White House aides feel blindsided by the bombshell revelations around Donald Trump Jr.’s campaign meeting with a Russian lawyer, while the president is using his relatively light schedule to watch TV and fume about the latest scandal, according to interviews with half a dozen White House officials and advisers.
Unlike prior Russia-related controversies, the White House is not minimizing the political ramifications of Trump’s eldest son’s decision to meet with the Kremlin-linked lawyer after being offered information that he was told would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
But top West Wing aides are exasperated by their limited ability to steer the damage control and the risk that more damaging news has yet to emerge.
One Trump adviser said the White House is "essentially helpless" because the conduct happened during an "anything goes" campaign that had few rules. This person said he had spoken to several people in the White House on Tuesday and that "none of them knew anything about Donald Trump Jr.'s meetings,” despite the fact that top adviser Jared Kushner was also present for the controversial Trump Tower sit-down.
Many of the White House aides had previously dismissed the Russia stories as "conspiracy bullshit," this person said, but that this development is not being dismissed as that.
Trump had been silent for days about the controversy around his son. His first public response came in the form of a brief statement delivered by White House principal deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday: “My son is a high-quality person, and I applaud his transparency.”
On Tuesday evening, Trump encouraged his Twitter followers to watch his son on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, adding, “He is a great person who loves our country!”
One White House aide said the president's light public schedule has been a function of his upcoming trip to France on Wednesday — and that "it makes sense that you have a couple days off between the one last week and this one."
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