Weeks before Jared Kushner held a press announcement outside the West Wing to insist that he “did not collude with Russians” during the 2016 presidential campaign, a small group of White House lawyers were privately advocating for Donald Trump’s son-in-law to resign from his senior position within the White House, according to two reports.

On July 8, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. had arranged a meeting at Trump Tower last summer with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, and that Kushner and Paul Manafort had attended. After a series of subsequent revelations, Trump Jr. acknowledged that he had set up the meeting expecting to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to assist his father’s campaign. The White House spun into action, helping craft a response to the scandal. But according to The Wall Street Journal, some members of Trump’s legal team were also deeply concerned about Kushner’s involvement, which they were aware of before the news broke, and “had developed talking points to manage the political fallout, including a statement that would explain a potential Kushner resignation.” The talking points, which were never used, reportedly “expressed regret that the political environment had become so toxic that what he viewed as a standard meeting was becoming a weapon for Mr. Trump’s critics.” The story was confirmed later Monday night by The Washington Post.

Video: Jared Kushner Advisor to the President

The lawyers brought their recommendation to Trump in June, but the president was not convinced, the Journal reports. Among their concerns was the possibility that Kushner, who is being examined by federal and congressional investigators for his multiple interactions with Russian officials throughout the campaign and his family’s real-estate dealings, could open his colleagues up to inquiries from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Another issue was that Kushner initially left off any contacts with foreign officials on his security clearance form, which he has said was an honest error; the form has since been updated to include meetings with more than 100 officials.

Two members of Trump’s legal team told the Journal that, to their knowledge, the plans were never presented to the president. John Dowd, one of the president’s lawyers, told both papers that the subject was raised, but that he disagreed with the premise. Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer, told the Post that “all clandestine efforts to undermine him never gained traction.”

In an 11-page statement delivered to Congress in July before he spent two days on Capitol Hill testifying before congressional committees about the campaign’s activities, Kushner disclosed that he had met with four Russian officials throughout, including meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and a Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin.

Trump’s legal team underwent a shake-up around the same time, with Dowd taking over and Marc Kasowitz, among others, leaving. Members of the original Trump legal team had reportedly wanted to wall off Kushner from discussing the Russia investigation with his father-in-law, in order to prevent the senior adviser from circumventing the president’s lawyers and potentially placing him in legal jeopardy.