Senate Committee Releases 2,500 Pages About 2016 Trump Tower Meeting

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Updated at 11:59 a.m.

The Senate Judiciary Committee released more than 2,500 pages of documents on Wednesday related to its investigation about a meeting in 2016 between top Trump aides and a delegation of Russians who promised to help the campaign.

The material, which includes interview transcripts and other "exhibits," is available here.

The transcripts and notes reaffirm accounts of the meeting that people involved already have given — that Donald Trump Jr. and his compatriots sought "dirt" offered to them on Hillary Clinton and received at least one political intelligence tip but nothing as explosive as they had hoped.

The material does include a few new points:

There is a second suggestion in congressional documents that Trump Jr. may have talked with his father at the time he was arranging the Trump Tower meeting. Trump Jr. told both House intelligence committee and Senate Judiciary Committee investigators that he spoke with someone who had a blocked number but that he couldn't remember whom. Other witnesses have said that Donald Trump has a blocked number. If investigators could establish that Trump Jr. and his father talked in June 2016 about the meeting, it would undercut President Trump's denials that he knew at the time about the delegation of Russians who visited New York and their offers of help to the campaign.

The documents establish in the most detail yet that the Russian attorney who briefed Trump Jr. and his compatriots did offer them at least one political tip for use against Democrats: charges that investors Dirk and Robert Ziff may have funneled money out of Russia to the Democratic National Committee. But lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya did not provide documentation or conclusive proof about the Ziff brothers, according to the new material, and Trump Jr. did not appear interested in doing the additional investigating required to substantiate the claim.

The Judiciary Committee documents also reveal suggestions that a Russian social network, VK, might have offered to help with voter outreach on behalf of Trump to Russian-speaking Americans. That offer does not appear to have translated into an actual digital campaign.

Trump Jr. said in a statement on Wednesday that he was glad the Judiciary Committee had released its record of his statements.

"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry," Trump Jr. said. "The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the committee."

Point of contact

The June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower is one of several known contacts between Trump campaign workers and people connected with the Russian government at a time when Russia was waging a campaign of active measures during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump Jr. convened the meeting with his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the campaign's then-chairman, Paul Manafort. He did so after receiving emails that described an outreach, via a series of intermediaries, from Russia's top federal prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, offering help to the Trump campaign.

President Trump and Trump Jr. initially said the meeting was about "adoptions," then modified their stories after Trump Jr. released the email thread showing he received his offer of help from the Russians.

Members of Congress and the Justice Department are investigating. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, authorized the release of the new material following interviews or other interactions with several of the people involved with the Trump Tower meeting.

"Americans rightly have many questions about this meeting, and today, we are releasing the transcripts and exhibits from interviews we've conducted to allow the public to know what we know," Grassley said. "These materials, taken in their entirety, provide the most complete public picture of the events surrounding the meeting to date. Americans can now review this unfiltered information and arrive at their own conclusions."

Committee Democrats said the details about the meeting revealed in the new trove of documents confirm an inappropriate relationship between Trump campaign aides and the Russian government.

"The June 9, 2016, meeting is one piece of a much larger puzzle and confirms that the Trump campaign was willing to accept Russia's assistance," the Democrats said in a collective statement. "The committee's staff interviews reveal that top Trump campaign officials were frustrated and angry that the meeting did not produce enough damaging information on their opponent."

The House intelligence committee cited Trump Jr.'s denials in completing its report about the Russia imbroglio with a finding that there had been no collusion between the Trump camp and the Russian active measures.

President Trump has cited that finding and argued that the continuing investigations in Congress and by the Justice Department are just a "witch hunt."</s>Donald Trump, Jr. was keen on receiving dirt on Hillary Clinton during a now infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives and believed his father might have had a hand in the messaging on the meeting's purpose issued in the aftermath, congressional testimony released by the Senate Judiciary Committee showed.

The 2,500 pages of testimony revealed that British publicist Ron Goldstone, who helped arrange the rendezvous, believed Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who wanted the meet-up in order to share damaging information on Clinton, was “well connected.”

Goldstone's email to Trump Jr. promising him access to the information, which he said was “part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump,” set off a firestorm of speculation that members of the Trump campaign had worked with Russia during the election.

