Russia Meetings And Twitter Memes: 4 Missteps Of Don Jr.

WASHINGTON, DC — Since his father was elected president, Donald Trump Jr. has been embroiled in the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Critics have also skewered him in the press, and he’s picked fights on social media with his father’s detractors.

But he arguably has no one to blame for this all but himself.

Here are four missteps Donald Trump Jr. has made during and after his father’s presidential campaign:

Meeting With Russian Lawyer

In the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who promised to provide the campaign with damaging information about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. After the meeting was exposed in the press, Trump Jr. originally said he went to the meeting, which was also attended by Trump campaign associated Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, to discuss the adoption of Russian children in the United States. The New York Times later reported Trump Jr. attended the meeting because he knew the Russian lawyer could provide information that "would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." After this was exposed, Trump Jr. told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he “"would have done things a little differently."

Messaging With WikiLeaks

The Atlantic revealed on Monday that Trump Jr. exchanged messages on two occasions with the website WikiLeaks via Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign. In one of the exchanges in October 2016, WikiLeaks sent Trump Jr. a link about Clinton criticizing its founder Julian Assange and asked him to share it on social media. Trump responded that he already had, but then asked "What's behind this Wednesday leak I keep hearing about?” WikiLeaks did not respond to the question, but began publishing emails from DNC chief John Podesta the following Wednesday. The New York Times has reported that U.S. intelligence agencies told the Obama administration that Russia agents were behind the hack of the DNC.

Sharing A White Nationalist Meme

In September 2016, Trump Jr. shared a meme on Instagram that depicted Trump campaign surrogates standing side by side, dressed in combat gear in a play on the movie “The Expendables.” The Pepe the Frog internet meme was superimposed over one of the faces of the surrogates. The Pepe meme had been hijacked by the so-called alt-right to spread white nationalism on the internet prior to Trump Jr. sharing it. Trump later said he did not know the symbolism associated with the Pepe meme, telling ABC host George Stephanopoulos: "I've never even heard of Pepe the Frog. I mean, bet you 90 percent of your viewers have never heard of Pepe the Frog. I thought it was a frog in a wig. I thought it was funny. I had no idea there was any connotation there."

Various Twitter Spats

Trump Jr. has taken aim at a number of his father’s critics on Twitter since Trump was elected in 2016. Recently, in the wake of the Sutherland Springs church massacre, in which a gunman killed 26 people inside a small church, Trump Jr. got into a Twitter tiff with Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a vocal critic of President Trump. Flake tweeted that he’d introduced legislation that would bar members of the military who had been convicted of domestic abuse from owning guns. The Sutherland Springs gunman, who served in the military, was able to buy weapons because the Air Force did not report his history of domestic violence to the FBI. "Incredibly proactive considering that law has been on the books since the mid 90s," Trump Jr. responded to Flake. “If being proactive means closing the #DomesticViolenceLoophole exploited by the #SutherlandSprings Texas shooter, you're right,” Flake shot back. Trump Jr. then tweeted: "Wrong. Govt employees, like you, failed to do their job. He did a year for abuse & fracturing his kids skull. Should not have had a gun!"

Exchanges like these have been widely reported in the press, and seized on by critics of Trump Jr. and the president. Washington Post columnist Dana Milibank, for example, published a column this week that focused heavily on Trump Jr.’s Twitter use. In the column, Milibank described the president’s eldest son as “dumb as a post.”

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew