Politico is reporting that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign sent a former foreign policy adviser to Russia on the condition that he would not be an official representative for Trump. The trip by Carter Page last July came just days before WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of emails taken from the servers of the Democratic National Committee—a theft that Democrats and many intelligence officials allege was carried out by Russia. Meanwhile, the White House blasted newly resurfaced reports that Donald Trump personally met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last April as “disingenuous and absurd.” The Wall Street Journal report from April 26 noted that Trump met the ambassador at a VIP reception ahead of a major foreign policy speech by Trump. A photograph by Getty Images shows the ambassador approaching his seat near the front of the invitation-only reception. The resurfaced report contradicts Trump’s claim at a news conference last month he hasn’t spoken to anyone from Russia other than a pair of post-election calls from President Vladimir Putin.