Testifying before Congress on Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. cited attorney-client privilege and refused to discuss a phone call he had with his father about how to handle the fallout from his June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer. He told the House Intelligence Committee that a lawyer was in the room during the call. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters: “I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” adding “that’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege” and that “the presence of counsel does not make communications between father and son a privilege.”  What, if anything, the president knew about the Trump Tower meeting as a presidential candidate — and his role in drafting a misleading statement about it once he was president and it became public — are key questions for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian interference in the election.

L’il Trump told the committee about his earlier discussions with the White House adviser Hope Hicks about how to respond to the coming New York Times article about the June meeting, first published on July 8. As you recall, his initial statement said the Trump Tower meeting was primarily about the ability of Americans to adopt Russian children. It made no mention of any promise of incriminating information from the Russian government against Mrs. Clinton.