Lobbyist at meeting denies accusations of being a spy.
WASHINGTON — The Russian-American lobbyist who attended a meeting at Trump Tower last year is a former military officer who has attracted congressional scrutiny over his political activities and has been shadowed by allegations of connections to Russian intelligence that he denies.
Rinat Akhmetshin confirmed his participation in the meeting to The Associated Press on Friday, providing new details of a June 2016 sit-down that included a Russian lawyer and President Donald Trump’s oldest son, son-in-law and campaign chairman.
His attendance at the meeting and his lobbying background created a new wrinkle to a story that has hounded the White House for days and added to questions about potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Akhmetshin is wellknown in Washington for his advocacy efforts. He’s been outspoken in recent years about a U.S. law levying sanctions on Russians and has worked to undermine the public narrative used to justify the bill. And his name has also surfaced in multiple American lawsuits, including one involving the hacking of a company’s computer systems.
In an interview, Akhmetshin denied suggestions made in media reports, congressional letters and litigation that he is a former officer in Russia’s military intelligence service known as the GRU, dismissing the allegations as a “smear campaign.”
He told the AP that he served in the Soviet Army from 1986 to 1988 after he was drafted but was not trained in spy tradecraft. He said his unit operated in the Baltics and was “loosely part of counterintelligence.”
Akhmetshin, a naturalized American citizen who has lived in Washington since the early 1990s, and Natalia Veselnitskaya are known for lobbying efforts involving the Magnitsky Act, a brace of economic sanctions targeting Russian officials and individuals
The act passed by Congress was named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after accusing Russian government officials and takeover raiders of a $230 million tax fraud scheme in the seizure of an investment firm.
The original Magnitsky Act leveled U.S. financial sanctions on 18 Russian officials and individuals suspected of complicity in Magnitsky’s prosecution, imprisonment and death.
A Global Magnitsky Act that passed in December 2016 gives the president power to impose visa bans and freeze U.S. assets of anyone who suppresses basic human rights or targets whistleblowers exposing corruption.
Akhmetshin’s name has also surfaced in lawsuits, including a New York court case in which a mining company branded him a “former Soviet military counterintelligence officer” and accused him of involvement in the hacking of its computer systems. Those claims were withdrawn last year, court records show.
In a separate case, he described his business as “strategic communications” with clients including national governments and high-ranking officials of those governments. Disclosure of his communications, he said, could put lives at risk.
Akhmetshin said he has not been contacted by the special counsel’s office or the FBI about the meeting with Trump Jr. He said he’s willing to talk with the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman has pressed the Justice Department about why Akhmetshin has not registered as a foreign agent.
Akhmetshin said the Justice Department prodded him several months ago to register as a foreign agent because of his lobbying work, though he said he doesn’t believe he needs to do so. He has previously registered with Congress for the lobbying.
“I think I have a legal right to tell my story,” he said.