Trump's Son Met with Lawyer Linked to Moscow During Election Campaign

According to reports from the United States, Donald Trump's son and several others met with a lawyer connected to the Kremlin during the U.S. presidential campaign, who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton's campaign. The New York Times and Washington Post reported on July 9 that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, then campaign manager for Trump, were also present at the meeting that took place on June 9, 2016. Kushner is currently a senior advisor to the President of the United States. Manafort soon after ended his activities in Trump's campaign. According to the New York Times, Donald Trump Jr. confirmed his meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer, without naming her in a statement related to recent reports. The New York Times quotes Trump Jr.'s statement saying that during the meeting, 'that woman claimed to have information indicating that individuals connected to Russia had provided financial assistance to the Democratic National Committee (Trump's electoral rival) and supported Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton.' It continues, 'Her words were vague and meaningless. No details or evidence regarding this information were provided or even suggested. It quickly became clear that she had no specific information.' The son of the U.S. President stated that Ms. Veselnitskaya then discussed issues regarding Russian children adopted and the Magnitsky Act from 2012 - related to sanctions against Russians suspected of human rights violations. In Donald Trump Jr.'s opinion, 'it was clear that these were the main topics' that the Russian lawyer wanted to discuss and 'the claim about evidence that might contain useful information was merely a pretext for the meeting.' Mark Corallo, spokesman for the U.S. President's legal team, also issued a statement saying that Donald Trump 'had no knowledge' of the meeting between Natalia Veselnitskaya and his son and 'did not participate in it.' Last year, the U.S. intelligence community publicly concluded that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election. At least two committees in Congress and the FBI are investigating the allegations in this regard. Part of these investigations concerns contacts between Trump campaign members and Russian officials. Mr. Trump has denied the allegations in this regard and has referred to media reports as 'fake news' on several occasions. Senior Russian officials have repeatedly stated that they did not interfere in the U.S. election process.