A new report said an American-Russian lobbyist came with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9 when she attended a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at the Trump Tower. The unnamed lobbyist was a former Soviet counterintelligence officer, NBC reported on Friday.
Some U.S. official suspect the ex-Soviet lobbyist of having links to Russian intelligence, but he had denied it. Born in Russia, he served in the Soviet military, and he emigrated later and acquired dual citizenship.
Veselnitskaya and Futertas confirm
At least another person, the former Soviet lobbyist, came with Veselnitskaya to the meeting.
The Russian lawyer, however, declined to name him. Alan Futertas, the mob lawyer retained by Donald Jr., also confirmed the presence of two other people at the meeting. One was a translator and the other one was described by Futertas as the friend of Emin Agaralov and possibly Veselnitskaya’s friend.
In her previous interview, Veselnitskaya said a friend told her to meet his friend who turned out was the son of the Republican presidential candidate. She did not identify the first friend. When she was asked several times if it was Agaralov – the Russian singer who appeared in a music video with Donald Trump Sr. – Veselnitskaya declined to name the friend who could be the Soviet lobbyist and not the son of the Russian real estate billionaire Aras Agaralov.
Emin asked British publicist Rod Goldberg to contact Donald Jr. through email and meet Veselnitskaya. The emails said she had an intelligence report that the Trump campaign could use against the Democratic candidate. The report was provided by Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general of Russia, to Aras.
New phase of Russian scandal
Veselnitskaya, however, was not informed the meeting was about the intelligence report. She thought it was about the American sanctions on Russians because of the Magnitsky Act which she lobbied against, The New York Daily News reported. Donald Jr. cut short the meeting with Veselnitskaya and the unnamed Soviet lobbyist when he realized the topic was not the intelligence report against Clinton.
With Donald Jr.’s release on Thursday, through a tweet, of the emails between him and Goldberg, the Russian scandal has entered a new phase, according to The New York Daily News. From a flat denial of a Russian collusion six months ago, there is now proof of the Russian meddling provided no less by the president’s son which merited a tweet from Trump that his namesake is open, transparent, and innocent.