WH staff lawyers up as special counsel calls them as witnesses to Don Jr. meeting cover-up

White House staffers are scrambling to hire lawyers as special counsel Robert Mueller seeks to interview those who were involved in creating the statement about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian operatives.

CNN notes that Mueller’s questions on this topic “could go to the issue of intent and possible efforts to conceal information during an obstruction of justice investigation.”

The statement Trump Jr. first released to the media was a fabrication, in which he claimed that he “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.” Later emails and other accounts showed that the meeting was about digging up dirt to attack Hillary Clinton with in the presidential campaign.

Donald Trump was directly involved in creating the phony statement, an act that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders laughably described as something “as any father would do.”

Sources now tell CNN that the White House is “trying to figure out legal defense funding” for the staffers who are now seeking legal representation because of the ongoing Russia probes.

Trump Jr. testified in a closed-door session about the meeting in front of the Senate Judiciary committee. In that appearance, he reportedly developed memory problems and was suddenly unable to recall how involved the White House was in crafting his statement.

In his testimony, Trump Jr. offered another explanation for why he was trawling around Russian operatives, claiming now that he wanted to learn about Clinton’s “fitness” for the presidency.

His prepared statement also acknowledged that he intended to speak to his lawyers after the meeting to figure out how he could have used the information he was being promised by the Russians.

As The New York Times noted, the concession “suggests that he knew, or at least suspected, that accepting potentially damaging information about a rival campaign from a foreign country raised thorny legal issues.”

The special counsel investigation has now reached the highest level of the government, with incriminating evidence about Trump’s behavior and that of his inner circle continuing to mount.