This new report about Donald Trump Jr’s phone calls is far too conveniently timed – and it doesn’t add up at all
Yesterday the House Intel Committee finally got its full roster of members, ensuring a vote to turn over Donald Trump Jr’s testimony transcript to Robert Mueller, and ensuring that Junior gets arrested for perjury. Now, at the most convenient time possible, there’s a new report claiming that the phone call Trump Jr received just before his Trump Tower meeting wasn’t actually with his father. Sorry, not buying it.
I’m not looking to disparage the CNN reporters who have posted this story. It’s just that nothing adds up here. Three “sources with knowledge of the matter” are suddenly telling CNN that the Senate Intel Committee has received records showing that Donald Trump Jr actually had innocent phone calls with two random business associates just before the Trump Tower meeting. The list of improbable things about this scenario is mind boggling.
First, are we supposed to believe that the phone calls were innocent in nature, but Donald Trump Jr nonetheless made a point of refusing to discuss the phone calls when he was asked? You don’t cover something up in a congressional investigation if there’s nothing that needs to be covered. Second, why are these supposedly exonerating records only being given to the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, and not to the Democratic-controlled House Intelligence Committee? Wouldn’t the people holding the evidence want to put it in as many hands as possible? For that matter, if it’s exonerating, why not release it publicly?
Third, if this evidence was given privately to the Senate Intel Committee, there are only two ways CNN could have found out about it. One is if the Republicans on the committee decided to leak it to the media, which would be suspicious in its own right. The other would be if the supplier of the evidence told CNN about it, but wasn’t willing to actually show the evidence to CNN, which would make no sense unless the “evidence” was suspect, and the supplier was afraid CNN would study it and figure out it was illegitimate.
Fourth, Donald Trump Jr’s fate was sealed yesterday when the House Intel Committee – which has been sitting on transcripts that will send him to prison regardless of what’s being reported today – was finally seated. What are the odds that, the very next day, just before Trump Jr’s upcoming arrest, evidence magically surfaces that just happens to exonerate Donald Trump in Donald Trump Jr’s crime spree?
Then there’s this weird sentence in the CNN report: “It’s not evident whether special counsel Robert Mueller has also obtained the phone records disclosing the identity of the private numbers, but the Trump Organization has provided both Mueller and Congress with a range of Russia-related documents.” It sounds like CNN may be hinting that people in the Trump Organization are also the source of its report, and if that’s the case, then the sourcing is 100% bogus. Are we supposed to believe that Donald Trump’s employees would be honest about this?
The timing, circumstances, suspect process, and pure illogicality of this report are enough to dictate that CNN tell us more about the nature of these three “sources,” and why it’s choosing to take these sources at their word when they’re apparently unwilling to show CNN the records in question. Considering all the lying and scheming that Trump and Trump Jr have been caught up in throughout this scandal, particularly with regard to coverups and obstruction of justice, there is every reason to suspect that they’ve indirectly fed CNN an illegitimate story for the purpose of falsely making Trump appear innocent and vindicated just before Junior is indicted and arrested.
