Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr. admits she's an 'informant'
When Donald Trump Jr. took an opposition research meeting in June 2016, he thought he was meeting with a private Russian lawyer who could provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. As that meeting has become central to investigations of whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Kremlin efforts to disrupt the 2016 election, Trump Jr.'s insistence that the lawyer provided no information and that the meeting amounted to nothing, coupled with the fact that the lawyer has maintained that she has no ties to the Russian government, have been paramount.
But on Friday, Natalia Veselnitskaya blew a hole in that narrative. "I am a lawyer, and I am an informant," Veselnitskaya told NBC News in an interview that will air Friday, per The New York Times. Specifically, Veselnitskaya said she has been "actively communicating" with the office of Yuri Chaika, the Russian prosecutor general and a top Kremlin official, since 2013.
The disclosure throws new scrutiny on that June 2016 meeting, the Times explains:
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The Times additionally viewed emails exchanged between Veselnitsyaka and Chaika's office that "appeared to show that her relationship with Mr. Chaika's office is far closer than she has described." Chaika's office did not respond to a request for comment from the Times, while Veselnitskaya said she would respond in two weeks. Read more at The New York Times.
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Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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