As a presidential candidate lacking foreign-policy experience, Donald Trump listened as a young campaign aide claiming to have contacts in Russia offered to set up a meeting with officials from President Vladimir Putin's office.
President Trump neither rejected nor endorsed the idea, CNN reported, citing a source who attended the meeting where George Papadopoulos, 30, proposed the outreach to Moscow.
"He didn't say, 'Yes.' He didn't say, 'No,'" the source said of Trump.
The idea was later rejected by former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, chairman of Trump's national security advisory team and now U.S. attorney general.
Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the U.S. probe of suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's critics see Papadopoulos as a link to claims of Moscow's meddling in the U.S. election.
The White House, however, has dismissed Papadopoulos as a minor character who left the campaign about seven months before Trump was elected.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Papadopoulos "was somebody that played a minimal role, if one at all, and was part of a voluntary advisory board. That's it."