US President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his son Donald Jr, who is under fire for meeting with a Russian lawyer claiming to offer him incriminating material on Hillary Clinton during last year's election campaign.
The president stood by Donald Jr during a visit to Paris Thursday during his first public remarks about the scandal.
"My son is a wonderful young man. He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer. Not a government lawyer, but a Russian lawyer," he said. "From a practical standpoint, most people would have taken that meeting."
This has reignited allegations about Russia's role in the vote. The scandal over the younger Trump's willingness to meet the lawyer has put his father's top aides in legal jeopardy, casting a pall over the President's efforts to remake the political agenda and may yet imperil his presidency.
Donald Trump Jr. /VCG photo
Trump earlier suggested he may have known about the meeting. He said, "maybe it was mentioned at some point," but nevertheless insisted he did not know what it was about.
Despite the controversy and investigations in Washington over the Trump campaign's alleged ties to the Kremlin, Trump told reporters accompanying him on his flight to France that he would be willing to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the White House.
Such a visit would have to come "at the right time. I don't think this is the right time, but the answer is yes, I would."
The US president was in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron, with both men talking of a newfound friendship.
Macron rolled out the red carpet, hoping to improve relations and persuade the US president to change his mind about withdrawing from the global Paris agreement on climate change.
Macron said earlier that he had a "strong disagreement" with Trump about the agreement, which the US leader plans to renegotiate.
Trump said cryptically: "Something could happen with respect to the Paris accord. We'll see what happens." But the tone of their press conference and warm body language was at odds with broader concerns about the transatlantic relationship since Trump's victory in November last year.
Macron, only 39 years old and elected in May, said he looked forward to a "dinner between friends" later Thursday when he and his wife enjoyed a Michelin-starred meal with the Trumps in a restaurant at the Eiffel Tower.
The US president praised Macron as a "great president", saying "he is going to run this country right."
"The friendship between our two nations and ourselves is unbreakable," Trump said after talks at the French presidential palace focused on joint US-French efforts to fight terrorism in the Middle East and Africa.
Macron had warned on the eve of Trump's arrival that "the Western world is fracturing since the American election" and that the world order established after World War II was under threat.
(Source: AFP)
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