Kurtz: W.H. Has Turned a 1 or 2 Day Story with Trump Jr into a 9 Day or Maybe a 9 Week Story

BANDERAS: "The Associated Press is now reporting that a Russian lobbyist confirmed he was at the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump, Jr.. And now former democratic aides are using controversy over this meeting to taunt to the first family online. A former Obama aide tweeting — a former Clinton aide tweeting tweeting — and there are more. Howard, I want to get to those tweets in just a moment but we must address, the mystery man we have been hearing about, this person who is at the Russia meeting, apparently the trump team had met with him. He is a Russian accused of international hacking, who he is, former soviet counterintelligence officer, a U.S. Citizen. What say you about him attending this meeting?"
KURTZ: "The fact that he was accused in this lawsuit a few years ago of hacking into a company’s computer system has got to be a head snapping detail for anybody who thinks there might be any conduction to Russian hacking in the U.S. Election campaign. In terms of the White House damage control, they have managed to turn what might have been a one or two day story into a nine-day story, may be a nine week story. Donald Trump, Jr., in a slowly acknowledging to “The New York Times” and putting the emails out about the meetings he had never said anything about a former soviet counterintelligence agent also being in that meeting, so to wait until a news organization broker gives the impression that they are not getting out in front of the story, that they are still hiding details when what he should have done is put it all out there, and try to move on."
BANDERAS: " It’s hard to move out on this. This is something that when we talked about the drip, we keep hearing that being said over and over, this is another drip. The Trump Administration tried to get out ahead of “The New York Times” by preventing further drips by going ahead and releasing the emails. At this point, all we knew is that Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort and Derek Kushner were at the meeting in addition to rob goldstone who set it up. This man being in attendance, why did we hear that he was in fact in this meeting, we are talking about someone who has not been known to hide his connections to Russian intelligence.
KURTZ: "It is explicable to me. You have to figure it is going to come out anyway, why not get ahead of it and give your explanation? Donald Trump, Jr., had a long interview with Sean hannity who asked him a couple of times if there was anything else, is anything else going to come out on this, that would’ve been the time. It would have been a story but we wouldn’t be treating it as breaking news today."