BEST DEFENSE:

Veselnitskaya has been a major detractor of the Magnitsky Act, a law that penalizes Russian officials accused of participating in the detention and subsequent death of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky, who died in detention after being severely beaten, was Browder's lawyer and had uncovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme perpetrated by Russian authorities.

"Repealing the Magnitsky Act was the single biggest priority of Vladimir Putin and she was acting as the single most active proxy of the Russian government to achieve that objective in Washington," Browder said. "I'm sure that this was an attempt by the Russian government to repeal sanctions that annoyed them by going to the possible next president of the United States."

Fusion GPS has said that it was working for the law firm BakerHostetler, which was representing Prevezon, a Russian holding company based in Cyprus, in its defense against Justice Department allegations that Prevezon laundered money stolen in the fraud Magnitsky uncovered. Veselnitskaya was Prevezon's lawyer. Fusion GPS started working on the case in 2013 and the case settled in May with no admission of guilt by Prevezon.

Fusion GPS told me its work on the Prevezon case had nothing to do with the 2016 presidential election and they were not involved in the outreach to the Trump campaign.

"Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it," the company told me in a statement. "Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is false."

As a subcontractor for BakerHostetler, Fusion GPS would not have been required to register under FARA. 

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