Politics

Donald Trump defends son during joint press conference with Macron

President Donald Trump defended his son in a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.

Controversy has engulfed the White House after revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer who offered dirt on then-candidate Hillary Clinton last year.

"I think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. It's called opposition research," Trump said.

Taking so-called opposition research from people outside a political campaign is common. However, it is rare to do so under the pretext that the information involves a foreign government.

Emails released by the younger Trump show he was offered information that could "incriminate" Clinton as part of Russia and its government's "support" for the Trump campaign before taking the meeting.

On Wednesday, his nominee to lead the FBI, Christopher Wray, said that campaigns that receive an offer of information from a foreign government should notify the FBI.

Both the elder and younger Trump have denied that the president knew about the meeting and said he only heard about it recently. Trump Jr. says he got nothing out of it and decided to leave when he found out that the lawyer really wanted to talk about an American policy aimed at punishing Russian human rights abusers.