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Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Campaign Honchos To Offer Dirt On Hillary Admits She Has Ties To Russian Government

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  johnrussell  •  8 years ago  •  6 comments

Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Campaign Honchos To Offer Dirt On Hillary Admits She Has Ties To Russian Government

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During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general.

“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”



MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general.

“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

The previously undisclosed details about Ms. Veselnitskaya rekindle questions about who she was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the campaign. The meeting, one focus of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference, was organized after an intermediary promised that Ms. Veselnitskaya would deliver documents that would incriminate Mrs. Clinton.







Ms. Veselnitskaya had long insisted that she met the president’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman in a private capacity, not as a representative of the Russian government.

“I operate independently of any governmental bodies,” she wrote in a November statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer.”

But that claim had already been undercut last fall by revelations that her talking points for the Trump Tower meeting — detailing tax and financial fraud accusations against two Democratic Party donors tied to a Kremlin opponent — matched those in a confidential memorandum circulated by Mr. Chaika’s office.

And a sheaf of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s email correspondence released Friday appeared to show that her relationship with Mr. Chaika’s office is far closer than she has described.

The emails were obtained by Dossier, an organization set up by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who was stripped of his oil holdings, imprisoned and then exiled from his native Russia. He has emerged as a leading opponent of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Shown copies of the emails by Richard Engel of NBC News, Ms. Veselnitskaya acknowledged that “many things included here are from my documents, my personal documents.” She told the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday that her email accounts were hacked this year by people determined to discredit her, and that she would report the hack to Russian authorities.

The Russian prosecutor general’s office did not respond to requests for comment. In an email, Ms. Veselnitskaya said she would respond in two weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/us/natalya-veselnitskaya-trump-tower-russian-prosecutor-general.html?smid=pl-share




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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    8 years ago

She was caught red handed and that is why she is admitting ties to the Russian prosecutor, who is the equivalent of the US Attorney General. 

When Trump Jr. was offered the dirt on Clinton, the source was named by the intermediary as the "prosecutor general". 

This is part of evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. 

 
 
 
Jeremy Retired in NC
Professor Guide
3  Jeremy Retired in NC    8 years ago

Isn't this the same lawyer calling Mueller out on not even attempting to contact her as part of his facade?

 
 

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