The June 2016 meeting occurred just a couple of months after former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in London that Russia had damaging information on Clinton.

After WikiLeaks began leaking emails pilfered from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and others affiliated with Clinton, Australia Intelligence reported Papadopoulos's revelations to U.S. intelligence, prompting the FBI to open a probe into Russian meddling. Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty to lying about his efforts to facilitate communications between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The Trump Tower meeting between Veselnitskaya and the younger Trump, as well as Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and former Trump Campaign Manager Paul J. Manafort, has been a target of scrutiny by investigators probing Russian interference and potential collusion.

Despite Veselnitskaya's claims that she acted independently when meeting with the president's inner circle to peddle dirt on Clinton, she reportedly discussed the potentially damaging information with Russia's prosecutor general Yuri Y. Chaika.

Testimony showed that when asked if the president edited or provided input to an issued statement characterizing the meeting as a discussion of Russian adoption, Trump, Jr. said, “He may have commented through [former White House Communications Director] Hope Hicks.” He also said that some of the president's comments might have been incorporated into the final statement, qualifying that it “was an effort through lots of people, mostly counsel.”

The younger Trump told lawmakers he couldn't remember the owner of a blocked number that he called shortly after arranging the Trump Tower meeting. The call lasted 11 minutes. Donald Trump reportedly had a blocked number at his primary residence. "This Trump Tower revelation is either coincidence number 1,739 in the Russia investigation, or something very, very bad happened in 2016," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted Wednesday.</s>The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released nearly 2,000 pages of transcripts from interviews the panel conducted with Donald Trump Jr. and other participants of a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

The release of the Trump Tower transcripts and hundreds of pages of related materials provides the most comprehensive view yet into the circumstances surrounding the controversial meeting and the details of the roughly 20-minute encounter, in which Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kusher and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were expecting dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

The meeting — and whether President Donald Trump’s knew about it — has become a central focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as the congressional Russia investigations. Trump Jr. has told House investigators that he did not communicate with his father about the meeting before it happened. The White House has said the President weighed in on a misleading statement his son issued after the meeting became publicly known, more than a year later.

The committee on Wednesday released transcripts and hundreds of pages of related material from nine people connected to the meeting. The documents contain a record of closed-door committee interviews with five of the eight meeting attendees, including Trump Jr., British music promoter Rob Goldstone, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, translator Anatoli Samochornov and Ike Kaveladze, a Russian with ties to oligarch Aras Agalarov.

RELATED – Recreating June 9: A very consequential day in the 2016 campaign

In the lead-up to the meeting, Goldstone had told Trump Jr. that Veselnitskaya would provide dirt on Clinton from Russian sources. Trump Jr. responded to Goldstone, “if it’s what you say I love it,” ahead of the meeting, and Kushner and Manafort joined Trump’s son at the meeting. But the participants have said Veselnitskaya did not in fact provide dirt on Clinton, instead focusing on overturning the US sanctions on Russia under the Magnitsky Act that the US passed to punish Russian human rights abuses.

The committee’s documents also included responses from Veselnitskaya, as well as a statement from Kushner and a page of notes from Manafort. The committee also included the formal release of the transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, who was not at the Trump Tower meeting but whose transcript was unilaterally released in January by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

In January, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said he planned to release the transcripts because the committee’s interviews connected to the Trump Tower meetings had wrapped up. Democrats had pressed Grassley to subpoena Kushner for his testimony or schedule a public hearing for Trump Jr., but he chose not to do so following Feinstein’s decision to release the Simpson transcript.</s>The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, which has drawn scrutiny over what was supposedly discussed.

Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Below are documents of testimonies and information gathered by the committee from the meeting's attendees.

Notes Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort took during the meeting

Read the rest of the documents here »</s>
• The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.
• Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released roughly 2,000 pages of documents on its investigation into a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, which has drawn scrutiny over what was supposedly discussed.

Several aides from President Donald Trump's campaign, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Below are documents of testimonies and information gathered by the committee from the meeting's attendees.</s>WASHINGTON—A Senate committee on Wednesday released thousands of pages of testimony concerning a 2016 meeting between representatives of Donald Trump and a group of Russians who promised incriminating information about his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee made public more than 2,500 pages of testimony, notes and statements from the eight people who attended the meeting, which occurred at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.</s>Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has released congressional testimony transcripts and other material related to the committee's inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer.

