Donald Trump Jr reportedly told senators investigating the controversial Trump Tower meeting, he did not tell the president about it in advance and that he would “never whisper in his father’s ear”.

The president’s eldest son testified behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, to answer further questions about a meeting he and other senior members of the Trump campaign took with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, in the summer of 2016. Mr Trump Jr, along with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, agreed to the meeting after being promised damaging material about Hillary Clinton from a high level Russian source.

Mr Trump Jr told senators he did not tell his father in advance, and that he also paid little attention to a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow because it was one of many potential deals being considered, CNN said.

In his report on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, Robert Mueller said the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, had claimed he talked to Mr Trump Jr about the Russian project on numerous occasions.

Cohen, who is currently serving a three-year jail term after pleading guilty charges relating to paying hush money to two women who said they had affairs with Mr Trump, also told Congress he believed he heard Mr Trump Jr whispering to his father about the Trump Tower meeting in the days leading up to it, the channel said.

On Wednesday, speaking before members of the Senate judiciary committee, Mr Trump Jr reportedly dismissed this.

As far back as the summer of 2017 when the New York Times revealed details of the meeting, which many commentators believed was proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, Mr Trump had defended his son’s decision.

Speaking on a visit to France in July, 2017, he said: “I think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. Politics isn’t the nicest business in the world, but it’s very standard.”

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After he emerged from Wednesday’s meeting, Mr Trump Jr, 41, said he had been glad to clarify matters.

“I don’t think I changed any of what I said because there was nothing to change,” he said, adding that Cohen was “serving time right now for lying to these very investigative bodies”.

Asked if was worried about having committed perjury, Mr Trump Jr said: “Not at all.”

The committee’s Republican chair, Richard Burr, and senior Democrat Mark Warner, both declined to comment on what Mr Trump Jr had told them.

At the White House, Mr Trump said it was a “really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 per cent O.K and now they want him to testify again”.

He added: “I don’t know why. I have no idea why. But it seems very unfair to me.”