The snowballing revelations about Donald Trump Jr's meeting with a Russian lawyer during last year's presidential campaign have broadsided the White House, distracting from its agenda as aides grapple with a crisis involving the President's family.
The public has not laid eyes on the President since his return from Europe on Saturday. But in private, Trump has raged against the latest Russia development, with most of his ire directed at the media rather than his son, according to people who have spoken to him in recent days.
The only comment from Trump on the matter for much of the day came in a brief statement via spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said on Tuesday that the President believes his son is “a high-quality person”.
The bombshell revelation that Trump Jr was eager to accept information from the Russian government landed hard on weary White House aides. While staffers have grown accustomed to a good news cycle being overshadowed by the Russia investigations, Trump aides and outside advisers privately acknowledged that this week’s developments felt more serious.
Trump Jr released four pages of emails on Tuesday in which he communicates with an associate trying to arrange a meeting with a Russian lawyer. In the emails, the intermediary says the attorney has negative information about Democrat Hillary Clinton that is part of the Russian government’s efforts to help Trump in the campaign. The then-candidate's son responds: “I love it.”
As has been the pattern for Trump's White House, the controversy has sparked a new round of recriminations among the President's team. Nearly a dozen White House officials and outside advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the mood in the West Wing.
The President, in conversations with confidants, has questioned the quality of advice he has received from senior staff, including chief of staff Reince Priebus. However, Priebus has been a frequent target of criticism for months and even those taking aim at him now said it did not appear as though a shakeup was on the horizon.
An unusual statement on Saturday night from the legal team’s spokesman Mark Corallo appeared to claim Trump Jr, Kushner and Manafort were duped into meeting with the Russian lawyer, and was viewed as particularly unhelpful by senior White House officials.
The revelations come at a pivotal moment for Trump and the Republican Party, as GOP (Grand Old Party) senators race to finish work on a health care overhaul that has divided the party. Trump has largely stayed on the sidelines of the policy negotiations on the measure, but has still publicly pressed GOP senators to wrap up work on legislation this summer and fulfill one of the party's central promises to voters.
“We ought to be disciplined and not be distracted by things that may be legitimate but not right now in our lane,” said Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
The matter has also distracted from a brief stretch in which some White House advisers believed they were finding their footing.
Trump aides, who view clashes with the media as central to the President's agenda, were emboldened when three journalists from CNN resigned after the network withdrew a story about a Trump ally.
Trump's allies were also heartened by his trip to Europe last week, feeling that his speech saluting national pride in Poland was a high point of his Presidency and believing that he held his own during meetings with foreign leaders at an international summit in Germany.
But the afterglow of Trump's trip quickly vanished, replaced once again with questions about the swirling federal and congressional investigations into Russia's election meddling.
And Trump allies took notice on Tuesday when Vice President Mike Pence distanced himself from the revelation by the President's son.
Pence was named Trump's running mate in the middle of July 2016, several weeks after the meeting involving the President's son.
Trump Jr, who is running the family business with his brother, huddled with friends and close business associates after the first stories dropped, his mood shifting from worry to defiance over the story's lifespan, according to confidants.
But White House aides struggled with bringing forth a strong defence against the scandal that also touched Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and senior adviser who attended the 2016 meeting.
Though Sanders called charges of collusion “ridiculous," the White House press briefing remained off-camera for the second consecutive day, limiting the power of her pushback.
And the President himself was slated to stay out of sight. He had no public events scheduled for Wednesday until he departs for another overseas trip, this time to France.
(This article was published in an arrangement with the Associated Press)
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