Trump accuses Pelosi of 'close ties to Russia,' demands investigation

After a photo surfaced of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a group meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, President Donald Trump is demanding an investigation of what he called the congresswoman's "close ties to Russia."

The president also claimed the 2010 photo -- which shows a group of men, including the ambassador, seated around a table with Pelosi -- proves she was "lying" when she told Politico she had never met the Russian amabassador.

"Not with this Russian ambassador, no," she said when asked if she had met with Kislyak.

Her office, however, told ABC News she meant she'd never had a private, one-on-one meeting with the diplomat.

"Leader Pelosi's answer to the question today was clearly about private, one-on-one meetings, which she has never had with Ambassador Kislyak. The Ambassador was incidental to the 2010 meeting between then-Russian President [Dmitry] Medvedev and then-Speaker Pelosi," spokesperson Caroline Behringer said in a statement. "Clearly, one needs to remind that Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions lied under oath about a secret meeting amidst Russia's hacking of our election, which he also didn't disclose in a written questionnaire."

The Pelosi photo comes on the heels of the news that Sessions -- who swore during his confirmation hearings that he "did not have communications with the Russians" during his time as a Trump surrogate -- had actually met twice with Kislyak twice during the campaign.

Sessions later clarified that he was responding to a specific question from Sen. Al Franken about his actions in the course of the campaign, claiming that he met with Kislyak in his capacity as a senator and did not discuss the Trump campaign "in any significant way."