The photo was taken on June 14, 2016 — just a few days after Trump Jr.'s meeting with Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016 — when she was at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington about “U.S. Policy Toward Putin’s Russia.”
Ken Grubbs, Rohrabacher's press secretary, said in an email, "The hearing was a public meeting, and we’re guessing she was among the first in line and took the seat on her own volition."
A spokesman for Rohrabacher told BuzzFeed News that while he didn't invite Veselnits kaya to the hearing, he was introduced to her the next day when she appeared at the Capitol Hill Club — a private social club for Republicans — for dinner.
McFaul told BuzzFeed News that he does not know Veselnitskaya.
Although she is sitting in the front row of the hearing behind McFaul, there is no indication that she was there with McFaul.
The hearing was public, and its topic was US policy toward Russia, an issue that Veselnitskaya would have likely been interested in given her reported ties to the Kremlin and her public outreach against the Magnitsky Act, which was signed by President Obama and reportedly infuriated President Vladimir Putin. The act punishes Russian officials accused of human rights abuses.
Conservative personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity also jumped into the fray, with Limbaugh proclaiming that "the whole thing's a setup."
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.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into the Trump Tower meeting as part of his investigation into Russian meddling in the election.
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.