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Donald Trump Jr. Was Told Of Information's Moscow Origin

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

New questions this morning about the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia. At the center of those questions, the president's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. We're tracking the revelation that he met last summer with a Russian lawyer who was peddling damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Overnight, we've learned more detail, including that Trump Jr. was told via email that the Russian government was behind that information. That's according to The New York Times. For more on this, we are joined now by NPR's Domenico Montanaro. And, Domenico, bring us up to speed quickly on what we know and what's still unclear.

DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: So here's what we know. Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, who was the campaign manager, Jared Kushner, an adviser to Donald Trump and son-in-law, met with a Russian national and lawyer with connections to the Kremlin in June 2016. Donald Trump Jr. confirmed that meeting through Twitter. And in a statement, Trump Jr. admits that he met with her because he was told she would have information that would be helpful to the campaign. He says he got no such information during that meeting that could be helpful.

Instead, they talked about an American law that blacklists Russian human rights abusers and the halting of Russian adoption by Russia as a result. That's a subject very intertwined with sanctions. What we don't know is what the information was that was exchanged during the meeting, whether any laws were broken or which ones the FBI is looking into or Senate investigations...

KELLY: OK.

MONTANARO: ...Could be looking into.

KELLY: So a lot still unclear there. Thanks very much, Domenico.

MONTANARO: You got it.

KELLY: NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.