U.S. NEWS A3
Thursday 20 July 2017
Trump campaign inner circle called before Senate committees
In this July 17, 2016 photo, Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to appear July 26 before the Senate Judiciary Committee along with former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to a witness list released by the panel. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Continued from front
That meeting will apparently take place behind closed doors. Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Trump Jr., did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about his scheduled testimony. Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said Manafort
received the request Wednesday afternoon and is reading it over. The three men will almost certainly be asked about their attendance at a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer. That gathering was arranged via emails that advertised it would reveal damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Trump rages at Sessions in New York Times interview WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he never would have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.Trump makes the extraordinary statement about Sessions in an interview with the New York
Times Wednesday. He tells the paper that Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from all matters related to Russia was “very unfair to the president.” Trump also addresses the conversation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a dinner for world leaders at a summit in Germany.q
Doctors:
Sen. McCain has brain tumor WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors say Arizona Sen. John McCain has a brain tumor associated with a blood clot that was removed last week. In a statement late Wednesday, doctors reveal that McCain has been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer. The statement says the 80-year-old senator and his family are reviewing further treatment, including a combination of chemo-
therapy and radiation. The senator has been recovering at his Arizona home after doctors at the Mayo Clinic removed a blood clot above his left eye. The doctors say McCain is recovering from his surgery amazingly well and his underlying health is excellent, according to the statement. McCain was the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008. q
The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, also said Wednesday she was ready to testify before the U.S. Senate and “clarify the situation.” The meeting raised new questions about the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Moscow, which are being scrutinized by federal and congressional investigators. These questions have only intensified as the identities of other Russia-connected participants have become known. “I am ready to clarify the situation behind the mass hysteria, but only through lawyers or testifying in the Senate,” Veselnitskaya said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on Kremlinfunded RT television. “If the Senate wishes to hear the real story, I will be happy to speak up and
share everything I wanted to tell Mr. Trump,” she added. That appeared to be a reference to Veselnitskaya’s previous statement that the meeting with Trump Jr. focused on U.S.Russian adoption policies and a U.S. sanctions law. Veselnitskaya has denied working for the Russian government. She has not responded to repeated attempts by The Associated Press to reach her for comment. Congressional investigators in both parties have said they want to hear from those involved in the meeting. The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, Virginia’s Mark Warner, said Wednesday afternoon that the panel hasn’t yet invited Veselnitskaya to testify, but he wants to hear from her and others who
attended. Warner said “it’s still being worked out” whether some of his committee’s more high-profile witnesses, including Trump Jr. and Manafort, should testify publicly or privately. The Senate and House intelligence panels conduct most of their interviews in private, but occasionally hold open hearings. Warner said Trump Jr. has “no security clearances that I am aware of, so he should be able to testify in public.” The GOP chairman of Senate Judiciary panel, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, told Iowa reporters Wednesday that he’s been talking to Trump Jr.’s lawyer and “didn’t get any pushback” when suggesting he testify this week. q