Russian lawyer responds to Trump Jr. email flap

With one story, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya found herself at the centre of one of the biggest stories in America: the Trump family’s potential collusion with Russia.

In interview in Moscow Tuesday, Veselnitskaya denied being an agent of the Russian government.

She claimed that no one assigned her to talk with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort in June 2016 — in a meeting that was sold to Trump as a means of obtaining, from the Russian government, potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

“I am in shock. I’m just an ordinary person,” she said Tuesday.

“You don’t know what to do with your Trump so you are making up stories,” she said.

“I did not have an assignment from the Kremlin, there were no orders from the government."

Donald Trump Jr. was told a campaign meeting would be with a “Russian government attorney,” according to emails.

“I didn’t know that Trump would be elected, I didn’t come to them as political candidates, I didn’t come to them to see the son of the possible future president. I came to him as a person who has support in the Republican party.”

She said a “friend” said she’d be able to see “his friend.” When asked, several times, if she was referring to Emin Agalarov, a pop singer who appears to have been instrumental in persuading publicist Rob Goldstone to set up the meeting, she didn’t reply.

She said of the meeting with Trump, “We sat and talked to each other for a few minutes and it was clear we were talking about two different things.”