Former Soviet Spy Who Met With Trump Junior Has “Special Expertise In Running Negative PR Campaigns”

Mediaite reports:

A 2015 lawsuit described the Russian lobbyist Ranit Akhmetshin — who it was revealed Friday attended the now-infamous Donald Trump Jr. meeting in June 2016 — as a Soviet intelligence officer who masterminded a hacking scheme and “developed a special expertise in running negative public-relations campaigns.”

As reported in a Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty story on Akhmetshin from last year, the 49-year-old Russian national with American citizenship for “20 years has worked the shadowy corners of the Washington lobbying scene on behalf of businessmen and politicians from around the former Soviet Union.”

More from the Daily Beast:



The alleged former Soviet intelligence officer who attended the now-infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other top campaign officials last June was previously accused in federal and state courts of orchestrating an international hacking conspiracy.

Rinat Akhmetshin told the Associated Press on Friday he accompanied Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to the June 9, 2016, meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort. Trump’s attorney confirmed Akhmetshin’s attendance in a statement.

Akhmetshin’s presence at Trump Tower that day adds another layer of controversy to an episode that already provides the clearest indication of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. In an email in the run-up to that rendezvous, Donald Trump Jr. was promised “very high level and sensitive information” on Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”