Posted on 07/14/2017 5:15:41 AM PDT by Pinkbell
(Currently Breaking News On NBC)
WASHINGTON — The Russian lawyer who met with the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned.
NBC News is not naming the lobbyist, who denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies. He accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.
The Russian-born American lobbyist served in the Soviet military and emigrated to the U.S., where he holds dual citizenship.
Veselnitskaya acknowledged to NBC News that she was accompanied by at least one other man, though she declined to identify him.
The presence at the meeting of a Russian-American with suspected intelligence ties is likely to be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate panels investigating the Russian election interference campaign.
Contacted by NBC News, representatives for Kushner and Manafort declined to comment. A lawyer for Trump Jr. did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Veselnitskaya, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, denied having any connection to the Kremlin and insisted the meeting was to discuss sanctions, not the presidential campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Something to keep in mind here is that Kushner works in the White House. Donald Trump Jr. does not. There are different levels of sensitivity here when it comes to how these things play out today in 2017 (regardless of what may have happened at a point in 2016 when Donald Trump wasn’t even the Republican nominee yet).
Oh, goodie. I hope Rush and Sean and Laura and Mark and all the different Mikes chase this squirrel today because I just can’t get enough of the Trump/Russia story.
This country is full of Russians, especially in New York. I knew this would get to be a problem at some point when we started letting them all in.
Seriously, though, no one gives a damn at this point beyond a few hysterical media personnel desperately trying to get attention. This is the proverbial “Boy Who Cried Wolf” scenario.
Hey, NBC - No Body Cares!
Here's the bottom line: the left doesn't have any ideas or proposals on how to govern going forward. The initiative is entirely with Trump and the populist/nationalist movement.
Even worse, not only does the left not have an effective program in which to articulate platform ideas, but they don't have a roster of capable politicians either to carry the message, if they even existed.
In other words, the left is forced to play defense. If you sit back and consider what this actually means, it means that just like the island hopping strategy in WWII, the grinding offense being conducted by Trump & Co will ultimately prevail.
So all they really have left in the bag is a long, structured, tactical retreat. The key to avoiding a route is to mount periodic skirmishes - think Napoleon's retreat from Moscow - to provide some semblance of protection to the main force.
The media onslaught is the rear guard; their actions provide cover while the left tries to recover. The reason the media can be effective is because they understand human nature. They know mass psychology; after all, Bernays wrote the book on how to manipulate & influence the body politic.
The left's hail marry is to attempt to alter the 2018 election outcome. It will be all negative, all the time, with crazy, pumped up stories that don't have to have any basis or foundation.
Trump of course understands this perfectly well. He understands the battlefield scenario, and knows what is occurring. So his chief weapon is to keep up the pressure - he controls the criminal justice system. All the assets are on his side. Slowly, but surely, the truth will out, but presented most effectively to capture both houses in 2018. That is the key date - everything else is just noise to keep people (both sides) occupied chasing the "cheese".
NBC now naming Rinat Akhmetshin.
Notice he says person. Not people.
I’m wondering who Trump Sr eventually throws under the bus. His daughter’s husband. Or his son.
Who was translating when she represented her client in an American Court Room? Which was the excuse Lynch gave for letting her in, in the first place.
How is it that nobody on our side points to the Dems using actual agents of the Ukrainian government to exchange real information with DNC / Clinton operatives - quid pro quo - in their attempt to get “dirt” on Trump? ... There is the actual “collusion.”
That doesn’t fly. Why would she need an interpreter? Goldstone speaks Russian.
Swirling behind the scenes is the idea that kushner was likely to work in WH and Jr was not. Kushner has to fill out forms. Jr does not.
This could have effected all kinds of things...like..oh we can just blame Jr if something comes out strategy.
There is that rumor that Kushner is on tape saying it. The rumor could be psy ops to get Jr to flip. .become paranoid..etc. his new lawyer is a mafia lawyer who will be well familiar with tactics
He's referring to a conversation about the meeting that took place before the meeting was even held.
And how was she licensed to practice law in New York?
The Curious Case of Natalia Veselnitskaya
Frontpagemagazine ^ | July 14, 2017 | Matthew Vadum
Posted on 7/14/2017, 4:35:57 AM by SJackson
Did the Russian lawyer visit the Trump campaign to undermine it?
It turns out the Moscow-based lawyer whose brief meeting with Trump campaign officials last year was obtained under false pretenses has significant ties to Democrat opposition researchers in the United States and was extended special privileges by the Obama administration.
Could this mean attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya came, or perhaps was sent, to America to hurt Donald Trump’s campaign for president? And if Veselnitskaya had less-than-honorable intentions, what role, if any, did Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee play in this unfolding drama?
The Hill newspaper reports that the Obama administration went to extraordinary lengths to allow Veselnitskaya to enter the U.S. and remain here to complete her business in this country. After Veselnitskaya, who reportedly has several pro-Hillary Clinton and anti-Donald Trump items on her Facebook page, was denied a U.S. visa, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch personally intervened and cleared the way for her to come to this country.
