This week, The Atlantic’s Julia Ioffe published a bombshell investigation revealing that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s hair gel-infused heir to the Twitter troll throne, communicated with WikiLeaks over Twitter direct message in the months leading up to the 2016 general election.
“The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States,” reported Ioffe.
Furthermore, the Twitter DMs show WikiLeaks requesting that Don Jr. push its findings on Twitter (he obliged), and Don Jr. eager to obtain damaging information on his father’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. The WikiLeaks revelations come on the heels of the news that in June 2016, Don Jr. met at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with Kremlin connections, after he was promised “information that would incriminate Hillary.” He responded, “If it’s what you say I love it.”
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Naturally, Late Night host Seth Meyers had a field day with the latest scandal ensnaring the most woefully inept Trump kid.
“Back here at home, [President Trump’s] inner circle is dealing with yet more information about his potential involvement in Russian election meddling. And you’ll never guess which Trump family member is once again mixed up in all of it. I’ll give you a hint: He has the same name as a famous idiot,” said Meyers during the latest edition of his ‘A Closer Look’ segment. He added: “Of course it was Don Jr. He’s the dumbest member of a family in which there is stiff competition. That family still hasn’t finished a game of Trivial Pursuit they started in 1988.”
Meyers then took a few shots at Don Jr.’s younger brother, Eric Trump, best known for resembling a member of House Slytherin and for some seriously shady charity shenanigans.
“Also, it’s not often we can say this, so let’s do it while we can: Today is a good day to be Eric. Give it up for Eric, everybody! I didn’t collude, Father! Although Eric probably couldn’t collude if he tried,” said Meyers.
He proceeded to simulate a Twitter DM conversation between Julian Assange and an incredibly slow Eric Trump wherein Assange begins, “Eric, Julian Assange here. We have some interesting information on the Clinton campaign.” “My name is also Eric,” the younger Trump replies. “Yes, I know. My name is Julian Assange.” “Hi Julian, I’m Eric.” And so on, and so forth.
The comedian then came back to Don Jr., who, after pushing an incredibly specious WikiLeaks item about Clinton wanting to drone Assange (at WikiLeaks’ urging), wrote to the group’s Twitter account: “What’s behind this Wednesday leak I keep reading about?”
One day earlier, Trump adviser Roger Stone had tweeted, “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done #WikiLeaks.” This was, we’d later learn, concerned the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The following week, candidate Trump would proclaim at a rally, “I love WikiLeaks.”
“Now this news adds more context to what we already know about the Trump campaign’s interest in obtaining Hillary’s emails, and its relationship with WikiLeaks. Of course, we already know Don Jr. and several other campaign aides—include one who has since been indicted—actively sought dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians. And now we know that, admittedly on a limited basis, Don Jr. did communicate with WikiLeaks,” Meyers explained.
“Don Jr. then actively sought out WikiLeaks to find out what they had planned,” he continued. “Amazing. He literally inquired, in writing, about a potential crime. Don Jr.’s the kind of guy who, if he ever robbed a bank, would post a selfie from inside the vault.”
