Donald Trump Jr. has described the Veselnitskaya meeting as a waste of time because the lawyer did not provide useful information.
Veselnitskaya obtained a visa from the State Department to enter the country in June 2016, according to a government filing last week. The filing, which came in response to a new request by Veselnitskaya to be allowed into the U.S. for a Nov. 9 hearing in the now-settled Prevezon case, cited a Fox News report from last July.
The settlement agreement hinged on the release of Prevezon funds frozen in the Netherlands. The U.S. government, in accordance with the settlement agreement, asked the Dutch government to release the frozen money. But instead of turning it over to Prevezon for payment to the U.S., Dutch authorities seized the money in their own action. Prosecutors contend the Dutch unfreezing triggered Prevezon’s deadline to pay the U.S. Prevezon, now represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said it doesn’t owe the U.S. because it never controlled the unfrozen funds.
government’s forfeiture case against the Cyprus-based real estate holding company Prevezon, which prosecutors accused of laundering some of the proceeds of a $230 million Russian tax fraud scheme. Prevezon has U.S. lawyers in the forfeiture action but Veselnitskaya represents Prevezon owner Denis Katsyv, a Russian businessman.
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office did not disclose in the filing whether it independently confirmed that the State Department issued a visa to Veselnitskaya to allow to her attend the 2nd Circuit argument in June 2016. The prosecutor leading the Prevezon case, assistant U.S. attorney Paul Monteleoni, referred me to a spokesman, who said the office could not supply additional public information on Veselnitskaya’s reported visa.
Veselnitskaya, as you may recall, became a central character in the investigation of possible links between Russian officials and the Trump campaign when the New York Times broke the news that she met at Trump Tower with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on June 9, 2016, after the campaign was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. In the Bloomberg interview published Monday, Veselnitskaya also claimed President Trump’s son asked her for written evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign received ill-gotten proceeds.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge William Pauley refused to order the Justice Department to grant a new immigration parole to Veselnitskaya, who wants to attend a hearing Thursday on whether Prevezon has breached an agreement to pay about $6 million to the U.S. in the forfeiture case.
Veselnitskaya then traveled to Washington to continue her efforts to lobby against the anti-Russian law, attending a movie screening, a congressional hearing on Russia and a dinner that included at least one Republican congressman, The Hill has reported.
It also said Veselnitskaya eventually won a nonimmigrant work visa around the time she met President Trump.
Attorney's office in Manhattan told the court in a hearing in January 2016 that the “extraordinary circumstances” parole request needed to be approved by Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “In October the government bypassed 
. the normal visa process and gave a type of extraordinary 
.
Days after the meeting in Trump Tower, Veselnitskaya traveled to Washington, where she attended a screening of a film decrying the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 law allowing sanctions against individual Russians suspected of human rights abuses. Veselnitskaya has been one of the foremost Russian nationals lobbying for repeal of the bill, named after Sergei Magnitsky, who was allegedly killed in custody after exposing the corruption at the heart of the Katsyv case.
In Paris, Mr. Trump reacted to the meeting, saying he thought "the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do." He then seemed to blame the Obama administration for allowing Veselnitskaya into the country.
The federal government settled its case against Katsyv four months after Mr. Trump entered office.
attorney's office for the Southern District of New York granted Veselnitskaya immigration parole in October 2015, setting an expiration date of January 7, 2016, DOJ attorneys later told the court. On January 4, Veselnitskaya's request to extend her parole was denied, according to a declaration filed in U.S. District Court on January 5. In that filing, Veselnitskaya asked the judge to allow her to remain in the U.S. to defend Katsyv. She added she had "been harassed by the Government despite being paroled into the United States" when trying to return from a trip to London that November.
released emails this week showing a series of communications with a publicist promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton, that would ostensibly be provided by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting and hosted Veselnitskaya for a meeting with him, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016. Veselnitskaya allegedly provided no useful information, Trump Jr. said after the controversy erupted this week.
A spokesman for Lynch, who served as attorney general under President Obama, told CBS News Lynch "does not have any personal knowledge of Ms. Veselnitskaya's travel." The spokesman noted "the State Department issues visas, and the Department of Homeland Security oversees entry to the United States at airports."
Melania Trump: The unusual, traditional First Lady. Mrs Trump came to the US in 1996, first on a tourist visa then later a string of working visas for skilled immigrants, according to her lawyer. She was working as a model in New York when she met Mr Trump at a party in 1998, a relationship that considerably raised her celebrity profile. ...
Mrs Trump began applying for the visa in 2000, when she was Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model working in New York and dating Donald Trump. She was approved in 2001, one of just five people from Slovenia to win the coveted visa that year, according to the Post.
Securing an EB-1 is often about defining a field, Ms McFadden said, in the hope of proving the client is outstanding in that field. Trying to prove your client is an outstanding businessman puts them up against Richard Branson. Proving they are outstanding within alternative asset commercial finance management? Not so tough.
To obtain an EB-1 for extraordinary ability, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet three of 10 criteria proving excellence in their field. The criteria include coverage of the applicant in major publications, original and significant contributions to a field, and work displayed at artistic exhibitions.
Becoming a citizen in 2006 gave her the right to sponsor her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who are now in the US and in the process of applying for citizenship.
Melania Trump obtained US citizenship on a visa reserved for immigrants with "extraordinary ability" and "sustained national and international acclaim", according to a report in the Washington Post.
The government guidance for applicants cites Nobel prizes and international acclaim, but the reality is often more prosaic, said Susan McFadden, a specialist US visa lawyer at the Gudeon and McFadden law firm in London.