Under fire for a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday conceded that in "retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently."
In his first televised comments since publishing emails about setting up the controversial meeting, the eldest son of President Donald Trump defended his actions to Fox News' Sean Hannity, saying he wanted to hear what the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who reportedly had connections to Moscow, had to say.
"Maybe this is something," Trump Jr. said of his thinking leading up to the meeting. "I should hear them out. ... This was again just basic information that was going to be possibly there. ... I wanted to hear them out and play it out."
The meeting was also attended by Paul Manafort, Trump’s then-campaign manager, and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser.
"For me this was opposition research," Trump Jr. said. "They had something, you know, maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I’d been hearing about … so I think I wanted to hear it out. But really it went nowhere and it was apparent that wasn’t what the meeting was about."
"In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently," Trump Jr. added.
He said he didn't even tell his father about the meeting.
"No, it was just a nothing; there was nothing to tell," Trump Jr. said. "It was literally just a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame."
He also told Hannity the exchange happened prior to Russian involvement becoming a major story during the campaign season so his alarm "sirens" didn't sound when he was told of a Russian effort to help his father's candidacy.
"This was 13 months ago, before I think the rest of the world was talking about that, trying to build up that narrative on Russia, so I don't even think my sirens went up, or the antennas went up, at this time because it wasn't, because it wasn't the issue that it's been made up to be over the last nine months, 10 months."
"Maybe this is something," Trump Jr. said of his thinking leading up to the meeting. "I should hear them out. ... This was again just basic information that was going to be possibly there. ... I wanted to hear them out and play it out."
He admitted he wanted a meeting if there was information on Clinton -- and defended his interest.
"Yeah, I wanted to hear the information," he said.
"If there's information out there, you want it. If there was something that came from it that was shady, a danger to national security, I would obviously bring it right to someone but it turns out it was nothing. There was nothing to be able to actually talk about."
"And you have nothing to hide," Hannity said. "That means you'll testify under oath, all of that?"
"All of it," Trump said.
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