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A8 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 28 July 2018

Emails: Lawyer who met Trump Jr. tied to Russian officials

By RAPHAEL SATTER
Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — The Mos-
cow lawyer said to have
promised Donald Trump’s
presidential campaign dirt
on his Democratic oppo-
nent worked more closely
with senior Russian govern-
ment officials than she pre-
viously let on, according to
documents reviewed by
The Associated Press.
Scores of emails, transcripts
and legal documents paint
a portrait of Natalia Vesel-
nitskaya as a well-connect-
ed attorney who served as
a ghostwriter for top Rus-
sian government lawyers
and received assistance
from senior Interior Ministry
personnel in a case involv-
ing a key client.
The data was obtained
through Russian opposi-
tion figure Mikhail Khodor-
kovsky’s London-based in-
vestigative unit, the Dossier
Center , that is compiling
profiles of Russians it accus-
es of benefiting from cor- In this file photo taken on Sunday, April 22, 2018, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya listens during an interview with The Associated
Press in Moscow, Russia.
ruption. The AP was unable Associated Press
to reach Veselnitskaya for
comment. Messages from firm of Bill Browder, the called the AP’s question a United States, where she dra said. It promised that
a reporter sent to her phone American-born British busi- “provocation” and said it was working to overturn the the revelation could lead
were marked as “read” but nessman who was a long- had “no idea who is Natali- Magnitsky Act, a sanctions to the overturning of the
were not returned. time critic of the Kremlin. ya Veselnitskaya and what law that was championed Russian adoption ban.
Veselnitskaya has been An Oct. 31, 2017, email she sends or doesn’t send by Browder after his lawyer, Wondra told the AP she
under scrutiny since it shows Veselnitskaya’s of- to the Cypriot Officials.” Sergei Magnitsky, died un- was suspicious and feared
emerged last year that fice preparing a draft ver- Alexandrov, reached at der suspicious circumstanc- that the lobbyists wanted
Trump’s eldest son, Donald sion of Russian Deputy the prosecutor-general’s es in a Russian prison. FRUA’s endorsement for
Jr., met with her in June General Prosecutor Mikhail office, refused to speak to Moscow responded to the their own purposes.
2016 after being told by an Alexandrov’s affidavit to the AP. sanctions with a ban on ‘My antennae were out. I
intermediary that she rep- Cypriot authorities. “This is Veselnitskaya appears to U.S. adoptions of Russian or- looked at this as an attempt
resented the Russian gov- needed by tomorrow,” she have gotten government phans. That prompted lob- to put public pressure on
ernment and was offering wrote a subordinate. support too. byists to court groups such Congress to rescind all or a
Moscow’s help defeating Two weeks later, a finalized When Swiss officials arrived as Families for Russian and part of the Magnitsky Act,”
rival presidential candidate version of the same docu- in Moscow on September Ukrainian Adoption Includ- she said, emphasizing that
Hillary Clinton. ment was sent by a Russian 2015 to interrogate Denis ing Neighboring Countries , she spoke only for herself,
Veselnitskaya has denied diplomatic staffer to a Cy- Katsyv, one of her key cli- or FRUA, a charity that sup- not her organization. “The
acting on behalf of Russian priot counterpart, the Dos- ents, they were met not just ports families who adopt conclusion I drew was that
officialdom when she met sier Center’s files show. by Veselnitskaya but by Lt. children from former Soviet FRUA should not partici-
with the Trump team, tell- Browder, who has often Col. A. V. Ranchenkov, a bloc nations. The idea was pate. And we didn’t.”
ing Congress that she oper- clashed with Veselnitskaya senior Interior Ministry offi- to use the issue of adop- Akhmetshin, who would
ates “independently of any in and out of court, said this cial previously known for his tions to help them reverse join Veselnitskaya at the
government bodies.” reinforced the idea that role investigating the Rus- the sanctions. Trump Tower meeting the
But the Dossier Center’s she was enmeshed with sian punk band Pussy Riot. Jan Wondra, FRUA’s chair- next day, declined com-
documents suggest her ties Russian officialdom. Ranchenkov devoted a man, said she attended a ment. The emails obtained
to Russian authorities are “If her office is drafting re- chunk of the interview to meeting in Washington on by AP leave some unan-
close — and they pull the plies for Russian-Cyprus law questions about the legal- June 8, 2016 with a group of swered questions.
curtain back on her cam- enforcement coopera- ity of Browder’s actions, ac- people that included Rinat In particular, the Dos-
paign to overturn the sanc- tion, in my opinion that ef- cording to a transcript of Akhmetshin, a Russian- sier Center’s investigation
tions imposed by the U.S. fectively shows that she’s the interrogation reviewed American lobbyist who was turned up almost no mes-
on Russian officials. an agent of the Russian by AP. working with Veselnitskaya sages about the Trump Tow-
For example, the emails government and not an The Russian Interior Ministry to overturn the sanctions. er meeting itself. The group
show that Veselnitskaya independent lawyer as she did not return messages The group told her there said it received only a few
was mixed up in the Russian claims,” he said in a tele- seeking comment. was evidence that the messages dealing with the
government’s attempt to phone interview. The emails also show how Magnitsky Act was pro- media queries when the
extract financial informa- In a written statement, the Veselnitskaya tried to ex- pelled by bogus claims meeting became public in
tion from the former law Russian Embassy in Cyprus tend her influence to the spread by Browder, Won- mid-2017.q