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 July 11, 2017, 11:11 AM GMT / Updated July 12, 2017, 12:26 AM GMT By Keir Simmons, Rachel Elbaum and Andrew Rafferty 
 
 MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the presidential campaign denied in an exclusive interview with NBC News that she had any connection to the Kremlin and insisted she met with President Donald Trump’s son in 2016 to discuss sanctions between Russia and the U.S., not to hand over information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign. 
 
 “I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton. It was never my intention to have that,” Natalia Veselnitskaya said. 
 
 Her account appeared to contradict that of Trump Jr., who said on Sunday that the premise of the meeting was to discuss damaging information on Clinton that the lawyer was offering. When asked how Trump Jr. seemed to have the impression that she had information about the Democratic National Committee, she responded: 
 
 “It is quite possible that maybe they were longing for such an information. They wanted it so badly that they could only hear the thought that they wanted.” 
 
 Related: Trump Jr. Tweets His Emails That Led To Russia Meeting 
 
 Trump Jr. has confirmed that the meeting occurred, saying in a statement to The New York Times that he attended "a short introductory meeting" with the lawyer, where the topic of conversation was primarily about adoption. 
 
 On Monday, Trump Jr. seemed to confirm that he had been offered information about Clinton or her campaign but insisted that nothing untoward in the meeting had occurred. 
 
 “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,” he tweeted, seemingly sarcastic. 
 
 The New York Times on Monday reported that Trump Jr. was told in an email before the meeting that the information Veselnitskaya had was part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s candidacy. On Tuesday, Trump Jr. tweeted his email chain showing him making plans to meet with her — and confirming the Times report. 
 
 The email exchange shows an acquaintance with ties to Russia, music publicist Rob Goldstone, telling the son of then-candidate Trump last year that the attorney had “information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” 
 
 But Veselnitskaya, speaking to NBC News prior to Trump Jr. releasing the emails, flatly denied any connection to the Russian government. Kremlin officials said on Monday that they were unfamiliar with the lawyer. 
 
 Veselnitskaya explained she has questioned for many years a story that became the basis for a claim against her client, Russian businessman Denis Katsyv. She sought an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the allegations. 
 
 That claim led to a U.S. law called the Magnitsky Act, which enabled the U.S. to impose sanctions on Russian officials accused of human rights violations. The Magnitsky Act also led the Kremlin to ban the adoption of Russian children by Americans at the end of 2012. 
 
 Part of the information she put together for her client included details about a company run by a former U.S. citizen. She believes this company didn’t pay taxes in either Russia or the U.S. and may also have made donations to the D.N.C. 
 
 These details are what may have sparked the interest of Trump’s campaign, she said. 
 
 Related: Ten Times Trump Denied Collusion With Russia 
 
 She also said that in the meeting, Trump Jr. asked her just one question. 
 
 “The question that I was asked was as follows: whether I had any financial records which might prove that the funds used to sponsor the D.N.C. were coming from inappropriate sources." 
 
 Veselnitskaya had no records and said "it was never my intention to collect any financial records to that end." 
 
 Trump Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya took place on June 9, 2016, two days after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. 
 
 Veselnitskaya described how she had circulated information on "the real circumstances behind the Magnitsky Act," to friends and friends of friends, seeking meetings with anyone who could help facilitate testimony before Congress. 
 
 "I never asked anybody for a particular meeting with Mr. Donald Trump Jr., or with anybody else," she said. 
 
 In describing how the meeting came about, Veselnitskaya didn’t name the person who set it up over the phone while she was in New York for work. 
 
 She added that she now knows that it was arranged in part by pop-star Emin Agalarov, who appeared in a music video with Trump when the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time, was held in Moscow in 2013. She said she has never met Agalarov. 
 
 Related: Trump Campaign Meeting Raises Question: Is Collusion Even a Crime? 
 
 When Veselnitskaya arrived at Trump Tower for the meeting, which she described as banal, she was met by Goldstone, who had also been involved in the pageant. After entering a board room, she was introduced to Trump Jr. 
 
