President Donald Trump's eldest son has cast his meeting with a Russian lawyer as simply an opportunity to learn about Hillary Clinton's "fitness, character or qualifications", insisting to Senate investigators he did not collude with Russia to hurt her campaign against his father.
Donald Trump Jr's description of the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York, delivered in a statement on Thursday at the outset of a Senate panel's interview, provided his most detailed account yet of an encounter that has drawn scrutiny from Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller.
He tried to dismiss concerns about one comment he made in emails before the meeting.
Trump Jr said he was just being polite when he emailed "I love it" to Rob Goldstone, the publicist who was setting up the meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was said to have election-season dirt on Clinton.
Trump Jr said it was "simply a colloquial way of saying that I appreciated Rob's gesture".
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Thursday's interview at the Capitol was the first known instance of Trump Jr giving his version of the meeting in a setting that could expose him to legal jeopardy.
Congressional committees and Mueller's team are investigating whether the Trump campaign co-ordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the election.
A grand jury used by Mueller has already heard testimony about the meeting, which besides Trump Jr, included the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
Trump Jr spoke to committee staff members on Thursday for about five hours behind closed doors.
He later appeared to suggest he would not testify publicly before the committee, saying he trusted "this interview fully satisfied" the panel's inquiry.
