The US House Intelligence Committee wants Donald Trump Jr to appear before the panel to answer questions about his meeting last year with a Russian lawyer who he believed had information damaging to Hillary Clinton, the committee's top Democrat has said.
Representative Adam Schiff told reporters the committee also wants to interview everyone connected to the June 2016 meeting, which included Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Earlier this evening, President Donald Trump called his eldest son a "high-quality person" after disclosures about the latter's meeting last year with a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have information incriminating Mrs Clinton.
"My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency," Mr Trump said in a brief statement read to reporters by White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.
Ms Sanders told reporters that all other questions on the matter should be referred to either Mr Trump Jr’s lawyer or the president's outside counsel.
Mr Trump Jr posted on Twitter a chain of emails between himself and Rob Goldstone, a publicist who helped to arrange the 9 June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who says she is a private lawyer and denies having Kremlin ties.
"If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer," Mr Trump Jr replied in the email exchange after Mr Goldstone said the information offered was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr Trump".
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
The disclosures could provide ammunition for US investigators probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Mr Trump’s Republican presidential campaign.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to hurt Mrs Clinton and help Mr Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Ms Sanders said Trump was "frustrated" by the focus on Russia.
"The president is, I would say, frustrated with the process of the fact that this continues to be an issue, and he would love for us to be focused on things like ... the economy, on healthcare, on tax reform, on infrastructure," Ms Sanders said.
Asked about the fact that the words "perjury" and "treason" were now being used in the public conversation about the Trump campaign's contacts with Russians, Ms Sanders said, "I think those new words are ridiculous."
Donald Trump Jr releases what he says is entire email exchange relating to his meeting with a Russian lawyer over Clinton allegations pic.twitter.com/R74ZABD6pD
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) July 11, 2017
Mrs Clinton's 2016 US presidential election running mate Tim Kaine this morning said that Mr Trump Jr may have committed treason when he agreed to the meeting.
Tim Kaine told CNN: "We are now beyond obstruction of justice. This is moving into perjury, false statements and even potentially treason."
"The Crown prosecutor of Russia ... offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father," said the 3 June 2016 email to Mr Trump Jr from Mr Goldstone.
"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr Trump," according to the email posted by Mr Trump Jr on Twitter.
"If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer," Mr Trump Jr partly replied in the exchange, which he said represented the entire chain of his emails about the meeting.
The exchange includes at least one error. Russia, which ceased to be a monarchy with the Russian Revolution, has a prosecutor general rather than a "crown prosecutor".
A spokesman for the prosecutor general declined to comment immediately.
Financial markets appeared to have been jarred by the sudden disclosure from Mr Trump Jr.
Following his tweets, the S&P 500 Index slid by about 0.6% in about 20 minutes, although it later recovered slightly.
The dollar index, the broadest measure of the US currency’s strength, weakened by about 0.25% and US bond yields are at their lows of the day.
Stocks sink after Trump Jr. tweets Russia bombshell https://t.co/zfTWkSJNek pic.twitter.com/Fm4pnv9sm0
— Business Insider (@businessinsider) July 11, 2017
The New York Times, which broke news of the meeting with the lawyer, said Mr Trump Jr tweeted out the emails after he was told that the newspaper was about to publish their content, rather than responding to its request for comment.
In a statement accompanying the emails, Mr Trump Jr said he released them "in order to be totally transparent" and played down the meeting, saying the Russian lawyer "had no information to provide".
Instead, he said she wanted to discuss adoptions and the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 US law that sanctioned Russian officials linked to human rights abuses.
After Congress passed the law in 2012, Mr Putin banned US adoption of Russian children.
Legal experts are divided on whether Mr Trump Jr's participation in the meeting with the Russian lawyer could lead to criminal liability.
Collusion in and of itself is not a crime. But if the younger Trump conspired or aided and abetted a criminal action, such as hacking into US computer networks, that could be grounds for criminal charges.
Several lawyers also said the meeting could run afoul of federal election laws barring campaigns from accepting gifts or things of value from foreign nationals.
The emails do not at first glance appear to provide evidence of illegal activity.
However, Mr Goldstone's statement that the promise of incriminating information on Democratic presidential candidate Clinton was "part of Russia and its governments support for Mr Trump" provides new fodder for federal and congressional investigators who are probing Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Russia has denied any interference, and Mr Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.
The disclosure of the emails seems certain to increase both public scrutiny and official inquiries into the question of Russian interference, creating greater political pressure on Mr Trump, whose first six months have been dogged by the issue.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the matter, as are US congressional committees, including the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence panels.
A Senate source said the Senate Intelligence Committee did plan to call the president's son to testify and that it was seeking documents from him.
The Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Burr, declined to comment on its plans.
"I don't draw conclusions until the investigation is completed," Mr Burr told reporters.
