The second Russian individual who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other top Trump campaign members and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya has been identified as Rinat Akhmetshin, according to a report published Friday.
Akhmetshin is a Russian-American lobbyist believed to have ongoing ties to Russian intelligence operations. He was named as a lobbyist for an organization trying to rescind the 2012 Magnitsky Act.
Akhmetshin was also named in a complaint against the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation and others, filed by Hermitage Capital Management with the Justice Department last year.
Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin met with Donald Trump Jr., former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Trump son-in-law and now-White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on June 9.
A publicist connected to the Trump business through the Miss Universe pageant, Rob Goldstone, set up the meeting between Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr., with the promise that the meeting would hold negative information about Hillary Clinton coming from the Russian government.
Veselnitskaya, who has been linked to the Kremlin, waited until Friday before admitting to NBC News someone else accompanied her to Trump Tower, where she pivoted from the promise of dishing dirt on Hillary Clinton to lobbying the Trump campaign on adoption policy as it relates to Russia.
None of the Trump campaign or administration officials had disclosed the fifth person’s attendance at the meeting and have not confirmed the new report.
Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department allowed Veselnitskaya to enter the U.S. without a visa, enabling her to lobby President Trump’s campaign officials and others in Washington last year.
The Justice Department cleared Veselnitskaya under “extraordinary circumstances,” though her reason for traveling is now being scrutinized.
Veselnitskaya was allowed into the U.S. through a legal loophole, allowing her to accompany a colleague who was testifying in a House committee hearing about Russian policy.
Donald Trump Jr. earlier this week said he had now disclosed everything to do with the June 2016 meeting. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Friday struggled to explain why new information, including elements of the meeting, continue to trickle out from the media.
The FBI and two congressional committees are investigating the Trump campaign for possible collusion with the Russian government to win the 2016 presidential election.
