Warner: ‘You saw not only willingness but actually glee from the president’s son’

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Sunday said news of the meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer moves the Russia probe to a new level.

During an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Warner was asked how the president’s son’s meeting changes what the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing.

“This is the first time that the public has seen in black and white on the email thread clear evidence that the Russians — and particularly there was a Russian government effort to try to undermine [Hillary] Clinton, help Trump,” Warner, who is vice chairman of the committee, said.

{mosads}”And what was remarkable was you saw not only willingness but actually glee from the president’s son as well as involvement of the campaign manager and the president’s son-in-law to say in effect, ‘Yes, bring it on.'”

Warner called that “very troubling.”

“And obviously moves our whole investigation to another level,” he said.

Warner noted Trump Jr. has not been “forthcoming” about the meeting, saying he has changed his story about the interaction throughout the week.

“At first he said it was about Russian adoptions. At first there was indication it was just four people,” Warner said.

“It was actually many more people. We don’t know what transpired in that meeting until we get a chance to talk to all of the individuals who participated.”

Warner said he wants to hear from everyone in that meeting and get their “version of the story.”

“As well as I think we may find out there may have been other meetings as well,” he said.

“We don’t know that yet. But what we’ve seen is a constant effort to hide contacts with Russians.”

Warner also brought up reports that White House aide Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, had to amend his federal disclosure form several times to add to the list of foreign contacts.

“What we have, what we know is that this whole group of individuals are not forthcoming about their meetings with Russians until they have proof. Then they have to recant or amend their forms,” Warner said.

“We now have Jared Kushner having to have three separate times where he forgot, conveniently forgot about meetings with Russians.”

When pressed on whether he thinks Kushner should still have his security clearance, Warner said he is giving Kushner the “benefit of the doubt until we get a chance to question him.”

“But it does seem strange to me that he didn’t forget once, not twice, but three separate meetings with senior-level Russian officials,” he said.

“And he conveniently forgot to put any of those on his initial filing.”