534
Which is of no small consequence. Donald Jr’s Kremlin lawyer-Natalia Vesselnitskaya-has insisted that she didn’t speak to Putin about the meeting and that he knew nothing about it-sort of like what Hope Hicks-Trump’s Rose Woods-said about him-he knew nothing, a claim that over time has looked worse and worse.
Indeed, regarding the Trump Tower meeting, as usual, Trump and Putin complete each other’s sentences. Here’s what Vlad-if Trump’s the faux ‘President’ Putin is sort of our de facto President-said standing next to Trump on the stage in Helsinki:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday closely echoed comments made by last year Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya regarding the purpose and content of her June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with representatives of the Trump campaign.”
“Veselnitskaya has said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and in a memo containing her talking points for the meeting that was obtained by CNN that the Trump Tower meeting was intended to convince the Americans to support repealing the Magnitsky Act, the legislation that imposed US sanctions on Russia.”
This was the version of events Trump and Don Jr tried to sell. But adoptions-ie, the Magnitsky Act-was discussed as part of a quid pro quo in exchange for dirt on Clinton.
“In November 2017 at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Veselnitskaya repeatedly targeted Bill Browder, a critic of Putin who pursued the sanctions law following the death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while in Russian custody in 2009.”
“At a news conference with Trump in Helsinki, Putin raised the subject of Browder after offering to let special counsel Robert Mueller travel to Russia to be present for the questioning of the 12 Russian military officers indicted last week. Putin said that offer would be contingent on the US consenting to allow Russians to interrogate certain Americans.”
“Putin suggested Browder would be of primary interest in such an interrogation, and accused Browder’s associates of funneling millions of dollars earned in Russia into the US to aid the Clinton campaign.”
“Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia. They never paid any taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States, and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States,” Putin said. “They sent huge amount of money, $400 million as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well, that’s the personal case. It might have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was earned was illegal.”
This $400 million dollars in donations is a total fabrication but Vesselnitskaya also used it-at the Trump Tower meeting
Putin continued: “So we have a solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have a — an interest of questioning them. We can all — that — that could be a first step, and we can also extend it. Options abound, and they all can be found in an appropriate legal framework.”
While she’s denied Putin being behind the meeting, she also targeted Bowder at the Trump Tower #CollusionMeeting and in her Senate Judiciary Committee testimony:
“Browder and everyone behind him who had theretofore been silent about him acquired at least an opportunity to use Magnitsky’s death to turn him into a martyr and to create a picture of all-consuming corruption in Russia in case someone in the USA decides to start investigating the real facts of their illegal actions and crimes they may have committed against the American people,” she said.
Asked if she discussed Clinton during the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya she didn’t recall, adding that she had suggested that money entering the US illegally could have been used to advance the interests of the Democratic Party.
The claim she didn’t talk about Clinton is: perjury. The meeting was sold to Don Jr as a place he could get some very useful Clinton oppo. Rob Goldstone had emailed him on June 3, 2016 and said thanks to a conversation between Aras Agalarov and Russia’s ‘Crown prosecutor’-actually Russia’s prosecutor general the Russian government was offering the Trump campaign dirt on Clinton as ‘part of its support for your father.’
“What dirt Trump Jr. might have been expecting on Clinton wasn’t clear, but we have a good sense of what was actually offered. Trump Jr.’s original, misleading statement indicated that the meeting with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was focused on the issue of Russian adoptions. The statement was dictated by President Trump, The Washington Post later reported, on his flight back from a meeting of the Group of 20 in Europe at which he and Putin discussed, among other things, adoptions. Trump Jr. later released his emails, which made clear that adoptions weren’t the predication for the meeting.”
“I was probably pressing because the pretext of the meeting was, ‘Hey, I have information about your opponent,’ ” he said. “It was this, you know, ‘Hey, some DNC donors may have done something and Russia and they didn’t pay taxes.’ I was, like, what does this have to do with anything?”
But it’s clear that Vesselnitskaya was using Putin’s talking point.
“That, you will note, is a very good summary of the pitch Putin made Monday.”
