The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and other top Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower in June 2016 and denied having ties to the Kremlin reportedly worked closely with Russia’s top legal office during a Justice Department case against a Russian firm.
Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort during the 2016 campaign after promising she had damaging information about Hillary Clinton—a meeting that has since become a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Veselnitskaya has argued she is a private lawyer with no ties to the Kremlin. But according to the New York Times, the Russian lawyer has walked back those denials and admitted in an interview with NBC News she provided information to a top official in the Russian government, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.
“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” Veselnitskaya told NBC News in an interview that will be broadcast Friday, the New York Times reported. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”
The interview will air on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” and on MSNBC’s “On Assignment with Richard Engel.”
Veselnitskaya told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a November statement regarding the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower she operates “independently of any governmental bodies.”
“I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer,” she said in her statement.
But emails from Veselnitskaya obtained by an organization set up by a Russian exile who is an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin show the relationship between the Russian lawyer and Chaika’s office was closer than initially believed.
Veselnitskaya told NBC News when shown the emails that “many things included here are from my documents, my personal documents.” She told Interfax, the Russian news agency, this week her email accounts had been hacked.
The emails exchanged by the Russian prosecutor general’s office show how Veselnitskaya worked alongside Kremlin officials during the Justice Department’s case against Prevezon Holdings Ltd., and its owner, Denis Katsyv.
The Justice Department had reached out to Chaika’s office asking for help in 2014 with its civil fraud case against Prevezon and Katsyv. The U.S. government was looking for Russian bank, tax and court records.
Veselnitskaya identified herself in court filings as a lawyer in private practice who represented Katsyv and the firm.
But emails show that a senior prosecutor in Chaika’s office, Sergei Bochkaryov, worked with Veselnitskaya on the Russian government’s response to the Justice Department’s request.
In one of more than 11 emails the two exchanged, Veselnitskaya wrote in August 2014, “Dear Sergei Aleksandrovich! I am sending you edits in the draft response, as per instructions. I am ready to answer any questions that arise, at any time convenient for you,” according to the New York Times.
The language the two discussed matches the prosecutor general’s response to the U.S. government.
Veselnitskaya’s relationship with the Kremlin was already the subject of scrutiny after it was revealed talking points prepared for the 2016 Trump Tower meeting were the same as those circulated in a confidential memorandum by the prosecutor general’s office.
Trump Jr. has said the meeting in 2016 with Veselnitskaya never yielded any incriminating information about Clinton and said the group instead talked about the issue of the adoptions of Russian children.
But the latest email revelations about Veselnitskaya’s relationship with the Kremlin are likely to raise additional questions about the meeting and her intentions.