 She described how Trump Jr. ran the meeting, which she said lasted 20-30 minutes. Two other men who she never met by name were also in the room. She said she only realized three days ago who they were after seeing their photos in the news. Those men were Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, who at the time was running the Trump campaign. 
 
 “I could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to 10 minutes, and then he stood up and left the room,” she said. “It was Mr. Jared Kushner. And he never came back, by the way. 
 
 “And the other individual who was in the same meeting, but all the time he was looking at his phone. He was reading something. He never took any active part in the conversation. That was Mr. Manafort." Midway in the interview, she described Manafort as "absent-minded." 
 
 Trump Jr.’s newly appointed lawyer, Alan Futerfas, on Monday said “that Don Jr. had no knowledge as to what specific information, if any, would be discussed” in the meeting. 
 
 He called the reports “much ado about nothing,” and noted that Veselnitskaya was not a government official and had not been a prosecutor since 2001. 
 
 But the email exchange released Tuesday seems to contradict Futerfas' claim that Trump Jr. had no knowledge of what would be discussed in the meeting. 
 
 In response to Goldstone offering information about Hillary Clinton that he said would be incriminating. Trump Jr. responded, “I love it,” the emails show. Later in the exchange, Goldstone wrote, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump." 
 
 Trump Jr. said he was releasing the exchange “to be totally transparent.” But an editor for The New York Times said the emails were made public by Trump Jr. after he was informed the paper was publishing a story about them. 
 
 Veselnitskaya described how difficult the past few days have been since the story broke. 
 
 “Imagine yourself in my shoes. One morning you wake up and all of a sudden you are the focus of all the high ranking, upstream media of the world,” she said. 
 
 “To summarize, those were not the happiest days of my life, I have to say. I have to break up my holiday. I have to take a trip back to Moscow, because I just wanted to be able to answer the questions myself.” 
 
 CORRECTION (July 11, 2017, 10:45 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated the name of Veselnitskaya's client. It is Denis Katsyv, not Kadsyv. 
 
 Keir Simmons reported from Moscow, and Rachel Elbaum from London. ||||| It’s far from clear whether Donald Trump Jr. will end up facing any charges related to his meeting, but several lawyers said there is plenty of fodder for investigators to now look at. | AP Photo Donald Trump Jr. in legal danger for Russia meeting about Clinton dirt GOP and Democratic campaign operatives also refute idea that such a meeting was normal practice during an election. 
 
 Donald Trump Jr. is in a legal danger zone following his acknowledgment that he met during the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties who offered to deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Democratic and Republican lawyers and political operatives alike say explanations about the June 2016 meeting from President Donald Trump’s oldest son are way out of step with common campaign practices when dealing with offers for opposition research. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 But perhaps far more important, his statements put him potentially in legal cross hairs for violating federal criminal statutes prohibiting solicitation or acceptance of anything of value from a foreign national, as well as a conspiracy to defraud the United States. 
 
 Politically, by discussing such a sensitive topic that could prove embarrassing if revealed, Trump Jr. and the other Trump campaign officials in the room for the meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, including Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, may have also exposed themselves to future blackmail threats, the legal experts said. 
 
 Those potential troubles deepened Monday night with a fresh New York Times report alleging that Trump Jr. was sent an email before his meeting with Veselnitskaya indicating the information she had was part of a Russian plan to boost his father in the race against Clinton. 
 
 Trump Jr. first described the Veselnitskaya meeting in a Saturday statement to The New York Times, framing it as a discussion about a program for adoption of Russian children that the Kremlin canceled to retaliate for a U.S. law targeting Russian human rights abusers. But Trump Jr. expanded on his explanation on Sunday, saying the Trump Tower meeting was initially presented to him as a chance to obtain opposition materials about Clinton. 
 
 In his Sunday statement, Trump Jr. said Veselnitskaya gave only “vague, ambiguous” statements during their 20- to 30-minute meeting and that she didn’t have any “meaningful information” about Clinton. Trump Jr. also said he didn’t know the name of the Russian lawyer before their meeting. 
 