President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya were among those attending the meeting that raised questions about the role Russian interference played in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump Jr. told told Senate investigators in September 2017 that he had agreed to a meeting with Veselnitskaya who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton because he wanted to determine her "fitness" for office.

Grassley signaled that he wanted to release the transcripts from interviews of his committee's investigation into the June 2016 meeting back in January.

In total, the transcripts and related documents are approximately 2,500 pages. CBS News will be posting the highlights from the material, which was released just after 9 a.m. ET.

Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he couldn't remember whether he had discussed the Russia investigation with his father, according to transcripts released Wednesday of his interview with the panel.

Trump Jr. deflected multiple questions during the interview, including whether he discussed the Russia probe with his father. He also said he didn't think there was anything wrong with attending the Trump Tower meeting in which he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.</s>Thousands of pages of interview transcripts with the participants of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting shed new light on how eager Donald Trump Jr. and senior members of the Trump campaign were to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton — and how frustrated and angry they were that the material did not come to fruition.

The nearly 2,000 pages of interviews do not appear to contain information that would change the course of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's team and Russia. But the transcripts released by the Senate Judiciary Committee fill in new details about how Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were expecting a bombshell from Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Rob Goldstone, the British music publicist who arranged the Trump Tower meeting, told the committee he was anticipating a "smoking gun" from Veselnitskaya when he urged Trump Jr. to take the meeting, even though he thought it was a "bad idea and that we shouldn't do it."

"I just sent somebody an email that says I'm setting up a meeting for someone that is going to bring you damaging information about somebody who was running to become the President of the United States," Goldstone said. "I thought that was worthy of the words 'smoking gun,' yes."

The Senate Judiciary Committee's release Wednesday of the Trump Tower transcripts and hundreds of pages of exhibits provide the most comprehensive view yet into the circumstances surrounding the controversial meeting and the details of the roughly 20-minute encounter, in which Trump's team was expecting dirt from Veselnitskaya.

The meeting -- and whether President Trump knew about it -- has become a central focus of Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as the congressional Russia investigations. Trump Jr. has told House investigators that he did not communicate with his father about the meeting before it happened. The White House has said the President weighed in on a misleading statement his son issued after the meeting became publicly known, more than a year later.

Trump Jr. — who had emailed Goldstone ahead of the meeting about the dirt, "if it's what you say I love it" — told congressional investigators he was interested in "listening to information" about Clinton in the June Trump Tower meeting. "I had no way of assessing where it came from, but I was willing to listen," he said.

Trump Jr. also said he did not inform his father about the meeting ahead of time, because he didn't want to bring him "unsubstantiated" information.

And when the damaging information didn't materialize, as Veselnitskaya focused on US sanctions on Russia under the Magnitsky Act that the US passed to punish Russian human rights abuses, the testimony gives new insight into how Trump's team reacted.

"Jared Kushner, who is sitting next to me, appeared somewhat agitated by this and said, 'I really have no idea what you're talking about. Could you please focus a bit more and maybe just start again?'" Goldstone said of Kushner, who was not interviewed by the committee. "And I recall that she began the presentation exactly where she had begun it last time, almost word for word, which seemed, by his body language, to infuriate him even more."

But there is also discrepancy between the meeting participants about how long Kushner was present. While Kushner and Trump Jr. have said the now-White House senior adviser left in the middle of the meeting, others who were there told the committee they remembered Kushner staying the whole time.

The committee on Wednesday released transcripts and hundreds of pages of related material from nine people connected to the meeting. The documents contain a record of closed-door committee interviews with five of the eight meeting attendees, including Trump Jr., Goldstone, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, translator Anatoli Samochornov and Ike Kaveladze, a Russian with ties to oligarch Aras Agalarov.

Following the documents' release, Trump Jr. said the transcripts show he "answered every question asked."

"I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry," Trump Jr. said in a statement, "The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the Committee. I once again thank Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein, as well as other members of the Committee and their staff for their courtesy and professionalism."

