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Paper Says Trump Jr. Was Aware Of Kremlin Link

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new report says the man who set up a meeting last year for a Russian lawyer to give Donald Trump Jr. potentially damaging material about Hillary Clinton indicated in an email to Trump Jr. that the Russian government was the source of the information.

The New York Times report Monday cited three unnamed people with knowledge of the email from music publicist Rob Goldstone.

Goldstone spoke to The Associated Press earlier Monday to confirm he set up the meeting on behalf of his client, a Russian singer. Goldstone said the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, stated she had information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee that she thought Trump Jr. might find helpful.

Trump Jr. has acknowledged taking the meeting to learn damaging information about Clinton. But this would be the first public word he had been made aware the material could have been emanating from the Kremlin.

A lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. says the New York Times story about his client's meeting with a Russian lawyer last year is "much ado about nothing."

In a statement to The Associated Press, attorney Alan Furtefas says Goldstone contacted Trump Jr. last spring and "suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing" by Clinton.

Furtefas says nothing came of the meeting and Trump's father knew nothing about it.

The White House referred questions to the president's son.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for President Donald Trump's outside legal team, would not comment on the Times story, reiterating only that the president "was not aware of and did not attend the meeting."

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(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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