British music publicist Rob Goldstone helped to set up the storied June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan between Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, claiming boastfully in an email exchange with Donald Jr. that the Russians wanted to share incriminating information about Democrat Hillary Clinton.
We now know Veselnitskaya had no earth-shattering revelations to impart about the Russia-friendly former secretary of state who was then running against Donald Trump. Instead of offering “Political Opposition Research” at the roughly 20-minute-long get-together, the Russian woman “had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act,” Donald Trump Jr. said earlier this week in a statement on Twitter.
The Magnitsky Act, which Russian President Vladimir Putin despises, allows the U.S. government to refuse visas to Russians considered guilty of human rights violations. After it was enacted at the end of 2012, Russia retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian orphans and banning entry to Russia by specific U.S. officials.
Veselnitskaya, who was a prosecutor in Russia 16 years ago, told NBC News she “never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton,” adding she wanted to let people know about “the real circumstances behind the Magnitsky Act,” and was hoping to testify about the sanctions statute before Congress.
There is some evidence that Democrats were working with Russia against the Trump campaign, radio talk show host Erick Erickson suggests.
“There is a remarkably small degree of separation between Natalia Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, the Democrat opposition research firm that came up with the Trump dossier,” Erickson writes, and this “raise[s] the issue of whether Democrats and Russians were as collaborative as the Democrats claim the Trump team was.”
The “piss-gate” dossier is the unvetted 35-page report written by former British spy Christopher Steele and published by cat-video website BuzzFeed. The FBI had been considering paying Steele “for his Trump dossier work,” Erickson notes.
“Fusion GPS was paid by a Democratic ally of Hillary Clinton’s to conduct the research,” the Daily Caller reported. The dubious document claimed, among other things, that Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a hotel room bed in Moscow.
In 2012, the Russian government hired an army of lobbyists and lawyers to pursue repeal of the Magnitsky Act. One of the law firms retained was Baker Hostetler, which has ties to Fusion GPS. Fusion itself was co-founded by former journalist Glenn Simpson.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Fusion worked on behalf of Russian interests but did not register as a foreign agent as required by federal law. “Fusion GPS was apparently simultaneously working on the unsubstantiated dossier alleging collusion between Trump presidential campaign associates and Russia” while at the same time helping the Russian government with the Magnitsky Act.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice began trying to seize ill-gotten gains possessed by Russian-owned Prevezon Holdings, Grassley explained. Prevezon and the Russian government then began a campaign – in which Fusion GPS participated – to undermine the Magnitsky Act.
Natalia Veselnitskaya also worked for Preveson Holdings, Erickson writes, and, according to Russian media outlet Sputnik News, had “evidence” that could bolster the effort to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
In addition, Veselnitskaya worked with Rinat Akhmetshin, founder of the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, a man who has admitted to previously working as a “Soviet counterintelligence officer,” Erickson writes.
Of Akhmetshin, Grassley said:
In fact, it has been reported that he worked for the GRU and allegedly specializes in “active measures campaigns,” i.e., subversive political influence operations often involving disinformation and propaganda. According to press accounts, Mr. Akhmetshin “is known in foreign policy circles as a key pro-Russian operator,” and Radio Free Europe described him as a “Russian ‘gun-for-hire’ [who] lurks in the shadows of Washington’s lobbying world.” He was even accused in a lawsuit of organizing a scheme to hack the computers of one his client’s adversaries.
Akhmetshin’s group happened to have retained Veselnitskaya as an attorney.
Erickson continues:
While all of this is going on, Fusion GPS is working on the opposition research dossier on Donald Trump using a foreign agent. Are we really supposed to believe that it is completely coincidental that Natalia Veselnitskaya just so happens to be the Russian lawyer who got access to Donald Trump, Jr.? Are we to believe that there is no direct relationship between Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS?
It is remarkable how she gets a PR agent to urge Trump, Jr. to meet with her by promising Russian information about Hillary Clinton’s emails as the Clinton email server story is blowing up. And then it is remarkable how she gives a perfect performance to NBC News two days ago claiming she only talked with Trump about the Magnitsky Act, but assured the press that the Trump team was hoping for dirt on Hillary.
So many incredible coincidences, if that’s what they are.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3569148/posts
You post a lot of interesting things here on FR, but I'd suggest you avoid posting any kind of nonsense like this without attributing it to a specific source.
I still remember all the "rumors" -- even reported by some morons on Fox News in late October 2016 -- about arrest warrants that were being issued for close associates of Hillary Clinton.
But whether Hannity or some other venue, the newly found person, if proven to be factual, had not been disclosed by Trump, Jr.
There's always room for NBC to be wrong. We'll see.
Interesting dilemma..because for ivana to protect her son means possibly going against her daughters husband..which could effect her daughter.
Ivanka is clearly the favored child of trump...Jr could be favorite of ivana. She did raise these three kids.
JR has to look out for his immediate family.
Former KGB Leader meets with leaders of Europe...
BFD
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