CNN is reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee has been shown records indicating that mystery phone calls by Donald Trump Jr. ahead of the infamous Trump Tower meeting were not to then-candidate Donald Trump.

Citing “three sources with knowledge of the matter,” CNN says that “Records provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee show the calls were between Trump Jr. and two of his business associates,” and “appear to contradict Democrats’ long-held suspicions that the blocked number was from then-candidate Donald Trump.”

The information came to light recently and could answer one of the key questions over the meeting Trump’s eldest son set up to get Russian dirt on the Clinton campaign. Trump Jr.’s phone calls involving blocked numbers — meaning the numbers are private and do not appear in the phone records — have been a lingering issue as investigators have probed the meeting and whether Trump himself had advance knowledge through any means that his son, son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chair Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

As CNN points out, the report does tend to indicate that Trump Sr. was not the recipient of the blocked calls, but also opens up new questions. CNN was unable to identify the names of the business associates whom Junior contacted, but those names will surely be of interest to the relevant committees, and to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

[featured photo via Getty Images]

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