Republican Congressman criticizes Trump son over Russian meeting

FILE – In this July 28, 2011, file photo, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Democrats’ new congressional map forced Kinzinger to challenge the veteran Rep. Don Manzullo in the 16th Congressional District in the March 20, 2012 Illinois primary. Kinzinger was one of five victorious freshman Republicans in 2008. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg, File)

South Suburban Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger is criticizing Donald Trump Jr. for taking a meeting last summer with Russians who were promising negative information about Hillary Clinton.

Kinzinger told “The Big John and Ramblin’ Ray Show” on WLS that Trump’s son should have called the FBI when he got the invitation, instead of immediately accepting it. Even if the meeting was not illegal, Kinzinger said that does not make it right.

“Our bar in government shouldn’t be ‘It’s OK if it’s not illegal.’ It should be ‘We expect the highest standards of our President and anybody around him who’s running,’ and I’ll tell you what, we can never get to a point where taking a meeting with the Russians, knowing that this is Russian provided information, what ever it is, at no point can we ever say that is ever acceptable, ever.”

Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Special Counsel investigators are seeking information from the still-publicly unidentified eighth person who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower.

The person’s attorney Scott Balber told CNN’s amela Brown, “The eighth person has been identified by prosecutors and we are cooperating fully with prosecutors as a result of the investigation. To preserve the integrity of the investigation we are declining to identify him at this time,” Balber told CNN.

Balber said his client hasn’t been interviewed yet and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have not reached out about Emin and Aras Agalarov, whom he also represents.
Emin Agalarov is a Russian-Azerbaijani pop star who has previously done business with the Trumps alongside his father, Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate billionaire with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The eighth person has been described by sources familiar with the circumstances as an employee and US representative of the Agalarovs.
Balber said the individual is a long-time US citizen who speaks fluent Russian and has “never had any engagement with the Russian government in any capacity.”

According to his client, the individual was asked to go to the meeting at Trump Tower last June with the understanding he would be Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya’s translator because she didn’t speak English, Balber said. He then realized at the meeting that she already had a translator that she had brought with her. Balber said his client remembers discussions surrounding the Magnitsky Act — a 2012 US law that imposed sanctions on Russian individuals — and the retaliatory Kremlin-imposed ban on adoption of Russian children by American citizens.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

(CNN’S Pamela Brown contributed to this report)