MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Natalia Veselnitskaya in June last year, according to the New York Times. It subsequently reported that Veselnitskaya had allegedly promised to provide Trump Jr. with compromising information about Hillary Clinton.
According to the newspaper, lawyer Veselnitskaya is known for campaigning against the so-called "Magnitsky Act" signed into US law in 2012. Under the law, some 44 Russian citizens have been put on a list that allows the United States to seize their US assets and deny them visas. In response to the US actions, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in late 2012 the so-called "Dima Yakovlev Law", which imposed a ban on the adoption of Russian children by US nationals, among other provisions. The law is named after a Russian toddler who died of heatstroke in 2008 after his adoptive US father left him in a car in the sun for nine hours.
"We do not know who it is. And of course we cannot track the meetings of all Russian lawyers both inside the country and abroad," Peskov told reporters.
According to the publication, Trump Jr. also said that he had been invited to a meeting through acquaintances and he did not know the name of the person with whom he was going to talk with.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of trying to influence elections in different countries, with Peskov calling them "absolutely unsubstantiated." Lavrov, speaking of alleged Russian intervention in the elections in the US, France and Germany, said that there are no facts confirming this. Putin said that the US interfered in foreign political processes all around the world, but offended by Russia, which allegedly interfered in their election, although in fact such interference does not make any sense for Moscow.
