The Russian lawyer who met with the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned.
NBC News is not naming the lobbyist, who denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies. He accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.
The Russian-born American lobbyist served in the Soviet military and emigrated to the U.S., where he holds dual citizenship.
Veselnitskaya acknowledged to NBC News that she was accompanied by at least one other man, though she declined to identify him.
Though neither Veselnitskava nor NBC News has named this former Soviet agent, the name did leak.
Rinat Akhmetshin is the name, and according to a Reuters piece from last year he is a Russian "Gun for Hire," who it seems has some history of working to restart those Russian adoptions:
Akhmetshin has paid at least one visit to Congress in connection with new human rights legislation that builds on the earlier Magnitsky Act. Along with Ron Dellums, a former U.S. congressman from California and longtime Washington lobbyist, Akhmetshin visited House member offices on May 17 to meet with Dana Rohrabacher, another California congressman viewed as one of the most sympathetic U.S. officials to Russian causes.
Akhmetshin has claimed that he was never a Soviet agent, but that does not seem to be widely believed.
In fact William Browder, the founder of the investment advisory firm Hermitage Capital, lays out the significance of this individual's participation in the meeting:
"In the world of Russian intelligence, there is no such thing as a 'former intelligence officer,'" he said. "So in my opinion you had a member of Putin's secret police directly meeting with the son of the future next president of the United States asking to change US sanctions policy crucial to Putin."
Sounds pretty significant, don't you think?
However putting that aside the point remains that Junior did not identify this man when he was supposedly "coming clean" about this meeting, and in fact according to Junior's attorney there may have been even a SIXTH person in attendance, who is currently unnamed.
Remember, "It is not the crime, it's the coverup."
And clearly the Trumps. and their associates, are working overtime to cover something up here.
Update: We are also learning that despite an early denial, that Trump has confirmed that he knew about this meeting:
On Wednesday afternoon, Trump told Reuters that “No. That I didn’t know. Until a couple of days ago, when I heard about this. No I didn’t know about that,” referring to the meeting between Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.
Trump changed his tune later in the day, when he told reporters on Air Force One: “In fact maybe it was mentioned at some point,” referring to the meeting. (Reporters on the plane initially thought the conversation was off-the-record, but the President said otherwise on Thursday.)
There is also evidence that Trump was in Trump Tower when this meeting took place, which of course already rendered ridiculous the idea that he was never told about it.
Seriously, these people seem genetically incapable of telling the truth.
Source http://ift.tt/2tmQTfo
