Fresh off one foreign trip and preparing for another, Donald Trump was enjoying a period of relative calm — until the White House was rocked by a fresh controversy over contacts between the president's campaign and Russia.

For Trump — who has been swept up all year in crises of his own making — this time the target was his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., whose meeting with a Russian lawyer last year led to accusations that the president's son entertained working with Russians to spread negative information about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Among Trump's wide-ranging group of outside advisers and former campaign officials, Donald Jr.'s meeting with the lawyer on the expectation of gaining access to negative information on Clinton was seen as problematic, and a demonstration of the son's political inexperience, but not illegal.