Moscow - The Russian lawyer who met
Donald Trump Jr. after his father won the Republican nomination
for the 2016 US presidential election counted Russia's FSB
security service among her clients for years, Russian court
documents seen by Reuters show.
The documents show that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya,
successfully represented the FSB's interests in a legal wrangle
over ownership of an upscale property in northwest Moscow
between 2005 and 2013.
The FSB, successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, was headed
by Vladimir Putin before he became Russian president.
There is no suggestion that Veselnitskaya is an employee of
the Russian government or intelligence services, and she has
denied having anything to do with the Kremlin.
But the fact she represented the FSB in a court case may
raise questions among some U.S. politicians.
The Obama administration last year sanctioned the FSB for
what it said was its role in hacking the election, something
Russia flatly denies, and Charles Grassley, Republican chairman
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has raised concerns about why
Veselnitskaya was allowed into the United States at all.
Veselnitskaya did not reply to emailed Reuters questions
about her work for the FSB. The FSB did not respond to a request
for comment.
Reuters could not find a record of when and by whom the
lawsuit - which dates back to at least 2003 - was first lodged.
But appeal documents show that Rosimushchestvo, Russia's federal
government property agency, was involved. It did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Veselnitskaya and her firm Kamerton Consulting represented
"military unit 55002" in the property dispute, the documents
show.
A public list of Russian legal entities shows the FSB,
Russia's domestic intelligence agency, founded the military unit
whose legal address is behind the FSB's own headquarters.
Reuters was unable to establish if Veselnitskaya did any
other work for the FSB or confirm who now occupies the building
at the centre of the case.
"MASS HYSTERIA" OVER MEETING
President Donald Trump's eldest son eagerly agreed in June
2016 to meet Veselnitskaya, a woman he was told was a Russian
government lawyer who might have damaging information about
Democratic White House rival Hillary Clinton, according to
emails released by Trump Jr.
Veselnitskaya has said she is a private lawyer and has never
obtained damaging information about Clinton. Dmitry Peskov, a
spokesman for the Kremlin, has said she had "nothing whatsoever
to do with us."
Veselnitskaya has also said she is ready to testify to the
U.S. Congress to dispel what she called "mass hysteria" about
the meeting with Trump Jr.
The case in which Veselnitskaya represented the FSB was
complex; appeals courts at least twice ruled in favour of
private companies which the FSB wanted to evict.
The FSB took over the disputed office building in mid-2008,
a person who worked for Atos-Component, a firm that was evicted
as a result, told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.
The building was privatised after the 1991 Soviet collapse,
but the Russian government said in the lawsuit in which
Veselnitskaya represented the FSB that the building had been
illegally sold to private firms.
The businesses were listed in the court documents, but many
of them no longer exist and those that do are little-known firms
in the electric components business.
Elektronintorg, an electronic components supplier, said on
its website that it now occupied the building. Elektronintorg is
owned by state conglomerate Rostec, run by Sergei Chemezov, who,
like Putin, worked for the KGB and served with him in East
Germany.
When contacted by phone, an unnamed Elektronintorg employee
said he was not obliged to speak to Reuters. Rostec did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
When asked which organisation was located there, an
unidentified man who answered a speakerphone at the main
entrance laughed and said: "Congratulations. Ask the city
administration."