally transparent” about the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower with attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. The New York Times, which first reported on the meeting, was set to report on details of the emails when Trump Jr. chose to release them.
“To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue,” the younger Trump said. “As Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was ‘the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it.'”
Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment on the emails.
President Donald Trump applauded his son’s “transparency” in a Tuesday statement after the emails were released.
— CNBC’s Angelica LaVito contributed to this report.
