Two months before Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower last year, Veselnitskaya had an encounter with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) during a trip he took to Moscow, Foreign Policy reports.
Veselnitskaya told a Crimean news service that in April 2016, while Rohrabacher was leading a congressional delegation to Moscow, they met and she urged him to repeal the Magnitsky Act, the U.S. law that targets assets belonging to officials accused of human rights violations. She told the news service she said American lawmakers were tricked into voting for the bill, and warned him not to be "used by scammers." Rohrabacher is a vocal supporter of Russia who was reportedly told by the FBI in 2012 that Russian spies were trying to recruit him and was the butt of a "bad attempt at a joke" by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R), who said last year he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin paid "Rohrabacher and [Donald] Trump. Swear to God."
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