President Trump’s son, Donald, Jr., admits that after his father’s nomination, he met with a Russian lawyer who said that she could provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But that he and his father’s key advisors Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner walked out when her story didn’t amount to anything and it became clear that what she really wanted to talk about was Russia’s adoption policy.
On the surface, this would seem to be a case of the Russians trying to influence the election. Why else would they offer damaging information about the Democratic nominee to the Republican nominee? Wouldn’t this be an attempt to help get the Republican elected?
But there is more to the story. As Natasha Bertrand shows, after the jump, the lawyer represents a Russian who is trying to restore the ability of Americans to adopt Russian children.
In response to an American law denying visas to Russian officials and oligarchs alleged to have been involved with the killing in custody of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. In retaliation, Vladimir Putin ended the program allowing for Americans to adopt children from Russian orphanages. (I know a family that adopted two Russian boys.)
To be sure, the Russian who started a foundation to restore American adoptions and sent his lawyer to talk with the Trump family may well have had ulterior motives in wanting the Magnitsky Act repealed. He may or may not have connections to the Russian government. He may well have been working for his own interests in trying to persuade the Republican candidate to take up his cause.
So, contrary to how this is being played in much of the media, this is not “a smoking gun” proving the Trump’s administration’s collusion with the Russia government in throwing the election. I just wish Donald, Jr., were less interested in getting dirt on Hillary Clinton and more interested in restoring the Russian adoption program!
Read the complicated story of the Magnitsky Act and this particular Russian lawyer after the jump.
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that in an e-mail setting up the meeting, Donald, Jr., was told that it was part of an effort by the Russian government to help his father’s candidacy.
From Natasha Bertrand, Magnitsky Act: Why Russian adoptions discussed at Donald Trump Jr. meeting – Business Insider:
Donald Trump Jr. said he met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June at Trump Tower to discuss compromising information she said she had on Hillary Clinton, but was disappointed when she changed the subject to Russia’s adoption policy.
“It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information,” Trump Jr. said in a statement to the New York Times, and that the adoption policy “was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.”
Veselnitskaya would have had her own motivations for pivoting from promises of dirt on Clinton to a discussion of Russia’s adoption policy, which was altered to bar American families from adopting Russian children in retaliation for the signing of the Magnitsky Act in 2012.
[Keep reading. . .]
Photo by University of Toronto Students for Life [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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