Donald Trump, Jr. and the Senate Intelligence Committee have reached a deal for the President’s eldest son to appear before the committee behind closed doors in mid-June, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The agreement for Trump Jr.’s testimony comes after the committee issued a subpoena last month that sparked an intense blowback against Republican Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina from Trump Jr.’s allies and many of Burr’s Republican colleagues.
The interview will be limited to two-to-four hours and limited in scope to five-to-six topics, according to the sources. But questions about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and the Trump Tower Moscow project will not be off limits, said two sources familiar with the matter.
Questions on Trump Tower Moscow and the Trump Tower meeting would be constrained to limited followups, a source close to Trump Jr. said, and if any of the same questions are asked from Trump Jr.’s initial 2017 interview, he will refer the committee to his prior testimony.
But a source close the committee said that Trump Jr. would be required to answer questions about discrepancies between his past testimony and what other witnesses have told both the Senate committee and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
The two sides agreed it would be the last time Trump Jr. will be asked to come before the committee in relation to its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the sources said.
Before the agreement was reached, the two sides were locked in a stand-off over the subpoena to Trump Jr. that nearly forced the North Carolina Republican to have to decide whether to hold the President’s son in contempt. Trump Jr. faced a Monday deadline to respond to the committee’s subpoena, but the committee agreed to extend the deadline an additional day as committee aides and Trump Jr.’s lawyers worked to negotiate an agreement, sources said.
Trump Jr.’s legal team had crafted a letter they were ready to send to the committee ahead of the subpoena deadline stating that the President’s son was prepared to be held in contempt, according to one source. The bottom line, the source said, was that Trump Jr. was not coming and was not going to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.