The Russian lawyer who attended the notorious Trump Tower meeting with senior Trump campaign officials in 2016 has been indicted on an obstruction of justice charge for lying about her collusion with Russian officials, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The indictment claims Natalia Veselnitskaya was working closely in secret with Russian officials while covering-up her back-channel in U.S. court.
While representing Russian real-estate conglomerate Prevezon in a federal money-laundering case involving corrupt Russian officials, Veselnitskaya intentionally misled the feds by presenting supposedly independent evidence from the Russian prosecutors office about her clients without disclosing that she had participated in drafting that information with the help of âa senior Russian prosecutor,â the U.S. government alleges.
The grand-jury charge claims to show that U.S. officials have accessed communications between Veselnitskaya and her government colleagues back in Moscowâwhich will be of great interest to Mueller watchers who have pondered the Kremlinâs involvement in Veslenitskayaâs notorious trip to Trump Tower in June 2016.
Her name first surfaced in a July 2017 New York Times report, which revealed that Donald Trump Jr. received an email stating âa "Russian government attorney" had damaging intel on Hillary Clinton. The mysterious missive also claimed that the dirt came from "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
The Trump team originally dismissed suggestions that Veselnitskayaâs subsequent summit with Don Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner was evidence of collusion with the Russian government.
Veselnitskaya insisted that she met the Trump team in a private capacity, and was not directed by Russian officials. The charge sheet made public on Tuesday makes clear that she was in close contact with senior Russian officials. Veselnitskaya was so deeply trusted by the Kremlin that she was allowed to draft and edit Russiaâs official response to a U.S. judicial request.
One of the main targets of Veselnitskyaâs operationânamed in the indictment as CEO-1âwas Bill Browder, a U.S.-born hedge fund manager who once operated out of Russia. She and Putin both claim that Browder had carried out the fraud Prevezon was accused of laundering.
The Southern Districtâs indictment suggests that Veselnitskaya is central to Russiaâs persecution of Browder, a task that is very close to Putinâs heart. The hostility dates back to 2009 when Browderâs lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in Russian custody.
Tuesdayâs indictment even caught Browder by surprise. âThis shows that every aspect of the Russians dirty operationâwhich is not just limited to Prevezon but much more broadlyâis coming out. This is the definition of karma,â he told The Daily Beast. âAt the end of this process there will be no secrets.â
The revelation that Veselnitskya was allowed to craft official documents in the name of the prosecutor generalâs office as part of her role in lobbying against Browder exposes the true nature of Russiaâs judicial system.
âThe Russians just came up with new charges against me and another Interpol notice, this indictment just means that all their bogus charges are going to be ignored by everybody,â Browder said. âIt also shows what a totally haphazard operation the Russians really run.â
Veselnitskaya began representing Prevezon in 2015, when former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara pursued a $230 million money-laundering case against the company.
The company ultimately settled with the Manhattan U.S. Attorneyâs Office for $5.9 million in 2017 and after some wrangling over how to pay, Prevezon agreed in 2018 that it would fork over the money, Bloomberg reported.
As a lawyer for Prevezon, Veselnitskaya allegedly filed âan intentionally misleading declarationâ to fight prosecutors allegations of financial wrongdoings. This declaration detailed âsupposed investigative findings by the Russian governmentâfindings purportedly exonerating Veselnitskayaâs clientsâunder the false pretense that these findings had been independently drafted by the Russian government.â
In reality, Veselnitskaya hid the fact âas a member of the defense team in the Prevezon action,â she âhad participated in drafting those supposed exculpatory investigative findings in secret cooperation with a senior Russian prosecutor,â prosecutors said.
When Veslnitskaya got involved in the Prevezon case, prosecutors were trying to recover millions in property, largely in New York, on the basis this real estate was used in laundering money from a âRussian tax fraud scheme,â also referred to as the âRussian Treasury Fraud.â
This fraud, prosecutors alleged, was a massive scheme in which a âcriminal organizationââthat included corrupt Russian government officialsâcheated the countryâs taxpayers. The alleged fraudsters stole the âcorporate identitiesâ of three businesses that were owned by a foreign investment fund, made up bogus debts against these stolen businesses, and then claimed tax refund âon the basis of those false corporate liabilities,â prosecutors said.
Magnitsky had uncovered this fraud. He was subsequently arrested, imprisoned without trial, and left without treatment to die after a beating.
U.S. prosecutors in March 2014 asked the Russian government for records related to the fraud, including bank documents that would detail the flow of dirty money, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT).
That August, Russian officials answered the MLAT request but sent U.S. prosecutors a government report from the Prosecutor Generalâs office rather than the documents.
This Russian MLAT Response contained â supposed investigative findings purportedly from a Russian government investigationâ which claimed to clear all Russian government officials of involvement in this fraud,â U.S. prosecutors said.
Prevezon in November 2015 tried to dissuade a judge from determining that fraud had taken place, also claiming that Russian government officials werenât involved in any alleged wrongdoing.
Veselnitskayaâs declaration, which included the MLAT response, not only claimed it was âexculpatory evidenceâ bolstering Prevezonâs claims of innocenceâshe also said she had â gone to great lengths to obtain a copy of it.â
The Russian lawyer maintained not only that she tried getting a copy from Russiaâs Prosecutor General and had been deniedâbut that she pursued an action in a Russian court to compel Russian prosecutorsâ cooperation.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorneyâs Office charges that Veselnitskayaâs claim of Russian prosecutorsâ resistance is untrue.
Emails from an account Veselnitskaya used show that she âsecretly worked with a senior Russian prosecutor to help draft the Russian MLAT Response.â She sent âmultiple draftsâ of her declaration to the personal email address of a Russian prosecutor in the Prosecutor Generalâs Office. The Russian prosecutor made numerous edits and insertions to the Russian MLAT Response, U.S. prosecutors charge.
This same Russian prosecutor also sent Veselnetskaya a draft complaint against the Prosecutor General to show her purported efforts in obtaining MLAT info.
âSuch a formal complaint would falsely make it appearâconsistent with the Veselnitskaya Declarationâthat Veselnitskaya was only able to obtain the Russian MLAT Response through formal legal means and was not a party to its very drafting,â U.S. prosecutors claim.
In Veselnetskayaâs court filing, she didnât disclose any information about the Russian prosecutorsâ involvement, not that she helped pen the MLAT response.
Veselnitskaya, 43, has not been detained by U.S. authorities and is believed to be in Russia.
Putinâs personal animosity to Browder is intense; he even singled him out for criticism during the historic joint press conference with President Trump after the Helsinki summit.
Browder took up his cause and pledged to track down the stolen money wherever in the world it had been hidden and hold the perpetrators of the fraud, death, and cover-up to account.
In 2012, President Obama signed the Magnitsky act into law in the U.S. sanctioning senior Russian officials for their roles in the crime. The Magnitsky act has since been expanded in the U.S. and beyond to go after corrupt Russian officials and oligarchs including some of Putinâs closest associates.
Lawyers for Prevezon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.