Dem fumes over Team Trump’s ‘pattern of convenient forgetfulness’

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee vented frustration on Monday with what he described as a “pattern of convenient forgetfulness” by Trump campaign officials over undisclosed meetings with Russians.

President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. has said he will brief Senate investigators on a previously undisclosed campaign meeting he arranged and attended last June with a Russian lawyer who had offered opposition research on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said his panel intends to interview Trump Jr., as well as Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, both of whom were reportedly present for the meeting that was first reported this weekend by the New York Times.

{mosads}“What continues to bother me is this pattern, and I think we’re up to 20-plus examples, of senior-level officials, and even you could argue the president himself, continues to deny they’ve had any contacts with Russians until the proof comes out that there were contacts, multiple contacts,” Warner told reporters. “And then senior officials recant or amend their filings … a rational person would ask, why didn’t they remember these meetings? I think these meetings were pretty important.”

The White House insists that no information was gleaned from the meeting Trump Jr. arranged and that it is normal for campaigns to seek out potentially damaging information on a rival.

“Don Jr. did not collude with anybody to influence the election,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Monday. “Don Jr. took a very short meeting from which there was absolutely no follow-up.”

Warner on Monday said the question of collusion would be left to special counsel Robert Mueller.

“I will say this is the first time the public has seen clear evidence that senior level officials of the Trump campaign met with agents of a foreign government to try and obtain information that would discredit Hillary Clinton,” he said. “I think that’s pretty significant.”

Warner would not say when he first learned about the Trump Jr. meeting.

Hucakabee Sanders argued that the news only leaked after it was volunteered to Congressional investigators.

Previously, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from legal matters pertaining to the Russia investigation after it was revealed he did not disclose a meeting he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign.

Democrats have also called for Kushner’s security clearance to be revoked after a report that he sought to establish backchannel communications with Moscow.