Natalia Veselnitskaya

Natalia Veselnitskaya
Born	Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya Moscow, Russia
Alma mater	Moscow State Legal Academy
Occupation	Lawyer
Known for	Advocacy against Magnitsky Act Trump campaign-Russian meeting

Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya (Russian: Ната́лья Влади́мировна Весельни́цкая; IPA: [nɐˈtalʲjə vʲɪsʲɪlʲˈnʲit͡skəjə]) is a Russian lawyer who has been an outspoken advocate in the United States against the Magnitsky Act. Her prominent clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York.

Her June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower has attracted attention related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

Veselnitskaya attests she graduated with distinction from the Moscow State Legal Academy in 1998. She attests that she was then employed by the prosecutor's office in Moscow Oblast, where she worked on legislation. She claims to have won over 300 legal cases. She then moved into private practice, focusing on land deals in the expanding Moscow suburbs.

Veselnitskaya has long been the lawyer for Pyotr Katsyv, who is the vice-president of the state-owned Russian Railways, and was formerly the Moscow region's minister of transportation. In 2008, Vladimir Solovyov accused Veselnitskaya and her stepdaughter of orchestrating unusual court decisions regarding land in Moscow. Veselnitskaya successfully sued Spravedlivost, an anti-corruption nonprofit, for defamation after it accused her, her former husband, and Katsyv of seizing land using government connections. Her claims that land owned by IKEA was actually owned by an old collective farm were ultimately dismissed by the Supreme Court of Russia.

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