Washington (CNN) In response to New York Times reporting that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign, President Donald Trump dictated a misleading statement for his son, The Washington Post reported Monday evening.

The Post, citing multiple people with knowledge of the situation, said the original plan in response to the Times' reporting was to issue a truthful statement ahead of the story, but then Trump personally decided to have the statement say Trump Jr. had met with the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to discuss adoption of Russian children by people in the US. The Post reports that Trump dictated the statement while flying back to Washington from the G20 summit in Hamburg, aboard Air Force One.

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One of Trump's advisers told the Post that Trump's move was "unnecessary" and warned that it opened Trump up to criticism that he was seeking to obfuscate the full truth about the meeting.

The adviser said Trump was treating the entire situation as a political problem -- when it is also potentially a legal one, involving several congressional investigations and a Department of Justice special counsel probe led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Increased scrutiny

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