Trump campaign adviser Page met Russian officials in 2016 Moscow trip

Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Carter Page, an adviser during Donald Trump's presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a trip to Moscow, according to testimony to the House Intelligence Committee earlier this week.

Page confirmed the meetings to The New York Times in an interview Friday night and then spoke with CNN.

After the trip, the foreign policy adviser sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide. He detailed his conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives from his time in Moscow, according to a Times source familiar with the email.

During the closed-door House testimony Thursday, the email was read aloud.

In previous interviews, Page had denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 trip, which included visiting Moscow's New Economic School, saying he met with "mostly scholars."

On Friday, he told The Times that "I had a very brief hello to a couple of people. That was it."

He said one person was a "senior person," but he would not reveal the person's identity.

Page, who left the Trump campaign not long after the trip, has been questioned by the FBI and has also appeared before a grand jury as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry.

Page lived in Moscow from 2004-07 as a junior investment banker for Merrill Lynch. Since leaving the campaign, he has started his own investment firm, Global Energy Capital, and is working on some deals with Russian businessman Sergey Yatsenko.

During an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper before the New York Times and CNN reports, Page confirmed that before going on the trip he mentioned his travel plans to travel to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions and "a few people" on the Trump campaign.

Sessions, now attorney general, has testified to Congress that he didn't know about of any people on the Trump campaign having contacts with Russians.

Court records unsealed Monday indicated another campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, met in 2016 with Russians who said they had connections to the government and had "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

During a news conference in February, Trump said he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election.