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When Donald Trump Jr. sat down with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June, he hoped to receive information from the Russian government that would, in the words of an intermediary, "incriminate" his father's political opponent Hillary Clinton, according to his recently released emails.

We don't know exactly what was discussed, as details about the meeting are still emerging, and Don Jr. and the Trump administration have been less than forthcoming. We do know that in addition to Veselnitskaya, the president's son (plus his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort) met with Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist and former Soviet military officer. For his part, Akhmetshin has told the Associated Press, "Veselnitskaya brought with her a plastic folder with printed-out documents that detailed what she believed was the flow of illicit funds to the Democrats."

But Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin had something else on their agendas too: A sales pitch for why Donald Trump, if elected, should gut a previously little-known 2012 law, called the "Magnitsky Act," which holds human rights violators accountable for their actions.

As investigators are no doubt examining, it's possible that the Russians raised lifting Magnitsky Act sanctions in a quid pro quo related to helping Trump win the election. We don't know yet. But putting the lurid details and explosive ramifications of the Don Jr. meeting aside, the episode points to the power the United States wields in standing up for human rights and the rule of law, and the lengths to which repressive governments will go to evade accountability. Given that Congress recently expanded the Magnitsky Act to apply globally, the import behind the law that brought the Kremlin to Trump Tower is one worth detailing. 

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