Trump 'obstructed justice' with alleged role in Russia statement, says ex-White House lawyer

Richard Painter, ethics lawyer under George W Bush, says president’s reported drafting of statement on son’s meeting meant ‘boxing witness into false story’

Donald Trump’s alleged role in personally drafting a misleading statement about his

son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer is “obstruction of justice”, a former White House ethics lawyer has said.

“You’re boxing in a witness into a false story,” Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer for George W Bush, told the Guardian. “That puts them under enormous pressure to turn around and lie under oath to be consistent with their story.

“I think it’s obstruction of justice.”

Trump’s White House was rocked on Monday night by another revelation in the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia. A Washington Post report alleged the president dictated the statement that dismissed the significance of a meeting between his son Donald Trump Jr, his top campaign aides Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016.

The statement, which was issued by Donald Trump Jr’s lawyer, required repeated updates as more details of the meeting leaked out.

On Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, essentially confirmed the Post report, contradicting Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, who said the president had had no involvement.

“The statement that Don Jr issued is true,” Sanders said at the daily press briefing. “There is no inaccuracy in the statement. The president weighed in as any father would.”

Trump “weighed in based on the limited information that he had”, she said.

The Post report came as the White House weathered the fallout from a series of dramatic changes in staff and the failure by Republicans to repeal Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

The latest allegations about the meeting in Trump Tower dealt another blow to an already beleaguered president, placing him under the microscope as federal investigators look into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the presidential election. It also raised fresh questions for the justice department, some legal experts said, as special counsel Robert Mueller examines whether Trump obstructed justice.

ACCORDING TO THEGUARDIAN, Donald Trump Jr and the Russia connection

For Trump to draft a “knowingly false” statement for his son, who could be considered a material witness in the Russia investigation, “very likely will be deemed to be obstruction of justice”, Painter said.

In the initial statement, Trump Jr said he and the lawyer “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children”.

Further reporting revealed that Trump Jr had, in fact, taken the meeting having been offered incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, forcing the president’s son to release the email exchange leading up to the meeting.