The Atlantic

What It Means to Have Russian Spies as Clients

The lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. once represented the FSB. But that story is less about espionage than about money.
Source: Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters

One day, we may find the smoking gun, or the one thing that unlocks what really happened in that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. But Friday morning’s Reuters story about Veselnitskaya’s legal work for the FSB isn’t quite it.

The story, reported out of Moscow, provides evidence that to Veselnitskaya’s ties to the world of Russian intelligence. And they could be forgiven for thinking that, given the article’s splashy headline: “Exclusive: Moscow lawyer who met Trump Jr. had Russian spy agency as client.”

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic6 min read
Florida’s Experiment With Measles
The state of Florida is trying out a new approach to measles control: No one will be forced to not get sick. Joseph Ladapo, the state’s top health official, announced this week that the six cases of the disease reported among students at an elementar
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now
It feels like a sin against the sanctitude of being alive to put a dollar value on one year of a human life. A year spent living instead of dead is obviously priceless, beyond the measure of something so unprofound as money. But it gets a price tag i
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Most Consequential Recent First Lady
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The most consequential first lady of modern times was Melania Trump. I know, I know. We are supposed to believe it was Hillary Clinton, with her unbaked cookies

Related Books & Audiobooks