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Friday morning, the Times tells Team Trump they’re working on a story about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. They want to know what was discussed. Team Trump asks for time because of the logistics of the trip. But Team Trump goes into crisis mode with on-going discussions on the sidelines of the summit about how to respond. Obviously, the story is a big deal. And they know there are emails that are considerably more damning than the simple fact of the meeting. (The Times doesn’t seem to have those yet.) Given the critical nature of the story, the role of his son and more there is really no conceivable way President Trump didn’t know about the Times story that was coming.

Trump meets with Putin for their formal meeting. That in itself was a major story since the Russia story was growing rapidly and this was in the aftermath of Trump’s firing of James Comey and the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. With that backdrop, Trump seeks Putin out for a second meeting Friday evening in which no other Americans are present. By his own account, Russian adoptions are a major focus of their chat. The following day, Saturday, with the conference call with the Times canceled, the Times sends Team Trump a list of 14 questions about the meeting. It’s that afternoon, on board Air Force One returning to the United States, that President Trump dictates his son’s statement.

“I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up. I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.”

So the President learns news of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting is going to break. His staff is chattering and brainstorming about it all day. He seeks out President Putin and has a highly irregular private meeting with Putin with no other Americans. He discusses Russian adoptions. The next day he takes over the press response and personally dictates a statement which is false and makes Russian adoptions the centerpiece of the meeting.

It is not only clear that the discussion of adoptions with Putin informed Trump’s false statement. It seems impossible to imagine that Trump didn’t raise the Trump Tower meeting explicitly with Putin during their chat. Indeed, it seems highly likely that that is why he went out of his way to meet with him a second time. Remember, this is the guy who two months earlier bragged to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime-beta/did-putin-help-trump-come-up-with-his-cover-story-pretty-likely