Kushner attorney Jamie Gorelick confirmed the meeting but called it brief and said he was asked to attend by Trump Jr. Gorelick said that Kushner left the meeting and other meetings off of a national security questionnaire, the SF-86, that was filed prematurely, and has since provided supplemental information including about ...
Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion. Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
President Donald Trump’s eldest son and his son-in-law Jared Kushner met with a Russian lawyer with connections to the Kremlin during the presidential campaign, it was reported Saturday.
Kushner confirmed the meeting after The Times approached them with information about it. In a statement, Donald Jr. described the meeting as primarily about an adoption program. The statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed.
The Russian leader denied meddling in the election. The Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers.
To critics of Mr. Putin, Mr. Magnitsky, in death, became a symbol of corruption and brutality in the Russian state. An infuriated Mr. Putin has called the law an “outrageous act,” and, in addition to banning American adoptions, compiled what became known as an “anti-Magnitsky” blacklist of United States citizens.
In a civil forfeiture case prosecuted by Mr. Bharara’s office, the Justice Department alleged that Prevezon had helped launder money tied to a $230 million corruption scheme exposed by Mr. Magnitsky by parking it in New York real estate and bank accounts. As a result, the government froze $14 million of its assets.
Among those blacklisted was Preet Bharara, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, who led high-profile convictions of Russian arms and drug dealers. Mr. Bharara was abruptly fired in March, after previously being asked to stay on by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Manafort, the former campaign chairman, also recently disclosed the meeting, and Donald Trump Jr.’s role in organizing it, to congressional investigators who had questions about his foreign contacts, according to people familiar with the events. A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment.
In an interview, Mr. Corallo explained that Ms. Veselnitskaya, in her anti-Magnitsky campaign, employs a private investigator whose firm, Fusion GPS , produced an intelligence dossier that contained unproven allegations against the president.
Veselnitskaya, promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, met with Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign operatives – including Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Trump Jr. later said the discussion was about Russian adoptions.
That’s when the Clinton campaign and DNC stepped in using the law firm Perkins Coie.
But the meeting took place at a critical time when Fusion GPS was being paid by a Russian oligarch and by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee while it enlisted former British spy Christopher Steele to dig up damaging information about Trump through his contacts in Moscow, Fox News said.
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder of Fusion GPS, was with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at a Manhattan federal courtroom just hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, Fox News reported, citing a source.
Some GOP lawmakers have raised questions about Fusion after it was revealed the Clinton campaign paid for the research that led to the dossier, which contained unverified claims that Trump had links to Russians.