Chip Off the Old Block: Trump Junior Lies Like Daddy

President Donald Trump has exceeded all expectations with his astonishing volume of lies .

Now we know that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is a chip off the old block.

Trump Juniors true character was on full display in the Russia scandal as he subjected the nation to an appalling barrage of outright lies.

It began earlier this year in March when Junior claimed that he never participated in any scheduled meetings whatsoever with any Russians regarding Trumps presidential campaign. But then the New York Times reported that, in fact, on June 9, 2016, Junior hosted a meeting in his very own offices in Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Caught red-handed.

Ohh, that meeting. Junior responded by dismissing the meeting as being trivial because it was about the adoption of Russian children, which, he said, was not a campaign issue. He tried to further downplay the meeting in various other ways, such as by stating that it was short, introductory, it had no follow up, and that he was just asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance.

But the New York Times further reported that, no, in fact, the entire premise of the meeting was for Junior to receive from Veselnitskaya damaging information about the campaign of Hillary Clinton to benefit the Trump campaign.

Caught red-handed again.

Junior took another swing at it. He admitted that the purpose of the meeting was to receive damaging information, but he tried once more to downplay the meeting as unimportant, including by saying that he did not even know the persons name before the meeting. But the reporting by the New York Times indicated that regardless of whether he knew Veselnitskayas name, Junior knew full well that she was a Russian lawyer connected to the Kremlin.

Caught red-handed yet again.

The New York Times then informed Junior that it was about to publish a story that revealed the contents of a certain chain of emails that contradicted much of what Junior had stated.

Uh oh.

In a petty ploy to deprive the New York Times of the recognition of being first to publish the story, Junior preemptively published the damning emails himself shortly before the end of the period voluntarily afforded to him by the New York Times to comment for the story. In a stunning act of brazen duplicity, Junior proclaimed to the public that his reason for releasing the emails was in order to be totally transparent.

Ha! Its hardly transparent after he had already been caught lying and was about to be exposed anyway.

Does this at least bring us to the end of Juniors lies?

Unfortunately, no.

In an attempt to spin the devastating revelation in his favor, Junior appeared on the friendly Fox News program, Hannity, where the firebrand host, Sean Hannity , miraculously transformed himself into a snowflake for the interview. And Junior obfuscated yet again.

Junior blatantly mischaracterized a phrase from the email chain. In one of his reply emails about receiving the damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Junior had written, I love it, and then followed that with, especially later in the summer.

Obviously, Junior was indicating that the best time to release the damaging information would be later in the summer at a time closer to the election in order to maximize the sabotage.

But in the interview with Hannity, Junior turned the obvious meaning of this phrase on its head by claiming that especially later in the summer meant that the information was not of immediate importance and therefore it was of little significance to him.

Yeah right. That flies in the face of the plain language in the email. And never mind the fact that these same emails show Junior scurrying to quickly set-up the meeting, so he must have deemed it highly important.

Trumps own assessment of his sons performance on Hannity was merely good. Conspicuously absent were any of the typical Trump superlatives, like beautiful, fantastic, or huge. Poor little Junior, damned by faint praise.

Lets not overlook one other doozy of a performance by Junior. On July 24, 2016, in the heat of the campaign, Junior was asked in a CNN interview with Jake Tapper about suggestions by Democrats that Russia seemed to be inserting itself into the election in favor of Trump. I cant think of bigger lies, he proclaimed with righteous indignation. Its disgusting. They will lie and do anything to win.

Of course, this was only a few short weeks after Junior had received the email indicating that Russia was in fact seeking to insert itself in the election in favor of Trump. Now this is a level of hypocrisy that must have made his father proud.

Overall, the degree of Juniors lying is simply astonishing. One lie after another, without even a trace of shame for being caught red-handed in the lie before.

And these are just the pants-on-fire, obvious lies. For a person who lies like this, not a single word that emerges from his Trump-hole can ever be trusted.

This leads to the obvious question: What else is he lying about?

Junior claims that Trump knew absolutely nothing about this meeting until now.

Cmon. Does he think we were all born yesterday?

Junior claims that he had no reason to inform Trump of the meeting because it turned out to be nothing but a dud since Veselnitskaya failed to produce any damaging information against Clinton. So he didnt tell Trump about the meeting because there was nothing to tell.

Nice try, slick.

Even if the meeting itself turned out to be a dud, it is obvious that Junior would have certainly informed Trump about the meeting. He would have informed Trump before the meeting ever took place. He would have informed Trump immediately upon receiving that first email. After all, that email was nothing less than a bombshell.

That first email, sent on June 3, 2016, stated that the damaging information about Clinton originated from none other than the Crown prosecutor of Russia. Good heavens! This means that it came from the very top of the Kremlin, almost certainly from Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. And it was being communicated to the Trump camp clandestinely through a Russian billionaire who was a prior business partner of Trumps and who was also connected to Putin, so it was highly credible.

The email further stated that this is very high level and sensitive information.

And if that werent enough, the email expressly stated that conveying the damaging information was part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump in his presidential campaign.

Whoa! This email announced that the Russian government was secretly mobilizing to support Trump!

Yet, according to Junior, we are to believe that Junior sat on this sensational development without ever telling Trump.

That is utterly preposterous. We all know what really happened. Upon receiving that email, after popping his eyeballs back into his head, Junior shot out of his chair and rushed into Trumps office beaming with delight to tell him all about it.

Trump also claims that he knew nothing about any of this until now. Like father, like son. Its laughable that Trump thinks anyone would fall for that.

Whats more, on June 7, 2016, only hours after Junior had scheduled the meeting with the Russian lawyer to occur two days hence on June 9, 2016, Trump spoke at a campaign event where he teased the audience by telling them that in only a few days (which would have been after the meeting) Trump would give a major speech detailing corrupt dealings by Hillary Clinton.

What was Trump referring to? Perhaps Trump expected to receive the damaging information at the June 9th meeting and then planned to include it in a speech a few days after that.

Now there is an explanation that actually makes sense.

What about Juniors claim that the meeting with Veselnitskaya was a dud and produced nothing? Can we trust Junior about that?

Of course not! We cannot trust Junior about anything. He is probably lying about that, too.

In fact, if the meeting was not a dud, what would Junior say about it? Naturally, Junior would lie and say that it was a dud, even when it wasnt. Obviously.

So what actually occurred in that June 9th meeting? Well, we can only suppose. Perhaps this was the meeting where Trump first learned that the Russians had hacked into the Democratic National Committee and obtained their emails. After all, the DNC hack had already occurred long before the June 9th meeting.

Perhaps in the meeting Veselnitskaya proposed a grand bargain that the Russians would be willing to publicly disclose this trove of hacked DNC emails if Trump would be willing to adopt more favorable policies toward Russia.

Trump, of course, would have jumped at that deal. And lo and behold, only a few days after the meeting, emails hacked by the Russians began to leak out. And sure enough, Trump subsequently espoused astonishing positions favorable to Russia, such as repeatedly praising Putin, suggesting that sanctions should be lifted against Russia, and expressing disapproval for NATO.

Perhaps in the meeting Veselnitskaya might have given Trump a covert method for communicating with Russia going forward. That way, the meeting itself could have remained short with no apparent follow-up so they could all claim that it was uneventful.

Despite this mountain of evidence, both Trump and Junior have repeatedly insisted that there is nothing to the Russia story.

The apple doesnt fall far from the tree.