Jared Kushner sought a back channel of communications with the Kremlin, and spoke in December with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak.

At a fund-raising dinner in California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, joined Mr. Trump in dismissing the Russia investigation as a political exercise. Mr. Nunes had once headed the investigation for House Republicans but had to step aside after it was revealed that he was coordinating with the White House.

“The Democrats don’t want an investigation on Russia. They want an independent commission. Why do they want an independent commission? Because they want to continue the narrative that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are best friends, and that’s the reason that he won, because Hillary Clinton would have never lost on her own; it had to be someone else’s fault,” Mr. Nunes said at the April dinner.

Moscow not helping the denials.

President Trump may not be accepting media reports that his son-in-law sought a back channel to the Kremlin, but the Kremlin let it be known that the Russians would welcome one.

Russian state media jumped into the fray Tuesday with a tweet that might not be helpful to the president’s denials, saying that the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, does want an open channel to work on cooling down the war in Syria.