Russia the focus as Washington braces for tough week

Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner will meet behind closed doors this week with both the House and Senate intelligence committees investigating possible collusion between the president's campaign and Russia.

Kushner will testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel on Tuesday. He is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka.

The 36-year-old White House aide will be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank, and a Russian lawyer – the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

TRT World 's Jon Brain reports.

"There's a lot we want to know," Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House committee, said on Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

"We certainly want to know about several of the meetings that have been alleged to have taken place," he added.

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion, but the House and Senate have organised separate probes.

Donald Jr and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee about how and when they might testify about their Russia links.

The pair is working with the panel to provide documents and conduct pre-interviews behind closed doors, ahead of any public hearing, the committee chair Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein have announced.

The judiciary committee has set a hearing for Wednesday. Both Donald Jr and Manafort were invited to testify, but their participation was still unclear.

Vote on Russia

The US Congress is poised to approve tough new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea this week after reaching a compromise deal, which the White House indicated Sunday it could support.

In mid-June, the Senate overwhelmingly passed tough sanctions on Moscow and Tehran, but the text stalled in the House of Representatives, until agreement was reached on Saturday.

The House is now set to vote Tuesday on a bill that targets Russia – for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its annexation of Crimea – as well as Iran and North Korea, the latter for Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile tests.

Initially, Trump resisted the legislation, which would prevent him from unilaterally easing penalties against Moscow in the future – effectively placing him under Congress' watch.

But faced with near-total consensus among Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the White House blinked.

"We support where the legislation is now, and will continue to work with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," new White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's "This Week" news program.