Donald Trump Jr. just unwittingly waived his own Fifth Amendment rights in Russia scandal

| 8:58 pm EDT July 12, 2017
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The Fifth Amendment is absolute in the sense that it protects you from having to open your mouth to incriminate yourself. But as we’ve already seen in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, the Fifth Amendment is far from absolute under the right conditions, particularly once you’ve opened your mouth. And in the case of Donald Trump Jr., he just unwittingly waived his Fifth Amendment right not testify against himself in the Russia scandal.

Brace yourself, because you’re about to get a legal interpretation from someone who is not an attorney or legal professional. But I don’t need to be one, because this one is so straightforward that even a mere political journalist like me can interpret it fairly easily. In plain speak, the Fifth Amendment says that you don’t have to tell what happened in any given situation. But if you do decide to begin talking about something, there is no Fifth Amendment right to go back to being quiet about it. You can’t, for instance, tell your version of an event and then refuse to answer questions about that event.

By admitting to his meeting with a Russian government operative to try to rig the election in his father’s favor, and by then purposely publishing his emails regarding that meeting, Donald Trump Jr. has now told his version of the event. When he’s inevitably asked to answer questions about the event, whether it’s by Congress, or by the Special Counsel, or in an eventual criminal trial, Trump Jr. must answer those questions; there’s no longer any Fifth Amendment to invoke.

The only real question here, and the one which we’ll have to leave for the legal scholars, is just how widely Donald Trump Jr. has waived his Fifth Amendment rights. For instance, can he now be compelled to answer questions about every meeting or contact he had with any Russians? How about the Russia contacts among other Trump campaign members that he may have witnessed? We’ll see. But legally, it’s pretty clear that he’ll have to answer questions about his meeting.