Trump Tower meeting emails ‘really bad,’ aide told Trump

In this March 29, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump points to outgoing White House Communications Director Hope Hicks on her last day before he boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. The report of special counsel Robert Mueller shined a light on the much-discussed meeting of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and campaign officials with several people linked to Russia. When Kushner brought emails about that meeting to the White House, the president's communications director didn't sugarcoat her opinion: She told Donald Trump the emails were "really bad." (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) In this March 29, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump points to outgoing White House Communications Director Hope Hicks on her last day before he boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. The report of special counsel Robert Mueller shined a light on the much-discussed meeting of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and campaign officials with several people linked to Russia. When Kushner brought emails about that meeting to the White House, the president's communications director didn't sugarcoat her opinion: She told Donald Trump the emails were "really bad." (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

By Associated Press April 25, 2019 6 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – The president’s communications director didn’t sugarcoat it: The emails, Hope Hicks told Donald Trump, were “really bad.”

They concerned an as-yet unpublicized meeting in Trump Tower a year earlier involving Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The emails showed how the president’s oldest son had accepted a meeting with a Russian lawyer with the promise of receiving dirt on his father’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Not only that, he’d been told the dirt was part of the Russian government’s ongoing support for his father.

“I love it,” Trump Jr. had replied.

When Kushner tried to bring the documents to Trump’s attention, on June 22, 2017, his father-in-law didn’t want to discuss them, and shut the conversation down, Hicks said.