Fox News hosts Shepard Smith ripped into members of the Donald Trump campaign involved in a meeting last year with a Russian attorney, going on a lengthy rant about their "mind-boggling" deception as reports about their discussion continue to come out.
A Russian-American lobbyist who formerly served in the Soviet military said Friday he was present at the meeting last summer between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer with reported ties to the Kremlin that has dominated talk in Washington this week. Trump Jr. is under increased scrutiny after emails showed he expected to get compromising information about Hillary Clinton at the meeting and whether that showed intent of collusion.
Smith, while speaking with "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace Friday afternoon, then announced there was an "eighth person" at the meeting as well, in addition to Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, the Russian attorney, publicist Rob Goldstone, and an interpreter.
Kushner, a White House adviser, recently updated his federal disclosure form several times to include more than 100 foreign contacts.
Smith sounded fed up while speaking with Wallace.
"Jared Kushner filled out his form, I think it's an F-86, saying who he'd met with and what he had done," Smith said. "Very important stuff, you can go to prison for messing it up, you know, intentionally. He went back and added 100 names and places. None of these people made it ... We're still not clean on this, Chris.
"If there's nothing there and that's what they tell us, they tell us there's nothing to this and nothing came of it, there's a nothing burger, it wasn't even memorable, didn't write it down, didn't tell you about it, because it wasn't anything so I didn't even remember it, with a Russian interpreter in the room at Trump Tower. If all of that, why all of these lies? Why is it lie after lie after lie? If you're clean, come out clean."
Smith said his grandmother used to say that "oh, what a tangled web we leave when first we practice to deceive."
"The deception, Chris, is mind boggling," he said. "And there are still people out there who believe we're making it up, and one day they're going to realize we're not, and look around and go, 'Where are we? And why are we getting told all these lies?"
Wallace paused for a moment after Smith finished.
"You know, I don't know what to say. There's a lot of truth to everything that you've said," Wallace said.