Story highlights House Speaker Paul Ryan deferred to the congressional and DOJ investigations

Donald Trump Jr. said Tuesday in retrospect he would have acted differently

(CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan dodged a question Wednesday related to Donald Trump Jr.'s emails revealing details of a meeting with a Russian lawyer who purportedly offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton, but the Wisconsin Republican said, "it is absolutely unacceptable that Russia -- or any other country" to "meddle in our elections. Period."m

"We have a special counsel that is doing investigation over at the Justice Department, we have an investigation here in the House, we have an investigation in the Senate," Ryan told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference when asked about President Donald Trump's eldest son. "I think it is very important that these professionals and these committees do their job so we can get to the bottom of all of this."

Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference with the US election, as are at least four congressional committees.

Pressed whether he would accept a meeting with someone from a foreign government offering sensitive information about political opponents, Ryan deflected twice, saying, "look, I am not going to go into hypotheticals, only because I think it's important that we get into the bottom of all of this."

The speaker stressed that he supported the appointment of Mueller to serve as the special counsel and said it's important that Muller and the congressional probes "do their jobs and follow these leads wherever they may lay, wherever they may go, and follow the facts."

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