WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday defended his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer, characterizing it as standard campaign practice and maintaining that “nothing happened” as a result of the June sit-down.

The remarks in Paris, made in a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, came even though Trump’s own FBI pick said one day earlier that authorities should be advised of requests to meet with foreign individuals during a campaign and even after Donald Trump Jr. said he would rethink his own conduct in agreeing to the meeting in the first place.

“I think from a practical standpoint most people would’ve taken that meeting. It’s called opposition research, or even research into your opponent,” Trump said.

Trump Jr. released emails this week from 2016 in which he appeared eager to accept information from the Russian government that could have damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The emails were sent ahead of a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended.

Asked about the meeting on Thursday, Trump said “politics is not the nicest business in the world” and that it’s standard for candidates to welcome negative information about an opponent. In this case, he added, “nothing happened from the meeting, zero happened from the meeting.”