(CNN) As federal prosecutors in New York prepared their case against a man accused of covertly working for Russian intelligence two years ago, they began raising questions about an unidentified "third party" paying the defendant's legal bills. The defendant's benefactor turned out to be VneshEconomBank, the same financial institution at the center of a recent controversy over its chairman's meeting with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and one of his top White House advisers. On the one hand, it should be no surprise that bank, also known as VEB, was paying for Evgeny Buryakov's legal defense -- Buryakov was one of its employees, after all.VneshEconomBank paid for its employee Evgeny Buryakov's legal defenseBuryakov was accused of covertly working for Russian intelligence 
 Question:The bank's _ office had been struggling since Buryakov's arrest, Saratov wrote, "because there is no one else as organized and as diligent as he is."
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