Your comments are equally wrong about the first statement, as well.
I think you don’t understand how this looks. It was a lie by omission. The clarification came only after the NYT revealed that it had more information.
The second statement omitted the fact that Donald Trump Jr. knew ahead of time that the contact was via the Russian government. Then it turns out that there were a lot more people at the meeting than originally revealed.
The series of clarifications had a “yes, but...” feel to them.