Donald Trump Jr. met for more than ten hours Wednesday with a House committee investigating whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential race, but left without speaking to reporters about what was discussed.
Trump Jr., the eldest son of President Donald Trump, likely faced questions about his family’s financial ties to Russia and other issues related to the House Intelligence committee’s investigation — including the meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was said to have information on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters after the hearing that Trump Jr. claimed that conversations with his father about the matter were protected from disclosure by attorney-client privilege because an attorney was in the room.
“I don’t think you can shield conversations by only having an attorney present,” Schiff said.
Another Democratic member of the committee, Joaquin Castro of Texas, tweeted that Trump Jr.’s interview left “many critical unanswered questions and new leads to follow. This investigation is far from over.”
Trump Jr. also voluntarily testified in September before a closed session of the Senate Judiciary Committee about a June 2016 meeting he participated in with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in New York City.
British publicist Rob Goldstone, who is believed to have arranged the meeting, will reportedly talk to members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees as early as next week.
Trump Jr. participated in his father’s winning White House campaign but did not become part of the administration, instead returning to the family’s worldwide real estate business.
However, he continues to face questions about whether he or any of his father’s associates colluded with Russia to influence the White House race — something the president denies.
Last month, Trump Jr. released a series of private Twitter exchanges with WikiLeaks during and after the 2016 election.
In the exchanges — including some around the time WikiLeaks was releasing the stolen emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman — the website asks him to release his father’s tax returns to the site.
The private messages also show Trump Jr. responding to the WikiLeaks account three times.
He also asked the site about a rumor about an upcoming leak. The messages began in September 2016 and ran through the following July.
Trump Jr. downplayed the exchanges as he released them.
“Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak,” he tweeted. “How ironic!”
Trump Jr.’s lawyers had already released the exchanges to the congressional committees investigating Russian intervention.
In an Oct. 3, 2016 message, the WikiLeaks Twitter account sent Trump Jr. an article that included critical comments Clinton had made about site editor Julian Assange and said “it’d be great if you guys could comment on/push this story.”
Trump Jr. replied: “Already did that earlier today. It’s amazing what she can get away with.”
Two minutes later, Trump Jr. sent another message: “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?”
Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone had tweeted the day before that on Wednesday, “Hillary Clinton is done,” referencing WikiLeaks.
The WikiLeaks Twitter account never responded, but days later WikiLeaks started rolling out emails stolen from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s account. After the emails were released, WikiLeaks sent Trump Jr. a searchable link of the emails. Trump Jr. tweeted that link two days later, on Oct. 14, 2016, The Atlantic magazine noted.
Fox News’ Joseph Weber and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
