Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. Scott Olson/Getty Images WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the US administration on Tuesday how the Russian lawyer who met President Donald Trump's son in New York in June 2016 was allowed to enter the United States.

Grassley, in a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said US permission for the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to travel to the United States had been set to expire on Jan. 7, 2016, and her request for an extension had been denied, Grassley's office said in a statement.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Eric Beech)