The rumors of Donald Trump's campaign in collusion with Russia gained new traction as updates emerged on Friday about how Donald Trump's son Trump Jr. failed to disclose the presence of a former Soviet military intelligence officer at the meeting that allegedly centered around dirt on Hillary Clinton.  

Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian American who has a background in the Soviet military where he served in a counter-intelligence unit in the 1980s, was present at the meeting with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president, and Paul Manafort, the campaign manager. 

The presence of Akhmetshin, now a pro-Moscow lobbyist, raised new questions about the controversial meeting and its purpose.

According to the Associated Press,  he accompanied Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer at the center of the meeting who claimed to have documents showing illegal campaign funds flowing to Clinton. 

Akhmetshin denied being an agent of the Russian government. 

It isn't clear if those documents were left behind in Trump Tower, said Akhmetshin, adding he did not know if the documents came from the Russian government. 

Trump Jr. previously said no useful information was given at the meeting.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said, "In light of the actions this week, the e-mails that we saw related to Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russians, now we know a counterintelligence person was in the meeting as well, it is important that we see all of the electronic communication, whether it's direct messaging, Twitter, email, text, whatever it happens to be, among the members of the Trump family and within Trump administration.”

The investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election have been picking up speed. 

On Friday, a former Trump campaign adviser met with a congressional intelligence committee, and more campaign officials are expected to testify in the coming weeks and months.

The scandal currently swirls around a previously undisclosed meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, as President Trump continuously maintains no contact with the Kremlin. 

Earlier this week, Trump Jr. released emails showing interest in meeting Veselnitskaya after being promised damaging information on Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump Senior's rival in the presidential election. 

Veselnitskaya was portrayed in the emails as Russian government lawyer.