White House Aide Dismisses Claims of Collusion Between Trump Jr., Russian Lawyer

Sputnik News

18:09 10.07.2017

A White House aide dismissed media reports of alleged collusion between Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer last year.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Discussions between President Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer last year didn't involve presidential politics, White House aide Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on Monday.

"No information was gained, no action was taken, no follow-up whatsoever," Conway told Fox News, referring to the meeting.

Conway added that the mainstream media continues to spin its wheels in an attempt to find Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

"What's important here is that we are at day two hundred or so of no evidence of Russian collusion," Conway said. "They [the mainstream media] want to convert wishful thinking into hard evidence."

On Saturday, US media reported that Trump Jr., along with Paul Manafort, Trump's then-campaign manager, and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, met with a Russian lawyer to discuss the suspended program of adoption of children from Russia by US citizens during 2016 election campaign.

Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Natalia Veselnitskaya in June last year, according to the New York Times.

Veselnitskaya purportedly offered to provide damaging information about rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a pretext for the meeting.

In a Twitter message on Monday, Trump Jr. reiterated the meeting was about Russia's ban on adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans and said there was "no inconsistency" in the latest reports. "In response to further q[uestions], I simply provided more details," the younger Trump stated.

Also on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow was unaware of the meeting, adding that it is impossible to keep track of all Russian lawyers both inside the country and abroad.

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