Records show Trump Jr’s calls ahead of Trump Tower meeting weren’t with father: report

Senate investigators have reportedly obtained records showing that Donald Trump Jr.’s phone calls ahead of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were not with his father, as Democrats have long suspected.

CNN reported Thursday citing three sources with knowledge of the matter that records obtained by the Senate Intelligence Committee show Trump Jr. was speaking with two business associates.

The network said it had not confirmed the identity of the associates or the content of the calls. The associates were not named in the report, which said the information about the blocked number emerged recently.

{mosads}Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) both declined to comment on CNN’s report to The Hill.

Democrats have long suspected that Trump Jr. had been on the phone with then-candidate Donald Trump before the meeting with Jared Kushner, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer promising compromising information on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

CNN reported that the records obtained by the Senate panel could provide some answers to the question of whether President Trump himself had any advance knowledge of the meeting at Trump Tower.

Those involved in the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya have said it did not bear fruit related to dirt on Clinton, Trump’s then-Democratic rival, and instead largely centered on American adoptions of Russian children.

Veselnitskaya was charged with an attempt to block a federal investigation into money laundering in an unrelated case earlier this month.

CNN reported that it was unclear if special counsel Robert Mueller had obtained the phone records showing the identity of the private numbers.

The Trump Tower meeting has been a focus of Mueller’s sprawling probe into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.