For over a year, many of the theories of Russian collusion have highlighted a mysterious call to an unpublished number by Donald Trump Jr. in the critical period of the infamous meeting with Russians in Trump Tower. Democratic members apparently received the disappointing news this week that the number has been tracked down and did not belong to President Donald Trump but business associates of his son.
While Senator Richard Blumenthal immediately went on CNN to suggest that he still believes Donald Jr. committed perjury before Congress and could still be indicted. Yet, this was the major allegation of possible perjury cited by countless commentators. There is now exculpatory evidence in favor of both father and son. That certainly does not remove any threat of perjury but the repeated allegations or implications of perjury have lacked any details on what Donald Trump Jr. stated falsely under oath.
Trump Jr.’s phone records included calls with two blocked phone numbers the same day that he spoke with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, the son of a Russian oligarch, connected to June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. This was three days before the Trump Tower meeting.
Chairman Adam Schiff previously wrote that the Democrats were mysteriously blocked in efforts to confirm the caller or callers and “(b)ased on the timing of these calls, the committee must determine whether some of these calls may be between Trump Jr. and Donald J. Trump, including calls concerning the Trump Tower meeting.” Likewise, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has emphasized the importance of the blocked numbers in a Democratic report last year on that panel’s probe of the Trump Tower meeting.