Lawyer who met with Trump Jr. had connections with Russian intelligence
MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign advisers in a highly scrutinized meeting at Trump Tower last year had previously represented Russia’s top spy agency in a land dispute in Moscow, according to court documents.
Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Moscow lawyer with powerful government contacts, represented a military unit founded by the Federal Security Service in court cases in 2011 and 2012, court rulings show.
In those cases, Veselnitskaya represented Military Unit 55002 in a dispute over a five-story office building in northwest Moscow where a number of electronics companies were based. It was not immediately clear what the spy agency, known as the FSB, used the building for. But the state-run company that now occupies the property provides electronic components for Russian tech companies.
Reuters first reported the news Friday and said it had seen documents showing Veselnitskaya’s role in the legal tussle began in 2005 and lasted until 2013.
According to legal records, Military Unit 55002 was founded by the FSB, and it is located next to the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the Soviet Union’s secret police and intelligence agency for decades. The military unit works on procurement for the FSB, which directs Russia’s counterintelligence and border security agencies.
No information suggests Veselnitskaya is an intelligence agent or an employee of the Russian government. But the new information adds to the intrigue surrounding the June 2016 encounter, in which Donald Trump Jr. met with what he was told was a “Russian government attorney” who could offer damaging information about Democrat Hillary Clinton.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign of cyberattacks and propaganda aimed at undermining the American presidential election and discrediting Clinton.
Veselnitskaya could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
The court rulings are the first legal evidence to emerge of a relationship between Veselnitskaya and the Russian intelligence establishment.
Veselnitskaya, a former Moscow regional prosecutor from 1999 until 2001, became well-known for defending developers in property disputes. She has said she is in regular contact with Yuri Chaika, who has been the Russian prosecutor general since 2006. In emails that Trump Jr. received setting up the meeting, he was told that the negative information about Clinton originated with a top Russian prosecutor and was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Chaika’s office has denied supplying such information.