Senate judiciary committee will want to know what happened when the president’s son met Russian individuals with dirt to dish on Hillary Clinton

The investigation into possible Russian collaboration with the Trump campaign to skew the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election moves another step closer to the incumbent in the Oval Office next Wednesday with the scheduled appearance of Donald Trump Jr and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort at a congressional hearing.

The prospect of a public grilling by the Senate judiciary committee of the president’s son promises another live TV sensation to rival the testimony of the former FBI director James Comey last month. The event is being billed as a high-stakes spectacle that will give Congress the chance to glean new details relating to the interactions between key Trump associates and Russian individuals and political interests.

Coming just two days after the closed-door testimony slated for Monday of the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in front of the Senate intelligence committee, the hearings in Room 226 of the Dirksen building will cap a big week on the Russian affair. Suspicions about possible collusion between Moscow and Trump associates to sway the US election in favor of the reality TV celebrity have dogged the White House for months, overshadowing all other aspects of Trump’s young presidency.

Neither of the invited witnesses have yet confirmed that they will actually show up on Wednesday, but such is the intensity of pressure that any absence would arguably be even more sensational than an appearance. Here are some of the talking points they are likely to face should they opt to face the music:

Donald Trump Jr

Top of the priority list for Senators will be the now notorious meeting in Trump Tower that the president’s son allowed to be convened on 9 June last year. Why did the younger Donald allow the meeting to go ahead, knowing, as we have seen from the email chain that he released last week, that the main interlocutor, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was pitched to him as a “Russian government attorney”?

Don Jr’s statement on the meeting gives his explanation, but it raises more questions than it resolves. He said that it quickly became clear that Veselnitskaya “had no meaningful information” to divulge on Hillary Clinton and Russian funding of the Democratic National Committee, but that implied disappointment on his part that more dirt had not been forthcoming.

Democratic committee members can be expected to press him on why he replied “I love it” when offered incriminating material on Clinton from the Russians. Was he not aware that accepting valuable contributions from foreign nationals is an illegal act under campaign finances laws?

Other aggressive lines of inquiry that might well come up are:

· Was the release just days after the Trump Tower meeting of the first batch of almost certainly Russian-hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee a pure coincidence?

· What precisely was in the folder that Veselnitskaya handed over to Don Jr at the meeting, as revealed by another Russian in the room, the lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin?

· Did Don Jr offer to do anything to help in response to Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin’s call for an end to US sanctions against Russia under the Magnitsky Act, a subject raised under the guise of discussing the adoption of Russian children?

· Were any arrangements made for future contacts, and if so were they followed through?

Q&A What is the Magnitsky Act? Show Hide Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who investigated a massive $230m tax fraud in 2007.

After he revealed the scam, Magnitsky was arrested by the same officials whom he had accused of covering up the racket and was imprisoned. He died in jail after being denied medical treatment. Russia accused him of committing the fraud himself and even put him on trial posthumously.

After a long campaign by his associates, the Magnitsky Act was passed by Congress in 2012, banning entry to the US and freezing assets of officials believed to have been involved in Magnitsky's persecution and death. Russia responded by banning a list of US citizens it deemed hostile to Russia, and blocking the adoption of Russian children by US citizens – a controversial move that led critics to suggest the Kremlin was punishing Russia’s most vulnerable children.

Paul Manafort

Though the seasoned political consultant has soaked up a lesser share of the opprobrium that has rained down as a result of the Russian meeting than either Don Jr or Kushner, he was present in the room. As the then campaign manager for the Republican nominee’s bid for the White House he had as much as anyone to gain from receiving Russian dirt on Clinton.

As such he can expect to face firm questioning about the 9 June meeting. But Wednesday’s hearing will also give senators the chance to ask Manafort about his own extensive and highly controversial decade-long dealings within Ukraine and with the orbit of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Those dealings have dogged Manafort for almost a year after he was forced to resign as Trump campaign chairman when the New York Times reported that ledgers, which he dismissed as forgeries, containing $12.7m of undisclosed payments had been found in Ukraine where he advised the former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Senators may want to hear him explain on the record such alleged off-the-books payments, and also why it took him until 27 June to register his firm as a foreign agent earning $17m in the two years before Yanukovych was deposed in 2014.



Other possible lines of inquiry:

· Did he have contact with Russian intelligence officials in the course of the presidential campaign, as reports of alleged US intercepts have suggested?

· Did his financial dealings with Ukraine expose him to a blackmail attempt while he was acting as Trump’s campaign manager, as Politico has alleged?

· Is this week’s report from the New York Times that he was at the same time in debt to pro-Russian interests accurate? If so, what pressure did it put him under to repay favors?

· Did his financial interests in Ukraine lead him to encourage Trump to develop a more pro-Russian foreign policy, which has so far been one of the most notable and contentious aspects of the new presidency?

Glenn Simpson

The Senate judiciary committee has also called the former Wall Street Journal reporter to testify, though Simpson has indicated that he has no intention of complying.

Republicans on the committee, notably its chairman, Chuck Grassley, want to call Simpson to refocus attention away from any Russian collaboration by the Trump team and onto the opposition research dossier that his firm, Fusion GPS, compiled for a Democratic Clinton supporter through the former British spy Christopher Steele.

The conservative members also want to put the spotlight on the scandal, as they see it, of Steele being allowed to compile the dossier without having to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara).

Bill Browder

The former CEO of Hermitage Capital, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, has accepted the invitation to appear before the committee on Wednesday. He will be quizzed by Republican members about the failings of Fara, a concern that he shares having himself filed a Fara complaint against Fusion GPS whom he accuses of working for the Russians.

Browder will also be certain to face questions about the June meeting at Trump Tower. The Magnitsky Act sanctions, which the Russian visitors used the meeting with Don Jr to lobby against, arose as a result of the plundering of Browder’s firm as part of a massive $225m tax fraud.

The scam was exposed by Browder’s employee, Sergei Magnitsky, who was later arrested and died in a Moscow jail under suspicious circumstances. Since then Browder has become a leading advocate for Russian sanctions, and his disapproval of any potential links between Trump associates and the Russian government is likely to come across loud and clear.