Donald Trump and FSB

The meeting of the Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr., held last summer, became the object of attention of the special prosecutor Robert Muller, investigating Russian intervention in the American presidential election.

On July 21, Müller sent the administration a request with a request to save all the documentation regarding the meeting in which, in addition to Trump Jr., the head of Donald Trump Paul Manafort and the son-in-law of President Jared Kushner participated. Information about the meeting of the closest assistants of the President with the Russian citizen, known for his contacts surrounded by Putin and FSB, gave rise to a wide variety of assumptions about who Veselnitskaya actually represented, what was the purpose of the meeting and whether the people of Trump were the object of the Kremlin special operation.

Natalya Veselnitskaya, who achieved in June last year a meeting with the son of president Donald Trump, promising him through a common acquaintance certain documents that compromise the election headquarters Hillary Clinton, became the first and so far the only famous link indicating that the Trump team was ready to use the Kremlin’s materials in the fight against Hillary Clinton. Hence the giant interest in the figure of the 42-year-old Veselnitskaya, the collective portrait of which was rushed to create leading American publications. Immediately after her name flashed in the American press about three weeks ago, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that the Kremlin had “had no contacts with this lawyer”. But it quickly became clear that the lawyer Veselnitskaya has close ties with the FSB, which she represented during the eight -year court litigation. As a result of the litigation of the FSB, it sued expensive real estate in the north-west of Moscow. Natalya Veselnitskaya was a lawyer Denis Katzv, the son of the vice-president of the Russian Railways, whose company was accused of acquiring property in the United States for money received as a result of a scam exposed by Sergey Magnitsky. Along the way, the Russian citizen Veselnitskaya was engaged in unsuccessful lobbying of American lawmakers, trying to convince them to withdraw the "Magnitsky Law". She even put a hand in the creation of an American non -profit organization, the purpose of which is the struggle for the abolition of the Magnitsky Law.

Who could a person with such a past and with such connections at a meeting with the younger Trump, about which there was a conversation during a half-hour meeting of Trump Jr., Veselnitskaya and their satellites, is known only from the words of the main participants. Trump himself, forced to explain himself only after the emergence of information about a date in the New York Times, proposed several versions. Before the publication in the newspaper, he claimed that he had never discussed the issues of the election campaign with the Russians, then he insisted that it was only about the adoption by the Americans of Russian orphans, he later admits that the election campaign was one of his conversations with Veselnitskaya. In the end, he and President Trump formulate the purpose of the meeting as an intention to get what in political practice is called an "opposition investigation."

Not everyone is ready to accept such an interpretation of this event among Donald Trump's supporters. The head of the Hermitage Capital Foundation Bill Browner, who began a lobbying campaign several years ago, the result of which was the approval of the Congress of the Magnitsky Law, says in numerous interviews that, in his opinion, Veselnitskaya tried to enlist in the struggle for the abolition of this law, since the sanctions were significantly hit by people in the Kremlin and their environment, the environment Having complicated their financial transactions and the movement of assets from Russia. The very figure of Veselnitskaya and its dubious long -term activity in the United States attracted the attention of an influential senator, the head of the Law Committee of the Senate Chaka Grassley. The senator, for example, is interested in how and why Veselnitskaya was admitted to the United States if back in 2015 the State Department refused to issue an American visa. Grassley sent invitations to special hearings in the Senate to all American participants in this meeting, including the son of President Trump. And all of them, apparently, are ready to give an answer to lawmakers behind closed doors.

We witnessed the operation carried out by the FSB

The last unpleasant news for the White House and President Trump, who insists that there was no communication between his election headquarters and the Kremlin, and all the more so similar to cooperation, was the official request of the special prosecutor Robert Muller to maintain any documentation on the meeting of Veselnitskaya with Trump Jr., which means that the prosecutor does not only investigate the intervention of Russia in the American elections, this It means that he is interested in Trump's connections with Russia. This news and information that the prosecutor can gain access to Donald Trump's tax returns in the last few years, according to sources surrounded by the president, outraged Donald Trump so much that he became interested in whether he had the theoretical reason to dismiss a special prosecutor investigating Russian intervention in the American presidential election. Such an attempt can turn into the most serious political consequences for the president, experts warn, and representatives of the White House are dismissed from this information as from rumors.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of observers see in this story signs of a special operation of Russian special services. Here is what Steven Blank , military expert, an employee of the American Foreign Council in Washington, says in an interview with Radio Liberty.

- I think we witnessed the operation carried out by the FSB. All Russian participants in this story have ties with the intelligence services of Russia. Moreover, it is well known that the FSB can recruit anyone, but at the same time say that these people are not its employees. Veselnitskaya herself acted as a lawyer representing the FSB, and two so -called entrepreneurs accompanying her at a meeting with the younger Trump are dark figures, in the baggage of which are dubious affairs. All this testifies in favor of just such a version. We now know that Trump went to this meeting, hoping to get materials that could be used against Hillary Clinton. I suspect that a special prosecutor will find signs of illegal activities in this story, for example, violation of electoral laws: cooperation with a foreign government in order to acquire something valuable.

- Donald Trump's defenders believe that there is nothing reprehensible for this meeting, as well as for other contacts of people from Trump’s entourage with Russians. They believe that the investigation will prove that everything that we see is the results of the Kremlin’s actions that aimed at both presidential candidates, and that the investigation, so to speak, will justify Donald Trump's people. Do you disagree with this?

The FSB operation was most likely large -scale, and these scales are still unclear

- No. I strongly suspect that the case was not limited to one meeting. We constantly hear about new revelations regarding their contacts with Russian representatives. The FSB operation was most likely large -scale, and these scales are still unclear. By the way, indirect confirmation that this story has something more in is the attempts of President Trump to undermine the investigation of Müller.