(Recasts with additional comments, context, White House response)
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - The meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump's son and a Russian attorney, and the failure to disclose it, add new urgency to the push to pass a Russian sanctions bill that has been stalled in Congress, lawmakers and aides said on Tuesday.
"What happened with Donald Trump Jr. just underscores how Russia was operating," said Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Cardin said the bill should have been passed because of Russian interference in last year's U.S. elections, occupation of parts of Ukraine and Georgia and support of the Syrian government.
The Senate backed the sanctions legislation by 98-2 on June 15 but it has been stuck in the House of Representatives, amid partisan squabbling between Republicans and Democrats.
Trump's relationship with Russia has been in particularly sharp focus this month because he had his first meeting last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some Democrats had accused Trump's fellow Republicans of stalling the sanctions package at least until after that meeting, to please the president. Republicans denied that.
House Republican leaders initially rejected the bill for procedural reasons, prompting the Senate to tweak it. But Democrats then objected to a change by the Senate that they said weakened the bill by making it more difficult for the House to vote on any change in sanctions policy by Trump.
AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said Democrats still were objecting to moving the bill in its current form.
But both Republican and Democratic House aides said talks between the two parties were continuing and there was a decent chance for a quick compromise, more so because of the latest revelations about Trump's eldest son.
'CERTAINLY DOES NOT HELP'
Donald Trump Jr. eagerly agreed last year to meet a woman he believed was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic White House nominee Hillary Clinton, as part of Moscow's official support for his father, according to emails released on Tuesday.
"It certainly does not help the administration at this point," a senior Republican House aide said.
Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, predicted that the matter would be cleared up quickly and brought to the floor for a vote this week.
The Russia package, written as an amendment to an Iran sanctions bill, puts into law sanctions previously established through presidential executive order, including some on Russian energy projects and debt financing.