Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya speaks to journalists in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 11, 2017. Veselnitskaya admits she met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 presidential campaign, but insists that she had no compromising information on Hillary Clinton to offer in contrast to what the email exchange released by Trump’s eldest son suggested. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

One of the silliest facets of the whole Mueller investigation was the obsession by the left and by the Never Trump types with a meeting held on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower. The meeting involved Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., on behalf of the Trump campaign; Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin who had asked for the meeting; and Rob Goldstone, Anatoli Samochornov, and Ike Kaveladze. Goldstone and Kaveladze acted as intermediaries to set up the meeting and Samochornov was the interpreter for Veslnitskaya.

The bait for the meeting was “dirt” on the Clinton campaign that allegedly revealed financial shenanigans. The switch was lobbying the campaign to remove sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska was a client of Fusion GPS and Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin were both Fusion GPS stringers.

Somehow, this entire meeting became part of the collusion hoax because it was somehow illegal for anyone to use opposition research materials provided from a foreign national in a presidential campaign.

Just joking. What you had here was Donald Trump, Jr., meeting with a couple of Russians who used a story about having evidence of financial corruption by the Clintons as a way to get a meeting to lobby for their real client. But RUSSIA IS NOT OUR FRIEND.

Attorney General Barr effectively put that to bed today. He said that there was zero evidence of any cooperation between anyone on the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

AG William Barr notes that “the Special Counsel found no collusion by any Americans” during a press conference on the release of the limitedly redacted Mueller report. pic.twitter.com/x3tz1NBQDW

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 18, 2019