Donald Trump Jr and Paul Manafort to testify before Congress about Russia

Donald Trump Jr, along with the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, are scheduled to testify publicly before Congress on 26 July.

In a hearing entitled Oversight of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and Attempts to Influence US Elections: Lessons Learned from Current and Prior Administrations, the president’s eldest son and his former top campaign aide will appear before the Senate judiciary committee as further scrutiny mounts of the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.

A spokesman for Manafort told the Guardian: “We just received the letter and we’re reviewing it. We have nothing else to add.” A spokesman for Trump Jr did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Their testimony comes less than two weeks after it was revealed that the two, along with Jared Kushner, a top White House aide and Trump’s son-in-law, met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer in 2016 who offered Trump Jr negative information about Hillary Clinton. Kushner is expected to testify in a closed session before the Senate intelligence committee on 24 July.

In an email thread published between Trump Jr and Rob Goldstone, the publicist for a Russian oligarch, the president’s son was told: “The crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

“This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump.”

Trump Jr responded: “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.”

He then forwarded the email thread to Kushner and Manafort, who attended the meeting. Kushner, who is a White House official, did not disclose the meeting as required on security clearance forms until recent weeks, raising questions about whether he should keep his security clearance.

Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii told the Guardian last week that Kushner “probably” needs to lose his clearance. When asked if he should lose his White House position altogether, Schatz said: “That’s the decision that the president gets to make, but let me put it this way: if he were not related by marriage to the president, I think he’d be already gone.”

Manafort has long been under scrutiny for his ties to Russia. A veteran Republican political operative, he has extensive experience working in the former Soviet Union and was a longtime aide to the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. As a result of Manafort’s work, he recently filed a belated registration as a foreign agent for $17m in political consulting fees that his firm received for advising Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2012 to 2014.

In addition to Trump Jr and Manafort, the open hearing before the Senate judiciary committee is scheduled to include testimony from Glenn Simpson, the head of research for the firm Fusion GPS, and Bill Browder, an investor who has long been active in pushing for increased sanctions on Russia. Simpson’s firm produced the infamous Steele dossier on Trump’s contacts with Russia, which was first published in January.