WASHINGTON _ Donald Trump Jr. was offered "high level and sensitive information" last June as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," according to emails that he released Tuesday.
The emails said that a person described as a Russian government attorney had "official documents and information" that would "incriminate" Hillary Clinton "and be very useful to your father."
"If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer," Trump Jr. responded.
The messages from Rob Goldstone, a music promoter with business dealings in Russia who is a friend of Trump Jr.'s, led to a meeting at Trump Tower to which Trump Jr. brought along two other high-level campaign officials, Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, and Paul Manafort, who was the campaign chairman at the time.
Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the meeting. He said he received no useful information from the attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya.
"The entire meeting was the most inane nonsense I ever heard," he wrote, quoting a statement that Goldstone made.
But the contents of the emails clearly indicate that well-connected Russians were reaching out to the campaign beginning last summer, using the offer of damaging information against the Clinton to gain access to the top levels of the campaign.
They also show that top campaign officials were eager to receive the information, even after being told that it came from a foreign government.
The emails also undermine some of Trump Jr.'s previous statements about the meeting.
On Sunday, Trump Jr. had said in a statement that he had "asked Jared and Paul to attend" the session, "but told them nothing of the substance."
The email chain, however, shows that he sent both Kushner and Manafort a message with the subject line "Russia-Clinton-private and confidential." The message they received may have included the full email chain, although the emails Trump released do not make that entirely clear.
It remains unknown whether the Trump campaign ultimately did receive information from the Russian government intended to damage Clinton or whether anyone involved in the campaign shared information with the Russians.
But a U.S. intelligence assessment released in January concluded with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally authorized a campaign to interfere in the American vote with the aim of aiding Trump.
Trump Jr. released the emails minutes after The New York Times published them. He said he was acting "to be totally transparent."
In a statement, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said that the latest disclosures make clear that "the Trump campaign's inner circle met with an agent of a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of an American election."
"The American people face a White House riddled with shadowy Russian connections and desperate to hide the truth," she wrote.
