There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the infamous brief meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016 between individuals tied to Russia, Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials.
Don Jr. has been on the defensive fighting accusations that the meeting was in some way colluding with the Russians.
Everything began with an email Trump Jr. received from an acquaintance named Rob Goldstone. Goldstone is a publicist whose clients included a Russian singer named Emin Agalarov. Agalarov is also vice president of a Moscow-based development company called Crocus Group, run by his father, Aras Agalarov.
On the morning of Friday, June 3, 2016, Goldstone emailed Trump Jr. He had considered emailing the Donald Trump, but because the offer was “ultra sensitive,” he figured he would pitch Trump Jr. first.
“The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with . . . Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” Goldstone wrote. “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin. What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?”
In addition to Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner, five people attended the meeting. They were:
- Goldstone, who checked into Trump Tower on Facebook beforehand.
- A Russian attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya.
- A Russian American lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin.
- Ike Kaveladze, an employee of the Crocus Group in the United States.
- Anatoli Samochornov, a translator.
Evidence is mounting that shows it’s not Don Jr. who was colluding – it’s becoming apparent that he was set up.
As written and reported by Aaron Klein, Breitbart.
Three Russian participants at the meeting have ties to the controversial Fusion GPS outfit, and two have confirmed ties to Hillary Clinton. The Russia collusion conspiracy was sparked by the dossier produced by Fusion GPS, which was paid for its anti-Trump work by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.
Also, email logs brought to light show numerous emails were exchanged between a Clinton associate, Fusion GPS and Trump Tower participants, with the subjects of some of those emails listing the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials and was by all accounts the very topic of the Trump Tower meeting.
One Russian participant in the Trump Tower presentation admits to personally knowing Hillary Clinton since the late 1990s and says he “knew” some of the people who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Another Russian attendee, a translator, testified that he was previously an interpreter for Hillary herself as well as for John Kerry and Barack Obama.
Questions are also raised by a timeline showing numerous personal meetings between Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Trump Tower participants. A Clinton associate, Ed Lieberman, was listed as being present at one and possibly two of those meetings.
Separately, Lieberman met with one Russian participant the same day of the Trump Tower meeting, according to separate testimony.
There are also questions about the initial setup of the Trump Tower meeting, with the publicist who sent the infamous email to Donald Trump Jr. promising “information that would incriminate” Clinton later admitting that he used deliberately hyperbolic language to ensure that the meeting took place. No such incriminating information on Hillary was provided, according to all meeting participants. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Robert Goldstone, the publicist, further said that he believes the meeting was a “bait and switch” by a Russian lobbyist seeking a meeting on another matter by misleadingly claiming to be bringing the Trump campaign dirt on Clinton.
Dinners with Fusion GPS
Russian-born Washington lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, who was present at the meeting, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who led the Trump Tower meeting along with Akhmetshin, both worked with Fusion GPS on a case involving the Magnitsky Act, which was the central topic of the Trump Tower meeting. The work included the period of the Trump Tower gathering.
Anatoli Samochornov, the Russian translator who was present at the Trump Tower meeting, also did translation work associated with that case and was present for the meetings with Fusion GPS.
According to testimony, Akhmetshin, Veselnitskaya and Samochornov held several dinner meetings, including during the time of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower confab.
Email Logs Reveal Correspondence Between Clinton Associate, Fusion GPS, and Russians at Trump Tower Meeting
Breitbart News first reported that attorney Edward Lieberman, whose late wife Evelyn served as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, exchanged numerous emails with Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and with the Russian participants in the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting, documentation provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee shows.
The correspondence, part of a series of exhibits provided to Senate investigators and reviewed by Breitbart News, took place in the weeks leading up to the Trump Tower meeting.
Breitbart News previously cited witness testimony saying Lieberman was present at one and possibly two dinner meetings between the controversial Fusion GPS firm and key participants in the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Also, Lieberman met with one Russian participant the same day of the Trump Tower meeting, according to separate testimony.
Now the email logs provide a paper trail connection between Lieberman, Fusion GPS, and two of the Russian participants in the Trump Tower confab.
Besides working for Hillary Clinton while she was First Lady, Lieberman’s late wife, Evelyn, also served as Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, and famously transferred Monica Lewinsky out of the White House to the Defense Department.
Trump Tower Participant Met Clinton Associate Same Day
Lieberman’s alleged association with the Trump Tower fiasco was previously spotlighted in testimony by Akhmetshin, as first reported by Breitbart News. Akhmetshin describes meeting with Lieberman two times the same day as the Trump Tower meeting.
The New York Times previously reported that Lieberman in 1998 arranged for Akhmetshin’s position at “an organization pushing what he described as a pro-democracy agenda for Kazakhstan.” Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says he met Akhmetshin through Lieberman.
In his Senate testimony, Akhmetshin described taking an Acela train to New York the day of the Trump Tower meeting and says that Lieberman “may” have been with him on the train.
Akhmetshin says his dealings with Lieberman in New York that day were “personal” and centered on a scholarship program that he claims Lieberman started. “And he was in New York that day to discuss arrangements with Metropolitan Museum with kind of taking care of that scholarship award,” Akhmetshin stated.
Akhmetshin says that while he was in New York, he had lunch with Veselnitskaya, who told him about the scheduled meeting that day at Trump Tower, but she didn’t say anything about him attending.
He claims that after he had lunch with Veselnitskaya, she called him and asked him to attend the Trump Tower meeting, but she didn’t suggest any role he would play at the meeting or why he should attend.
After the meeting at Trump Tower, Akhmetshin says he went to dinner and a play with Lieberman, and the subject of the meeting that same day did not come up in his conversations with Lieberman at dinner or during the play. Akhmetshin also stated in the testimony that he was not asked to keep the meeting confidential.
In other words, Akhmetshin is claiming that he attended a meeting at the campaign headquarters of Clinton’s presidential challenger with that challenger’s son and other top Trump staffers, and that same night Akhmetshin did not mention the meeting to his friend Lieberman, a reported Clinton associate.
Continue reading the full article by Aaron Klein, Breitbart.