 Trump Jr. has hired New York criminal defense attorney Alan Futerfas as his personal attorney for Russia-related matters, Futerfas told POLITICO. On Monday, the president’s son sought to quell the political firestorm by criticizing media coverage about it and insisting that what he did was not unusual for someone in the midst of a presidential campaign. He also emphasized that the meeting “went nowhere.” 
 
 On Monday night, Futerfas responded to the most recent report saying it was "much ado about nothing" and adding that "the bottom line" is that Trump Jr. did "nothing wrong." 
 
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 But legal experts of both political parties say his explanations may not fly if he’s questioned under oath by Congress or Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia — and where perjury and making false statements carry legal consequences that don’t exist when engaging with reporters or on social media. 
 
 “I don't think that is an out,” said Robert Bauer, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama and the Democrat’s 2008 campaign attorney. “If they accept the meeting on the understanding that they will be offered something of value — the opposition research — they are sending a clear signal that they would like to have it.” 
 
 Bauer added that accepting a meeting where there’s an understanding of purpose “raises a question under the federal campaign finance law” for which Trump Jr. could be held accountable. 
 
 Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have both said their panels should interview Trump Jr. On Monday afternoon, Trump Jr. said he plans to cooperate with the investigations. "Happy to work with the committee to pass on what I know," he tweeted. 
 
 A spokesman for Mueller declined comment about whether he would investigate the meeting. 
 
 Legally, Trump Jr. now finds himself in the same boat as a number of other Trump campaign aides already facing scrutiny for their connections to Russia, from former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work on behalf of pro-Kremlin officials in Ukraine to former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is under scrutiny on multiple fronts, including for lobbying on behalf of a Turkish businessman with ties to Russia. The president himself is also reportedly the subject of an obstruction of justice probe by Mueller for firing FBI Director James Comey. 
 
 It’s far from clear whether Trump Jr. will end up facing any charges related to his meeting, but several lawyers said there is plenty of fodder for investigators to look at. 
 
 “This is treason,” Richard Painter, a former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer, wrote Sunday night on Twitter. “He must have known that the only way Russia would get such information was by spying.” 
 
 Painter added in another message: “In the Bush administration we could have had him in custody for questioning by now.” 
 
 Jennifer Taub, a white-collar attorney and Vermont Law School professor, posted on Twitter a 20-part message Monday that cited a specific section of the U.S. criminal code that Trump Jr. may have crossed concerning prohibitions on conspiracy to defraud the U.S. “Potential indictments are coming into clear focus,” she wrote. 
 
 Former Bill Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn said Trump Jr.’s meeting to discuss opposition research during a campaign “is not in and of itself illegal.” But Quinn nonetheless said it “will be a subject of exploration by Mr. Mueller.” 
 
 Norm Eisen, a former chief White House ethics attorney, called the Trump Jr. meeting with the Russian lawyer “very unusual” and cited several parts of federal criminal statute that may have been breached, including the Logan Act, a 1799 law barring private citizens from interfering with diplomatic relations between the U.S. and foreign governments. The law has been enforced only once — more than 200 years ago — but still remains a potent political cudgel. 
 
 “In decades of working on campaigns and as an election lawyer, I have never personally witnessed or authorized anything like this,” Eisen said. “In a normal campaign, this would be the most crimson of red flags and would not be undertaken without counsel and candidate consent, which raises the question of whether Trump himself had any indication of this.” 
 
 Eisen also said the Trump Jr.- Veselnitskaya meeting raises questions about whether “the Trump campaign welcomed Russian help in the form of dirty tricks; if so, that could confer conspiracy liability for any Russian cyber or other crimes that followed.” 
 
 GOP and Democratic campaign operatives said Trump Jr. wasn’t practicing the typical behavior one does when dealing with potential opposition research. 
 