The committee's documents also included responses from Veselnitskaya, as well as a statement from Kushner and a page of notes from Manafort. The committee also included the formal release of the transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, who was not at the Trump Tower meeting but whose transcript was unilaterally released in January by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

In January, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said he planned to release the transcripts because the committee's interviews connected to the Trump Tower meetings had wrapped up. Democrats had pressed Grassley to subpoena Kushner for his testimony or schedule a public hearing for Trump Jr., but he chose not to do so following Feinstein's decision to release the Simpson transcript.</s>Epics/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Judiciary Committee this morning released testimony and documents providing new inside accounts of the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides to Donald Trump and Russian emissaries promising damaging political “dirt” on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The roughly 2,500 pages of newly released Senate interviews provide the most detailed look to date into what happened at the June 9, 2016 meeting in the offices of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, decided earlier this year he would permit the release the 2,500 pages of transcripts, a decision welcomed by Democrats.

“Let’s get them out there for everyone to see,” Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters in January.

Trump Jr. said he welcomed the chance for the public to review his testimony.

“I appreciate the opportunity to have assisted the Judiciary Committee in its inquiry,” he said n a statement to ABC News. “The public can now see that for over five hours I answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the Committee.”

The planned gathering occurred two weeks after then-candidate Trump locked up the Republican nomination. Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort all gathered with a Kremlin-connected lawyer and her entourage in Trump Tower in Manhattan after being promised damaging political “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

The June 9 meeting quickly emerged as a key early focus of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference. It was initially pitched to Trump Jr. in an email from music publicist and former tabloid reporter Rob Goldstone who reached out at the request of Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who befriended Trump when his father agreed to sponsor the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. The Agalarov family is prominent in Moscow development circles and holds close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, told the Senate in written answers to question that she had no idea if Trump Jr. knew her background.

“Whether Mr. Trump Jr. knew anything about me and my name is unknown to me,” she said.

Veselnitskaya later revealed in an interview on NBC and in emails obtained by ABC News that – contrary to her earlier denials of Russian government ties to Senate Judiciary Committee investigators – she is, in fact, closely linked to top Kremlin official, Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general. “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she told NBC. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.” The revelation raised new questions about the purpose of the June meeting, which Trump Jr. initially explained away as being merely about Russian adoptions.

Numerous questions have swirled around the controversial private meeting since it first came to light, particularly after the eldest Trump son’s shifting stories about the purpose of the meeting once it became known to reporters.

The Russian participants have largely maintained identical descriptions of the day’s events. Scott Balber, a New York lawyer who represents the Agalarovs and one of the meeting’s participants, Ike Kaveladze, told ABC News “the meeting itself was a big nothing.”

Of Goldstone’s promise of dirt, Balber said: “I think he has said publicly that he quote ‘goosed the story’ for the purpose of getting the folks in the Trump campaign to agree to the meeting.”

The first reports about the meeting, initially in the New York Times on July 8, 2017, sent off shock waves, as it was the first known private meeting between Russian nationals and Trump officials during the campaign.

When Trump Jr. first found out about the New York Times story, he said the meeting was about adoptions and mentioned nothing about a promise of political dirt on his father’s political rival. When the Times presented material to the contrary, the Trump son released a statement saying, “After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

Trump Jr. then said the Russian lawyer turned the focus to Russian adoptions.

President Trump and his staff have insisted he was not involved in the meeting, but the Washington Post in late July 2017 reported that the President dictated his son’s first misleading statement about the meeting to the New York Times, saying the meeting was about adoptions and not campaign-related issues.

After the incident, Trump’s legal team spokesman, Mark Carrollo, according to Michael Wolf in his book “Fire and Fury, “seeing no good outcome — and privately confiding that he believed the meeting on Air Force One represented a likely obstruction of justice — quit.” ABC News first reported that Mueller sought an interview with Corallo afterward.

But Trump Jr. revised his account on Twitter soon after the Times broke the story, publishing his full e-mail exchange with Goldstone, including where he responded, “I love it” when offered the damaging information on Clinton. But – Trump Jr. said in the posting accompanying the release that he thought the information was simply “Political Opposition Research.”

He then went on Fox News’ Sean Hannity show with something of a mea culpa saying, “’In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently,” in reference to the meeting.

Kushner met behind closed doors for two hours with Senate investigators in late July 2017, telling reporters afterward of the handful of meetings he took with Russian officials, including at Trump Tower, “All of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign,” adding unequivocally, “I did not collude with Russians, nor do I know of anyone in the campaign who did.”

