By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of U.S. President Donald Trump, will be interviewed on Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee, a congressional source said on Tuesday.
The closed-door appearance is expected to cover a broad array of topics. Among them will be what Trump Jr. knew about a Trump Tower project in Moscow. Another will be a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting when Trump Jr. and election campaign advisers Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer whom they believed had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic presidential election opponent.
Senators have also wanted to question Trump Jr. about his September 2017 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. During that appearance, a congressional source said, Trump Jr. was asked about his involvement in a plan for a Moscow Trump Tower. Trump Jr. told the Judiciary Committee that he was only "peripherally aware" of the plan, according to an official transcript.
His testimony was later contradicted by testimony from Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer. Cohen last month began serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty in two federal criminal cases.
Cohen also told Congress that some reimbursement checks issued to him for hush-money payments to an adult film star who said she had an affair with Trump were signed by Trump Jr., as well as the Trump Organization's chief financial officer.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Republican Richard Burr, is the only congressional panel doing a genuinely bipartisan investigation of Russian interference in U.S. politics and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in particular.