Conservative author Ben Shapiro is warning his ideological allies not to blindly defend Donald Trump Jr.’s “comedy of errors” surrounding Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
President Trump’s eldest son provided emails on Tuesday regarding the June 9, 2016, contact he had with Ms. Veselnitskaya, which was set up by middleman Rob Goldstone. Mr. Shapiro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, appeared on TheBlaze TV’s “Dana” on Tuesday night to talk about the legal and political ramifications surrounding the disclosure.
“This is the most incompetent collusion effort of all time — not unexpected — but it is wildly incompetent,” Mr. Shapiro told host Dana Loesch. “They have Rob Goldstone, who is basically Les Grossman from ’Tropic Thunder’ trying to broker a meeting. There are pictures of him doing bits from old British TV shows, and this is the way they choose to make the collusion happen? The whole thing has basically become a comedy of errors.”
Ms. Veselnitskaya insists that she does not work for the Russian government and Mr. Trump Jr. said on Fox News Channel that he “would have done things a little differently” if he could turn back time.
“The left should not jump to the conclusion that this is proof of collusion because it isn’t,” Mr. Shapiro said. “The right should not jump to the conclusion that collusion is OK because obviously Hillary Clinton had to be finished, right? That I think would be a moral mistake.”
Tuesday’s revelations come against a backdrop of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing FBI investigation into Russia’s meddling into the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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