Along with Veselnitskaya and her translator, Anatoli Samochornov, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, Goldstone, and Russian businessman Kaveladze attended the meeting.</s>The intermediary, Rob Goldstone, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he proposed a second meeting between Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and members of Trump’s team in November 2016. He said he contacted Trump’s longtime executive assistant at the behest of Aras Agalarov, a Russia-based billionaire who knows President Vladimir Putin of Russia personally.

The follow-up overture is one of the kernels of new information contained in thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits released by the committee, which has been conducting one of the investigations into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians. Agalarov also pushed for the initial get-together, which was organized on the premise that Veselnitskaya would deliver incriminating information on Hillary Clinton to support Trump’s campaign.

The second session never took place. But the invitation shows the determination of Russians with close Kremlin connections to convince the Trump team that the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on a host of Russian officials for human rights abuses, is a mistake. The 2012 law, which froze the bank accounts of some Russian officials and barred them from entering the United States, infuriated Putin.

In a late November 2016 email to Trump’s assistant, Goldstone attached a three-page document marked “confidential” that called for “the launch of a congressional investigation into the circumstances of passing the Magnitsky Act.” He wrote that Agalarov hoped the document would be delivered to “the appropriate team.” Veselnitskaya also attacked the law in the June meeting.

The bulk of records released are transcripts of the committee’s interviews with that meeting’s participants, including the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and members of the Russian contingent led by Veselnitskaya. Most of them have already publicly described their version of events.

Nonetheless, the records reveal some new details about the players involved and what happened after the meeting was reported by The New York Times last summer. Excerpts from the transcripts released by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is the committee’s ranking minority member, highlight how lawyers for the Trump Organization tried to manage the fallout by coordinating the statement of Goldstone and others.

Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that his father may have helped draft the statement that he put out to the press after the meeting became public. But on a number of other questions, he drew a blank, including whether his father uses a blocked phone number.

The excerpts selected by the Democrats also underscore how Agalarov previously tried to act as a bridge between the Kremlin and Trump. When Trump hosted the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013, Agalarov sought to organize a meeting with Putin. But a top Kremlin aide called Trump to apologize, saying Putin could not see him because a tardy foreign leader had disrupted the Russian president’s schedule.

The committee tried to interview all the participants of the Trump Tower meeting. But Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman who is facing fraud and other criminal charges, declined to testify. Kushner gave the committee a statement.

Veselnitskaya, who is close to Agalarov, initially insisted that she acted independently of the Russian government when she visited Trump Tower. But more recently, she has described herself as an informant for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general.

Other witnesses included Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born Washington influence-peddler who has worked with Veselnitskaya for years; Irakly Kaveladze, who represented Agalarov; and Veselnitskaya’s translator, Anatoli Samochornov.

By all accounts, the meeting was a disappointment. The Trump campaign officials were disgruntled that Veselnitskaya’s disparaging information about Clinton amounted to no more than allegations of fraud in Russia by several obscure Democratic donors. At one point, Kaveladze testified, Kushner asked, “Why are here and why are we listening to that Magnitsky Act story?”

Goldstone, who said he expected Veselnitskaya to deliver a “smoking gun,” testified that on his way out the door, he told Donald Trump Jr: “This was hugely embarrassing.”

Veselnitskaya seemed unhappy that her message about the Magnitsky Act seemed to fall on deaf ears. “I know she was expecting something else from the meeting, something bigger,” her translator testified.

The Senate committee’s inquiry has not produced any major revelations, and some critics have claimed that the Republicans are more interested in probing whether the federal law-enforcement authorities were biased against the Trump campaign than whether the campaign conspired with the Russian government to try to sway the presidential election.

Two other congressional committees also mounted investigations into Russia’s interference in the electoral process. The House intelligence committee recently ended its inquiry without any consensus. Democrats and Republicans were fiercely at odds over what the evidence showed and whether the inquiry was a waste of effort or cut short for political reasons.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation is still ongoing, but it appears unlikely to produce major new revelations.

Separately, the Justice Department’s special counsel investigation has indicted 19 people, including Manafort, who has pleaded not guilty, and secured five guilty pleas, including three from Trump associates.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee releases 2,500 pages of documents related to a June 9, 2016 meeting between Donald Trump campaign officials and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.