A lobbyist who was once a Soviet counter-intelligence officer participated last year in a meeting with senior aides to US President Donald Trump, including his son, and a Russian lawyer, NBC News reported today, adding to allegations of possible connections between Moscow and the November election.
NBC News, which did not identify the Russian-American lobbyist, said some US officials suspected him of still having ties to Russian intelligence, something he denied to the network.
The Associated Press said the lobbyist, whom it identified as Rinat Akhmetshin, confirmed that he had attended the June 2016 meeting in New York's Trump Tower.
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A source familiar with the participants of the meeting confirmed that Mr Akhmetshin was in the room.
The meeting appears to be the most tangible evidence of a connection between Mr Trump's election campaign and Russia, a subject that has prompted investigations by congressional committees and a federal special counsel.
Mr Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former campaign adviser Paul Manafort were also at the meeting, which Donald Trump Jr agreed to attend because he believed he could get damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Here's my statement and the full email chain pic.twitter.com/x050r5n5LQ
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2017
Here is page 4 (which did not post due to space constraints). pic.twitter.com/z1Xi4nr2gq
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2017
Mr Trump Jr, the president's eldest son, did not mention Mr Akhmetshin's presence when he released a series of emails about the meeting earlier this week.
Mr Akhmetshin was not available for comment today. There was no answer at the door of his house in Washington.
The White House had no immediate comment about the NBC News report of a Russian-American lobbyist at the meeting.
Mr Kushner's spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment and Mr Manafort's spokesman Jason Maloni said Mr Manafort had no comment on the meeting.
Accusations by US intelligence agencies that Moscow meddled in the election and colluded with the Trump campaign have dominated the Republican president's first months in office. Russia denies the allegations and Mr Trump said there was no collusion.
The agencies said earlier this year that Russia sought to help Mr Trump win the election by hacking private emails from Democratic Party officials and disseminating false information online.
Mr Trump Jr's lawyer, Alan Futerfas, said he had talked with a person who came to the meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
"He told me specifically he was not working for the Russian government, and in fact laughed when I asked him that question," Mr Futerfas told NBC News. It was not immediately clear if the person he referred to was Mr Akhmetshin.
The lawyer said Mr Trump Jr. knew nothing about the man's background at the time of the meeting.
Mr Trump said on Wednesday that he did not know about his son's meeting until recently. But in a conversation with reporters later that day, Mr Trump said: "In fact, maybe (the meeting) was mentioned at some point," adding he was not told it was about Ms Clinton.
