Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump responded via Twitter to suggestions that he was worried that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., would be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for a meeting he took part in to get dirt on then-presidential rival Hillary Clinton.
The meeting also involved former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. The group was set to meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016.
"Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower," 45 tweeted in response to media reports. "This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics — and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!"
Within moments, media coverage began popping up after Trump's Sunday tweet, suggesting that Trump was digging an even bigger hole for Junior.
Lazare told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Monday that the media reports focusing on Trump's tweet are really just being pushed by the Democrats in an effort to "keep this so-called scandal alive."
"[Democrats are] doing everything they can to prolong it: they're hanging on every detail, they're exaggerating the importance of every minor revelation that comes out," Lazare told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "We have been through so much over the last two years, tiny things leaking out, and the Democrats jumping all over it."
"Fever speculation as to what it means, who will be indicted, will this really bring down Trump, etc. This has been going for such a long time; it's completely tedious by this point, and it's really clearly going nowhere," he added.
Aside from concerns related to the meeting, the author told Kiriakou that the Mueller probe could soon come to a close. However, it all depends on how Manafort's trial goes.
"Mueller has his career on the line trying to nail Manafort," Lazare explained. "I mean, if he nails Manafort, if Manafort is convicted, then his investigation has some life left, but if Manafort is acquitted, then Mueller will be dealt a huge blow, and this whole investigation to me will really kind of weaken tremendously."
The 69-year-old is currently on trial for unrelated charges of money laundering in Ukraine. During the trial on Monday, Richard Gates, a business partner of Manafort, stated in his testimony that he was involved in criminal acts with Manafort.
