Donald Trump Jr. agrees to Senate committee interview: source

[May 15, 2019]  By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee for the panel's senators to interview him in mid-June, a congressional source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The closed-door appearance could cover a broad array of topics, the source said. These could include what Trump Jr. knows about a Trump Tower project in Moscow and about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr., Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer, the source said.

The agreement for Trump Jr.'s appearance was first reported by the New York Times.

The source disputed news reports suggesting the questioning would be limited to five or six topics pertaining to Trump Jr.'s communications with Russian officials.

A committee spokesperson declined to comment. A lawyer for Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The panel had subpoenaed Trump Jr. to appear before the committee, two congressional sources said last week.

Senators want to question him about testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 which was subsequently contradicted by Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who started his prison sentence this month in part for lying to Congress.

Donald Trump Jr. listens to his father U.S. President Donald Trump speak during a visit to Lake Okechobee and the Herbert Hoover Dike in Canal Point, Florida, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Led by Republican chairman Richard Burr, the intelligence panel is the only committee in the Republican-controlled Senate that has been conducting a bipartisan investigation into allegations of Russian interference in U.S. politics.

The reported subpoena prompted sharp rebukes from some of Trump's staunchest defenders within the party as Republicans sought to move on from a two-year investigation, into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose findings were released in part last month.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish)

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