Donald Trump Jr. told Senate investigators on Thursday that he took a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who promised to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton because he wanted to determine her “fitness” for the presidency.

His remarks came in a prepared statement he delivered before he was questioned by Senate Judiciary Committee staffers, and were first reported by The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the document.

“To the extent they had information concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate, I believed that I should at least hear them out,” President Trump’s eldest son told the staffers during a hearing at the Capitol.

“Depending on what, if any, information they had, I could then consult with counsel to make an informed decision as to whether to give it further consideration.”

But, he continued, nothing came of the sitdown, which also included a Russian-American lobbyist with ties to the Kremlin as well as Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manaforte.

Trump Jr., who entered the Capitol out of sight of reporters, also denied that he had colluded with Russia during the campaign, the paper reported.

The first son said he wasn’t sure how to proceed once he heard through an intermediary that the lawyer, the Kremlin connected Natalia Veselnitskaya, was offering what was billed as damaging information about the former first lady.

He said he had planned to meet with his lawyers after hearing her out to determine what to do with her information, but it was not immediately clear if those meetings took place.

And he appeared to blame his decision to meet with the Russians on his lack of political experience and the chaotic nature of his father’s unorthodox campaign.

“I had never worked on a campaign before and it was an exhausting, all-encompassing, life-changing experience. Every single day I fielded dozens, if not hundreds, of emails and phone calls,” he said, echoing Kushner’s claim that he was extremely busy when he agreed to sit in on the meeting.

Trump said he had concerns about the invitation he got from Rob Goldstone, a music promoter he knew from his business dealings in Russia.

“Since I had no additional information to validate what Rob was saying, I did not quite know what to make of his email. I had no way to gauge the reliability, credibility or accuracy of any of the things he was saying,” he said.

“As it later turned out, my skepticism was justified. The meeting provided no meaningful information and turned out not to be about what had been represented.”

Trump had said in an email to Goldstone prior to the meeting that if the dirt about the former first lady was as juicy as was suggested, “I love it.”

But on Thursday he said “I love it” didn’t mean what it sounded like.

“As much as some have made of my using the phrase ‘I love it,’ it was simply a colloquial way of saying that I appreciated Rob’s gesture,” he said in the statement.