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Trump's campaign team met with a Russian lawyer believed to work 'at the behest' of the Kremlin

The lawyer is known for waging a harsh campaign against the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which blacklisted Russians suspected of human rights abuses

President Donald Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last year, just weeks after Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Veselnitskaya is known for waging a harsh campaign against the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which blacklisted Russians suspected of human-rights abuses, and has strong ties to the Kremlin. her clients have included Russian state-owned businesses.

She is also the family lawyer for

Magnitsky uncovered the scheme, which became one of the biggest corruption scandals of Russian President Vladimir Putin's presidency, in 2008 on behalf of the investment advisory firm Hermitage Capital. Magnitsky was later thrown in jail and died in custody, and an independent human-rights commission found he had been illegally arrested and beaten. The Kremlin maintains that Magnitsky died of a heart attack.

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The founder of Hermitage, William Browder, sought justice for Magnitsky in the US and Europe after Magnitsky died. In 2012, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the president to deny visas to, and freeze the assets of,Russians believed to have been complicit in Magnitsky's death.

The meeting between Veselnitskaya and the Trump campaign is the first confirmed meeting between a Russian citizen and the campaign. Veselnitskaya's meeting was arranged by Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and was attended by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Both Kushner and Manafort are people of interest in ongoing congressional and FBI investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign played a role in it.

The Trump campaign's meeting with Veselnitskaya was only recently disclosed to government officials, when Kushner filed a revised security clearance form after The Times reported in April that he had failed to disclose his contacts with Russian officials before joining the Trump administration.

Trump Jr.told the Times that the meeting had been to discuss an adoption program. He was likely referring to Putin's retaliatory measure against the Magnitsky Act, which was blocking Americans from adopting Russian children.

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"It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by," Trump Jr. said in a statement to The Times. "We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up."

"It wouldn't have helped the company address the money laundering allegations mounted by the US Department of Justice," Browder said. "The only reason for them to do this would have been at the behest of the Russian government."

government policy with Russian citizens.

"One-

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