 “Running @marcorubio camp lots of random people asked to meet to share "secret oppo" I was just never dumb enough to meet w/ them #ButWeLost,” Terry Sullivan, the former campaign manager for Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 GOP primary campaign, posted Monday on Twitter. 
 
 Republican strategist Stuart Stevens also posted Sunday night on Twitter about the unusual nature of the Trump Jr. meeting. “When Gore campaign was sent Bush debate brief book, they called FBI. If foreign interests offer you info on former SOS, you call the FBI,” he wrote. 
 
 In an email, former Clinton 2016 campaign manager Robby Mook questioned why the Trump campaign officials would take a meeting “with an associate of a hostile nation state regarding the campaign without knowing the name or identity of that person, just they were Russian and that person had damaging information about Hillary.” 
 
 “The danger of that speaks for itself,” he added. “It gets us one step further to collusion, but also raises serious questions about whether Kushner and others in the Trump administration should be conducting our foreign policy. Staff who have lied about, or concealed meetings with Russians or who have hidden financial ties to Russian oligarchs should be barred from seeing classified information or participating in policymaking until Congress can determine whether they will act in the public interest." 
 
 Jennifer Psaki, the former Obama White House communications director and State Department spokeswoman, also used a previous presidential campaign as an example for pointing out the unusual nature of the meeting. “Imagine if @davidplouffe met with Chinese lawyers with dirt on @SenJohnMcCain. NOT standard for either party to get oppo from foreign agents,” she wrote on Twitter. 
 
 Trump Jr. responded to the latest chapter in the evolving Russia scandal with a series of Twitter posts Monday morning criticizing the news media for their coverage of the story. He shared a New York Post article that called the original New York Times coverage a “big yawn.” He argued that his explanations to the media had not changed. “No inconsistency in statements, meeting ended up being primarily about adoptions. In response to further Q’s I simply provided more details,” he wrote. 
 
 And Trump Jr. — whose representatives did not respond to a request for comment for this story — insisted he hadn’t done anything different concerning opposition research compared to other political candidates. 
 
 “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,” Trump Jr. wrote. 
 
 Gabriel Debenedetti contributed to this report. ||||| As Donald Trump Jr. greeted his Russian-speaking guests in a conference room high atop Trump Tower in June 2016, he cut straight to the chase. 
 
 “I believe you have some information for us,” Trump Jr. said to a Russian lawyer visiting from Moscow, according to one of the attendees. 
 
 Trump Jr. had been expecting dirt on Hillary Clinton, provided as part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s presidential campaign — “potential information about an opponent,” he told congressional investigators, according to documents released Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. 
 
 Also anticipating damaging information on Clinton was Rob Goldstone, the colorful music promoter for a Russian pop star, who had set up the meeting. 
 
 “I expected there to be something that would make people react,” he told the committee. 
 
 Instead, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya droned on about a 2012 law known as the Magnitsky Act that had imposed sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses and has been a particular vexation of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. 
 
 [7 big things we just learned from the Trump Tower meeting transcripts] 
 
 The new details of the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower are drawn from 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits that paint a vivid picture of how Donald Trump’s erstwhile Russian business partners collided with his presidential campaign in a single 20-minute meeting that has been a key focus of investigations by three congressional committees and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. 
 
 The information in the transcripts is unlikely to shift public perceptions of the meeting. Republicans will point to the hours of testimony to argue Trump Jr. might have been unwise to accept the meeting but that he did not collude with the Russian government or get the dirt he expected. 
 
 Democrats will say that the episode shows Trump Jr. was willing to accept Russian help, prompting deep questions about his father’s election effort that have not been answered. 
 
 But the documents provide the public’s best understanding yet about the events that led up to the meeting, as well as the deep anxiety sparked in President Trump’s orbit a year later, when the meeting’s occurrence became public and contradicted Trump’s claims that no one on his campaign had interacted with Russians. 
 
