Meeting adds fuel to investigation

– US President Donald Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law and former election campaign manager met a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin soon after Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, the New York Times reported yesterday.

The meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan on June 9, 2016, was the first confirmed private meeting between members of the president’s inner circle and a Russian national, the newspaper reported, citing confidential government records and interviews with people familiar with the documents.

Donald Trump Jr confirmed the get-together in a statement, describing it as “a short introductory meeting” that focused mainly on the issue of child adoption. He said he also asked Trump’s son-inlaw, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort to take part in the meeting. A lawyer for Kushner said Trump’s son-inlaw “briefly attended”.

A federal special counsel and several congressional committees are investigating possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian representatives, as part of a larger probe into allegations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election.

The Times article appeared a day after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the allegations of election meddling during the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.