NEW YORK (AP) — The White House is facing criticism for a possible security breach after it allowed a Russian news service photographer into the Oval Office to snap photos of President Donald Trump and a pair of top Russian officials.

The administration downplayed the threat.

But it acknowledged that it had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer, who was actually employed by a state-run agency, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss matters of security.

The photographer who stood feet from Trump as he talked with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, had said he was Lavrov’s official photographer.

But he did not say that he also works for Tass, a Russian state-run news agency.

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