Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, spoke with a top Russian official beforehand, according a report.
The New York Times reported Friday that Veselnitskaya discussed the contents of a memo she believed damaging to the Democratic Party and Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton with Russia's prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika. The report is based off interviews and records, The Times reported.
The meeting — which was also attended by six other people, including former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — is one of the subjects of the ongoing Russia investigations by Congress and special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Trump Jr. disclosed emails earlier this year that show he took the Trump Tower meeting believing Veselnitskaya would provide him potentially damaging information about Clinton – and that he was told the material would come from the Russian government.
Veselnitskaya has previously denied having any information about Clinton and said she did not know why Trump Jr. believed he was going to receive damaging information at the meeting. According to the The Times report, Veselnitskaya says the memo came from her own research and did not take any direction from the Kremlin.
Yet the memo she brought with her meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016, according to The Times, was reportedly very similar to one that Chaika's office had given to California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.