Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya said Wednesday her intention behind a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. was to create inroads to members of Congress who she wanted to meet about the Magnitsky Act, according to new emails released Wednesday.
The Russian attorney said she “had been told” Trump Jr., who has no legislative connections in Washington, D.C., “could help” her get to lawmakers.
Veselnitskaya said she would have just as quickly reached out to Hillary Clinton if she had believed the then-Democratic presidential nominee could help in her push to end sanctions against adopting Russian babies.
“I had never been looking for a meeting neither with Trump Jr., nor Sr., nor his team,” Veselnitskaya told Fox News in an email. “If Hillary Clinton or anybody from her environment could have been such an individual [to help], I also would have passed that information [to her].”
Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort attended a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Trump Jr. had been told by Rob Goldstone that Veselnitskaya had damaging information about Clinton and took the meeting with his campaign colleagues.
Goldstone promised “very high level and sensitive information” about Clinton as well as “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Veselnitskaya said she is sharing the information now in order to clear her name.
“I wanted to make it public … because I naively thought there should be justice in the U.S. for the fraudsters fostering hatred between the two of our countries,” she added.
