Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, returned to Congress on Wednesday to face questions from lawmakers about alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US election and possible collusion with Moscow by his father’s presidential campaign.

Trump arrived shortly before 10am for what was expected to be several hours of questioning by members of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, one of three main congressional committees investigating the matter.

The session was conducted behind closed doors, and Trump Jr was not seen by reporters waiting outside the meeting room, although congressional officials confirmed he had arrived.



The younger Trump testified to the Senate judiciary committee in September. The Senate intelligence committee has also said it wants to talk to him.

Lawmakers said they want to question him about a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York at which he had said he hoped to get information about the “fitness, character and qualifications” of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democrat his father defeated in last year’s race for the White House.

On Tuesday NBC reported that Veselnitskaya said Trump Jr had asked her whether she had evidence of illegal donations to the Clinton Foundation at that meeting.

Trump Jr, like his father, denies collusion with Russia. US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 campaign to boost Trump’s chances of defeating Clinton. Moscow denies any such effort.

The special counsel Robert Mueller, who is also investigating the matter, drew fire from some of Trump’s fellow Republicans at a news conference on Wednesday, ahead of congressional testimony on Thursday by the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray.

The Republican House members accused the Department of Justice, the FBI and Mueller of being biased against Trump and having been too easy on Clinton during the investigation of her use of a private email server while leading the state department.

While the Republicans have complained about the FBI, Clinton has made no secret of her belief that then FBI director James Comey’s announcement, shortly before the election, that the bureau was investigating potential new evidence in the lengthy email inquiry helped cost her the White House.

Timeline The key events in the Trump-Russia investigation Show GCHQ warns US intelligence Britain’s spy agency GCHQ becomes aware of suspicious “interactions” between people with Trump ties and Russian intelligence operatives. In late 2015, GCHQ warns US intelligence. Hacking and 'influence campaign' The first phishing emails begin to hit Democratic individuals (the Democratic National Committee having been hacked months earlier). Hundreds or thousands of impostor accounts appear on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

Trump foreign policy meeting Trump is told about the Russian contacts of at least one aide, and Jeff Sessions shoots down a possible Trump-Putin meeting, according to multiple people present. Later Trump and Sessions repeatedly deny there had ever been such contacts by anyone in the campaign with Russian operatives.

Trump tower meeting Top Trump campaign advisers including Donald Trump Jr meet at Trump Tower with Russian operatives, having been promised "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary." A Russian present says sanctions were discussed. Republican national convention The convention convenes in Cleveland, Ohio. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak attends. Top Trump campaign aides vociferously deny contacts with Russian operatives. WikiLeaks releases 44,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Publication of emails Across the Fall, outlets including WikiLeaks, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks publish tens of thousands of emails stolen from Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Facebook campaign As Russian impostor accounts spread divisive propaganda throughout social media over the Fall, the Trump campaign experiments aggressively with micro-targeting on Facebook, making on an "average day" 50,000-60,000 ads, according to former digital director Brad Parscale

Contacts and denials Top Trump campaign aides Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner and others have dozens of contacts with Russian operatives that are repeatedly denied in public across the Fall. "It never happened," a campaign spokeswoman said two days after the election. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign."

Trump elected Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.

- Presidential transition Trump aides keep up contacts with Russian operatives on matters of policy and appear to hide those conversations from the US government and public. Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about the conversations, then later admitted that Jared Kushner had directed him to seek certain policy commitments from the Russian ambassador.

James Comey fired Trump fires the FBI director. “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said 'you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story'," Trump tells an interviewer two days later.

The Republican representative Matt Gaetz accused investigators of “unprecedented bias” against the president over the Russia matter, compared with their treatment of Clinton.

Jim Jordan, another Republican, told the news conference that investigators have “two standards of justice”.

Trump and some of his closest Republican allies in Congress, have frequently criticized the justice department, arguing that it has focused too many resources on the Russia investigation while neglecting conservative concerns.

Other lawmakers, Republicans as well as Democrats, say the goal of their investigation is to guarantee the integrity of US elections, not to target Trump and his associates.