Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort scheduled to testify before Senate panel next week
Jessica EstepaDonald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are scheduled to testify next week before a Senate panel.
The Senate Judiciary Committee announced that the two would appear before the panel on July 26 in a public hearing.
The announcement comes after special counsel Robert Mueller cleared the way for the committee to call for pubic testimony from the two men, who have been embroiled in controversy after revelations that they met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer in June 2016.
Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, released email correspondence earlier this month showing he took the meeting in hopes of getting incriminating information about Hillary Clinton – even after he was told it would be coming from the Russian government.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser who also attended the controversial Trump Tower meeting, will also testify next week before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed session, according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak on the record.
"As Mr. Kushner has been saying since March, he has been and is prepared to voluntarily cooperate and provide whatever information he has on the investigations to Congress," Kushner's lawyer Abbe Lowell said. "Working with and being responsive to the schedules of the committees, we have arranged Mr. Kushner's interview with the Senate for July 24. He will continue to cooperate and appreciates the opportunity to assist in putting this matter to rest."
Mueller, the special counsel who is running the Justice Department's investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians who sought to influence the presidential election by hacking Democrats, is also reviewing the Trump Tower meeting.
New York attorney Scott Balber told USA TODAY that his client Ike Kaveladze – one of the participants in the meeting – had been contacted by Mueller's investigators and pledged to cooperate.
Also on Wednesday, the Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya said she would testify before the Senate in order to "clarify" what had happened during the meeting, "but only through lawyers or testifying in the Senate."
The meeting also included Veselnitskaya's translator; Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhemtshin; and Rob Goldstone, the entertainment publicist who set up the meeting.
Contributing: Erin Kelly, David Jackson
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Special counsel Bob Mueller clears way for Trump Jr., Paul Manafort public testimony on Russia