Over 50% of Trump voters don't believe Donald Jr. met with Russians about Clinton dirt
Many voters who say they voted for President Donald Trump don't believe Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer about the potential for damaging information on former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a new poll showed.
Only 45% of self-described Trump voters indicated they believe Trump Jr. met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer, about information that could be harmful to Clinton, according to the poll from Public Policy Polling. Thirty-two percent of Trump voters don't believe that the meeting about potentially harmful Clinton information happened, and 24% indicated that they "aren't sure," according to the poll.
The numbers represented a notable contrast with Clinton voters, 86% said they believe Trump Jr. held the meeting with Veselnitskaya about dirt on Clinton. And in all, 66% of voters said they thought the purpose of the meeting was dirt on Clinton.
A whopping 72% of Trump voters agreed with a survey description of the "Russia story" - the unfolding saga of Russian interference in the election and whether any Trump associates colluded to try ot tip the scales - as "fake news," compared with 9% of Clinton voters. Fifty-one percent of all voters indicated they don't think the Russia story is fake.
Forty-six percent of poll respondents indicated they voted from Trump in the 2016 election.
Trump Jr. himself has said the meeting happened last June. Emails he tweeted out last week between himself and publicist Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who set up the meeting, showed that Goldstone suggested Veselnitskaya "offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." He said it was part of "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze, a US citizen and a representative of Aras and Emin Agalarov, the wealthy Russians who requested that the meeting with Veselnitskaya be arranged, was identified by CNN as the eighth person in the meeting on Tuesday.
Trump Jr. has said nothing came of the meeting and that it focused mostly on Russian lobbying efforts around Russian adoption policy.