 The release comes as congressional Republicans look to wrap up their parallel investigations. Already, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have issued a report finding no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. Democrats fear the Senate Judiciary Committee could be preparing to do the same soon. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s leadership said Wednesday that its investigation has determined that the Kremlin sought to help Trump win the election but that it will be several more months before the committee addresses the question of collusion. 
 
 The roots of the Trump Tower meeting can be found three years earlier, when the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow, financed by Russian billionaire developer Aras Agalarov and his son, Emin, a pop singer. 
 
 During a boisterous planning meeting in Las Vegas and then over a weekend in Moscow, Trump became friendly with the Russian father-and-son duo, as well as Goldstone, Emin Agalarov’s sharp-tongued British manager. 
 
 Trump pushed repeatedly for the Agalarovs to get him a meeting with Putin in connection with the pageant, Goldstone testified. Trump’s demand, he said, was “the gorilla in the room that had to be addressed, but there seemed to be no answer to address it.” 
 
 An Agalarov employee told the committee that his boss tried to make the meeting happen, “secretly” requesting it through a Russian government employee. 
 
 At first, it looked as though Putin would accommodate Trump. But then the Russian president canceled at the last minute. Instead, he issued an invitation for Trump to attend the Sochi Olympics and a hopeful promise for the future. Putin “said he’d be happy to meet him there or at any future time,” Goldstone testified. 
 
 While in Moscow, Trump attended a reception at an exclusive restaurant, Nobu, where someone asked him his views on Russia, its leader and the economy. “I remember him saying specifically, ‘You have a very strong leader. Our leader is weak,’ ” Goldstone recalled. Asked whom Trump was referring to when he mentioned a weak leader, Goldstone answered: “President Obama.” 
 
 Following the pageant, Trump’s new Russian friends stayed in touch. In May 2015, the month before Trump declared his candidacy for the presidency, Goldstone brought Emin Agalarov to see the celebrity business executive in New York, where the men posed for photos. 
 
 “Maybe next time, I’ll be hosting you guys in the White House,” Goldstone recalled Trump saying. 
 
 A few months later, Goldstone invited Trump to attend a birthday party for Aras Agalarov, also at a Nobu in Moscow. After Trump’s assistant declined, citing his busy campaign schedule, Goldstone tried to sweeten his offer: If Trump attended, perhaps Agalarov could get him that meeting with Putin. Trump did not attend. 
 
 
 
 (Illustration by The Washington Post) 
 
 From Russia, the Agalarovs tracked the campaign. As Super Tuesday approached, Aras Agalarov wrote Trump of his appreciation for the candidate’s campaign trail statement that “the U.S. and Russia should work together more closely.” 
 
 “We would like to wish you success in winning this major ballot and further reinforcing your undisputed status as the front-runner for Republican nomination for U.S. Presidential Election,” Agalarov wrote. 
 
 Goldstone offered other help, passing along an offer of assistance from an executive at the Russian social media company VKontakte, or VK. 
 
 [Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr. has long history of fighting sanctions] 
 
 By June 2016, Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. 
 
 That’s when Emin Agalarov asked Goldstone to get the meeting for the Russian lawyer. Repeatedly, Agalarov told Goldstone that she was “well-connected.” He also said she would bring “damaging information” about Democrats and Clinton, Goldstone recalled. 
 
 
 
 (Illustration by The Washington Post) 
 
 Goldstone testified that he immediately told Agalarov that he believed the meeting was a bad idea. But the Russian was insistent. 
 
 “He said, ‘It doesn’t matter. You just have to get the meeting,’ ” Goldstone said. 
 
 So Goldstone wrote Trump Jr. an enticing email. The lawyer, he wrote, had “very high level and sensitive information” that was part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” 
 
 Trump Jr. responded: “If it’s what you say I love it.” And he quickly moved to schedule time and invite Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, to attend. 
 
 It was a motley group that went to Trump Tower that June afternoon. Besides Goldstone, Agalarov sent a U.S.-based employee, Ike Kaveladze. A Clinton supporter, Kaveladze testified that he considered backing out of the meeting when he got wind that it was intended to hurt the Democrat’s campaign. 
 
