The Russian lawyer who attended the meeting with Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower in June 2016 finally acknowledged her ties to the Kremlin in a forthcoming NBC interview previewed by the New York Times.
Natalia Veselnitskaya, who attended the meeting promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton, previously denied that she had ties to the Russian government, calling herself a private lawyer. Her links to Russian government officials has been previously documented, but the New York Times revealed new ties on Friday.
In an interview that will air on NBC News on Friday, Veselnitskaya says she was an informant for Yuri Y. Chaika, the Kremlin’s prosecutor general, even though she previously denied ties to Chaika.
“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she told NBC News. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”
Newly released emails also show that Veselnitskaya worked with Chaika’s office to reject the U.S. Justice Department’s request to Russia for documents needed for a fraud case against a Russian real estate firm, according to the New York Times. Veselnitskaya helped draft the Russian government’s response to the record request rejecting the demand and defending the Russian firm, according to the emails.
Richard Engel’s interview with Veselnitskaya will air Friday night on“NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” and on MSNBC’s “On Assignment with Richard Engel.”
Read the New York Times’ full account here.
