It seems Donald Trump’s campaign had already hired the services of the law firm now representing the president’s son almost two weeks before news of a meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian attorney sent the White House scrambling. Trump’s campaign paid $50,000 to the law firm of the attorney now representing Donald Trump Jr. on June 27, 13 days before it was publicly revealed that Alan Futerfas would represent the president’s son in the Russia investigations. The payment was for “legal consulting,” according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.
The disclosure form doesn’t specify whether Futerfas’ payment was meant to be for his representation of Trump’s son or someone else. When he was identified as Trump Jr.’s lawyer on Monday, Futerfas did not specify when he was hired.
News of the payment comes as the president’s son has been engulfed in a growing scandal amid news that he met with a Russian lawyer and a Russian-American lobbyist after he was promised potentially damaging information against Hillary Clinton. The campaign has insisted nothing of value came from the meeting.
“He’s a good boy,” Trump said of his son, who is a 39-year-old father of five. “He’s a good kid. And he had a meeting, nothing happened with the meeting. It was a short meeting as he told me—because I only heard about it two or three days ago.”
Another eyebrow-raising revelation from the disclosure forms is that Trump’s campaign paid the Trump Organization more than $89,000 on June 30 for “legal consulting.”
