Trump’s son met with Russian lawyer for Clinton information

President Donald Trump’s eldest son has acknowledged that he met a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign to hear information about his father’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump Jr tried to brush off the significance of meeting with a foreign lawyer who held out the possibility of information on an opponent in the US election.

He tweeted sarcastically, “Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent... went nowhere but had to listen.”

Mr Trump Jr’s acknowledgment came as a music publicist said that he set up the meeting on behalf of a client in Moscow named Emin Agalarov, the son of a Moscow-based developer who tried to partner with Mr Trump in a hotel project. The publicist, Rob Goldstone, said the Russian lawyer said she had information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee that she thought Mr Trump Jr might find helpful.

Mr Goldstone said Mr Trump Jr agreed to squeeze the meeting into a tight schedule. Mr Trump Jr’s tweet is the latest addition to an explanation that has shifted since the meeting in June 2016 was first reported by The New York Times on Saturday.

Over the weekend, Mr Trump Jr initially omitted any mention of Ms Clinton from his account of the meeting, saying on Saturday that the discussion focused on a disbanded programme that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children.

A day later, he acknowledged he was told beforehand that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, might have information “helpful” to the Trump campaign, and was told by her during the meeting that she had information about Ms Clinton. It appeared that Mr Trump Jr shifted his account of the meeting after being presented with additional information from The Times, which first reported both the discussion and the prospect of negative information about Ms Clinton.

The Kremlin is denying knowledge of the Russian lawyer or of the meeting. It was the earliest known private one between key aides to the president and a Russian.

Federal and congressional investigators are probing Russian interference in the presidential election and whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russians.

Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and now White House senior adviser, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting. The Times said Mr Trump Jr agreed to the meeting after being promised damaging information about Ms Clinton.