Why was lawyer allowed in US, senator asks

The head of the US Senate's judiciary committee wants to know why the Russian lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr was allowed to enter the US.

The US Senate judiciary committee wants information from the departments of State and Homeland Security about a Russian lawyer who met President Donald Trump's eldest son in 2016.

Donald Trump Jr has acknowledged the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya and posted a 2016 email exchange to Twitter on Tuesday that showed he was involved in setting it up.

According the the emails, he agreed to meet the woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about White House rival Hillary Clinton.

Judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, wrote to the departments to ask why Veselnitskaya was allowed to enter the US.

Grassley said that according to court documents, she was denied a visa to stay past January 2016, six months before the New York meeting.

His concerns come as the Senate and House intelligence committees plan to call on Trump Jr to testify.

The House committee's top Democrat, Adam Schiff, told reporters on Tuesday the committee also wanted 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.


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Source: AAP



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