 Veselnitskaya, who spoke little English, brought a translator, as well as Rinat Akhmetshin, a veteran of a Soviet counterintelligence unit who is now a Russian American lobbyist and who had been assisting her in efforts to change the Magnitsky Act. 
 
 Trump Jr. told the committee he did not remember Akhmetshin’s presence. Others remembered that he showed up wearing hot pink jeans and a hot pink shirt. 
 
 By consensus, the meeting did not go well. Trump Jr. said it was such a waste of time that he never bothered to inform his father. Goldstone quickly informed Emin Agalarov that it was the most embarrassing thing the pop star had ever asked him to do. 
 
 [Music promoter dangled possible Putin meeting for Trump during campaign] 
 
 The Russian speakers decamped to the Trump Bar just off the lobby on the first floor of Trump Tower. As they had a round of drinks, Aras Agalarov called Kaveladze from Moscow. Kaveladze handed his phone to Veselnitskaya so she could offer her thanks. 
 
 But later, when he was alone, Kaveladze spoke to his boss again. “I said it was complete loss of time,” he recalled. 
 
 By June 2017, when Trump was president and Mueller was investigating Russian interference in the election, Trump’s associates became concerned that the year-old meeting would become public. 
 
 The lawyers are “concerned because it links Don Jr. to officials from Russia — which he has always denied meeting,” Goldstone wrote in an email to Emin Agalarov on June 27. 
 
 Soon after, the New York Times reported the meeting, and lawyers and meeting participants scrambled to come up with an explanation for the encounter. 
 
 Trump himself contributed to an initial statement about the meeting released by his son, Trump Jr. told the committee. It misleadingly stated that it had been “primarily” about the adoption of Russian children by Americans. The Kremlin halted adoptions as retaliation for the Magnitsky Act. His statement did not mention the sanctions law or the offer of dirt on Clinton. 
 
 Shortly after the Times piece appeared, Goldstone fielded an unexpected call from The Washington Post while having lunch in Greece. Reporting the call to Trump lawyers, he assured them that he had offered a similar account. 
 
 “I said only that the meeting appeared to have been about adoption issues and was quickly terminated,” he wrote in an email at the time. 
 
 But within days, Trump Jr. released all of the emails Goldstone had sent him, generating intense scrutiny — and tension between Goldstone and his Russian client. 
 
 Goldstone testified that Emin Agalarov told him he should be pleased he had become so famous. 
 
 “You know, Jeffrey Dahmer was famous. I don’t think he got a lot of work out of it,” Goldstone told Agalarov in one phone call, before hanging up. 
 
 Tom Hamburger, Shane Harris, Sari Horwitz, Spencer Hsu, Julie Tate, Greg Miller, Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky, Ellen Nakashima, Jack Gillum, Josh Dawsey and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Who is Rob Goldstone, whose email to Trump Jr. on Russia caused a sensation? 
 
 Russian social media executive sought to help Trump campaign in 2016, emails show
– Investigators are re-examining overheard conversations in which Russian government officials discuss dealings with Donald Trump's associates, given confirmation of Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer, US officials say. Though the conversations were recorded by US intelligence in early 2015, months before Trump announced his campaign for the presidency, investigators are interested in mentions of meetings between Russian officials and Trump associates, some of which reportedly occurred outside of the US, the Wall Street Journal reports. It isn't clear if the associates referred to were involved in Trump's business interests in Russia or later became part of his presidential campaign. Officials say it's commonplace for Russian officials to discuss players with major business interests in the country, Trump among them. Indeed, intelligence agencies initially took little from the conversations. But Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton has since renewed interest. President Trump said Wednesday he only became aware of the meeting with the lawyer "a couple of days ago," per Reuters. Hours after Trump Jr. confirmed the meeting on June 7, 2016, however, Trump promised in a speech to address Clinton's "corrupt dealings" to give "favorable treatment" to "the Russians," in what the White House is calling a coincidence, reports the New York Times.