Monday, July 17, 2017

Who is the Russian lawyer in the Trump Jr. meeting and why do Russians really want to allow Americans to adopt their orphans

Julia Ioffe of the Atlantic has done an excellent profile of the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. She's at the center of the June 2016 meeting with Trump Jr. where he wanted to get dirt on Hilary Clinton from the Russian government. Here's Ioffe's article. Note she has Kremlin connections and sides with conservative American views. She has also advocated the repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Trump Jr initially indicated that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children.

So, note this. When a Russian comes here to try to end the ban on adoptions of Russian children by American couples, there's a catch. The ban was implemented by Russian president Vladimir Putin in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act which imposed sanctions on Putin's oligarch buddies for the death of Putin critic, Sergei Magnitisky. So, any Russian here is likely going to advocate the repeal of the sanctions and of course, do Putin's bidding.

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