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Russian Lawyer At Trump Tower Meeting Says She’s Willing To Talk To Congress

REUTERS/Kommersant Photo/Yury Martyanov

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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The Russian lawyer who met last June with Donald Trump Jr. and other members of the Trump campaign says she’s willing to testify before Congress to “clarify” the circumstances of the meeting.

In an interview with RT, Russia’s state-owned news outlet, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the attorney, accused a London-based financier named Bill Browder of being behind the “mass hysteria” surrounding the June 9, 2016 meeting.

Veselnitskaya claims that she attended the meeting in order to lobby the Trump campaign against the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 sanctions law championed by Browder.

But the meeting was set up after Donald Trump Jr. was offered derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from an acquaintance. Trump Jr. was told that a “Russian government attorney” would be providing the information.

Trump Jr. eagerly accepted the offer, even after being told that the information was being provided as part of the Russian government’s support for the Trump campaign. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort attended the meeting on the Trump campaign side, and Veselnitskaya was accompanied by several Russians, including a Russian-American lobbyist who some believe is linked to Russia’s intelligence apparatus.

While Veselnitskaya has acknowledged in previous interviews that she discussed Clinton during the meeting, she has fixed her attention on Browder, whom she often berates on her various social media accounts.

Veselnitskaya says that she would be willing to testify before the Senate in order to discuss both the Trump Tower meeting and Browder.

“If the Senate wishes to hear the real story, I will be happy to speak up and share everything I wanted to tell Mr. Trump,” she said of Browder, the CEO of Hermitage Capital.

Veselnitskaya claims that Browder has fabricated details of the death of Sergei Magnitsky, his former attorney and the namesake for the Magnitsky Act.

Browder has claimed that Magnitsky was tortured and murdered in a Russian prison in 2009 after being jailed for investigating a $230 million money laundering scheme against his company.

Veselnitskaya claims that Browder is who committed financial fraud in the case and has crafted a legend surrounding Magnitsky in order to cover it up.

In order to discredit Browder, Veselnitskaya worked last year with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that is also behind the infamous dossier of research accusing President Trump of colluding with Russia during the presidential campaign.

Veselnitskaya may soon get to talk to Congress. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend that he wants to talk to all eight of the participants in the Trump Tower meeting.

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