Released in a tranche of documents by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, the release of this email in particular is likely to further ignite already-existing inquiries into the younger Trump’s knowledge of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump 2016 campaign during the presidential election held that same year.
The sender of the email in question is redacted. The email was sent to and apparently received by Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, a native of the Republic of Georgia and an employee of Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov. Kaveladze was previously interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over his attendance at the June 9, 2016 meeting.
Aside from Trump Jr.,Veselnitskaya and Kaveladze, the other participants at that meeting included: eventual presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, former Trump 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort, Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, publicist Rob Goldstone and a Russian translator.
The email was sent on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 at 8:50 a.m. and was addressed to “Ike Kaveladze.” The subject line reads: “dt jr”–an obvious reference to Donald Trump Jr.
The email also contains an attachment of a PDF file apparently containing a screenshot of a JPEG image. The controversial email reads, in full:
“Why did he release this e-mail admitting to collusion?”
As mentioned above, the sender of the email was blacked out by government censors. The email also purports to be sent “on behalf of” another redacted name. It does not appear to be the case, however, that this additional redacted name belongs to any particular third party.
But clearly, the email is from someone involved, or related in some way to someone involved, with the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. And it reflects the consensus of any reasonable person. Donald Jr attempted to collude with the Russians. Illegally? We’ll let Mueller sort that one out.