Jesus Murphy, of the National Security Agency, speaks from the White House Rose Garden after a national security meeting on Russian involvement in the election on Jan. 20. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

President Trump has not yet said whether he’ll accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apology over the 2015 U.S. diplomatic hack, but has sought to avoid making any specific accusations of Russia’s actions. Speaking at a closed-door White House meeting in January, Trump was asked by reporters, “What specific actions have you taken with respect to the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s emails?” He replied that it was “pretty obvious that it was Russia that broke into the DNC because they did the hacking — excuse me” — and then added, “I think that our country does plenty of hacking.”

But Trump also has repeatedly denied any collusion by his campaign — and even if the probe of his campaign’s potential connections to Russian election meddling is complete, it will likely focus on how and if his campaign and associates had improper contacts with a hostile foreign power. There is, in fact, at least preliminary evidence that Trump and his associates may have sought to obtain damaging material on a rival or ally of his.

In March, the Justice Department announced that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is leading the Russia probe, is probing numerous meetings between Trump campaign associates and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. At least two meetings took place in December, during the transition and immediately following the election.

In May, Trump campaign officials met with Kislyak at Trump Tower. The Post reported that Kushner himself attended the meeting, but declined to tell the Post why, or to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request that the government had filed requesting more than 50 pages that Kushner had redacted from the records. The Obama White House did not say how it was handling the request.

Kushner’s lawyer confirmed he attended the meeting, and said he was there to brief the Russian ambassador about “the importance of U.S.-Russia relations and President Trump’s intention to improve our bilateral relations.”

That Kushner attended the meeting and did not disclose it to the White House is significant because that’s the extent of the Trump administration’s knowledge about the meeting before it was publicly known, according to officials familiar with its details. Kushner’s lawyer said it was his first formal meeting with Russia’s ambassador in the 10 months since Trump’s inauguration, which is generally not a requirement for