Indeed, Paul Manafort’s been in the news with his ongoing trial and it’s instructive to compare what Putin said in Helsinki-aka the #TreasonSummit-to Manafort’s notes from the Trump Tower meeting. When Trump and his loyalists claim Manafort has nothing to do with him or collusion they conveniently ‘forget’ he was at the #CollusionMeeting.
“Manafort’s notes from the meeting, turned over to Mueller, reinforce how important Browder was to the pitch. His is the first name listed among those Manafort typed into his phone; the notes proceed through Veselnitskaya’s case largely as articulated in a memo she prepared before the meeting.”
FN: Of course since when I first wrote this chapter in August, 2018-at the time of Manafort’s first trial-before a very friendly judge-we’ve learned a great deal more and it’s now very clear that Manafort was a key point person in Russian collusion-the polling data he gave Kilimnik, the quiet logical premise that it was his email to Roger Stone on July 22, 2016 that instructed Stone to find out what else Wikileaks had-beyond the DNC dump that Stone had told Trump about on July 18-19; Post the Mueller Report we now have whatRick Gates told Mueller’s team-that Manafort was very engaged on the subject of Wikileaks’ email dump and was very enthusiastic about what Assange would leak in the future.
End of FN
Vesselnitskaya has repeatedly claimed to work independently and of having no connection to Putin.
Veselnitskaya has said repeatedly that she isn’t an agent of the Russian government. “I operate independently of any governmental bodies,” she said in her Senate testimony.”
But her constant use of Putin’s same talking points-at the Trump Tower meeting, even in her own Senate Judiciary Committee-show this is a pretty transparent lie.
P.S. Apparently Trump has expressed some concern that his son of the same name could face criminal exposure for unknowingly breaking the law at the Trump Tower meeting.
Trump adviser: President Trump now thinks Don Jr. may have wandered into violating the law with Trump Tower Russia meeting, just not purposefully.https://t.co/hSNJgkPCYb
Text from Washington Post (@PhilipRucker @costareports @AshleyRParker reporting): pic.twitter.com/Jzt8RT0nC5
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) August 4, 2018
How concerned is he? As concerned as Michael Flynn was-ie, concerned enough to cooperate with Mueller? Maybe sit for an interview? If the choice is prison for his son or being personally exposed what would his choice be? That the answer to this question isn’t obvious shows what a low quality human being we’re talking about here.
It’s not obvious to me that he wouldn’t be willing to let his son of the same name take the rap to save his own skin. This is the first we’ve heard of concern on his part. We’ll have to stay tuned to see if this comes up again in the coming months.
UPDATE: Though maybe we’re reading these ‘regrets or concerns’ by our sociopathic ‘President’ wrongly: maybe he’s saying ‘It sure would be a shame if Don Jr had to go to prison but, hey, he was at that Trump Tower meeting, not me.’
P.S.S. Which is not to say I feel too sorry for Donald Jr who as made his own choices. On Friday his latest choice was to compare the DNC to nazis.
UPDATE 2.0: As it turned out Trump needn’t have worried about Don Jr. Mueller decided not to charge Jr on the premise that ignorance is an excuse in contradiction to a the legal truism that ignorance is not an excuse but-I guess Mueller felt like not only can you not indict a ‘President’ you also can’t indict his family.
FN: Apparently there are two very narrow exceptions were ignorance can be an excuse that nevertheless were handy for Mueller in avoiding Trump’s wrath. Very few of us would get such an exception but to paraphrase what Trump said in Hollywood Access ‘When you’re an illegitimate President they let you do it.’
So the notion of leaning on Trump’s namesake son in exchange for an interview was moot-Mueller didn’t compel Trump sit for an interview either in any case.
So despite the talk of Jr going to prison-even Trump worried about it-Mueller had his kid gloves on all along-much as Nancy Pelosi still does today.
— rosierifka (@rosierifka) July 9, 2019
It’s also fine for Pelosi.
This is why I'm glad I'm an independent. The Democrats are cowards, and the Republicans are criminals.
— Satans Little Pet (@SatansLittlePet) July 9, 2019