The now-infamous Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign had a previously undisclosed attendee. And that person is allegedly — I kid you not — a former Russian spook. 
 
 This latest news comes courtesy of a report published by NBC News on Friday morning. The man in question, according to NBC, is a “Russian-American lobbyist” and “a former Soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence.” 
 
 NBC chose not to publish his name, but the Associated Press has identified him as Rinat Akhmetshin — a longtime Washington lobbyist who was accused in court filings of being a former Soviet military intelligence officer who "developed a special expertise in running negative public-relations campaigns” (a charge he denies). 
 
 Trump Jr. somehow failed to disclose Akhmetshin’s presence at the meeting, making this the fifth time he chose to either lie about the meeting or omit some vital piece of information about it. To make matters worse, his own lawyer, Alan Futerfas, partially confirmed the story in a statement to NBC — admitting that there was at least one previously undisclosed attendee, possibly even two, at the fateful meeting. 
 
 “He is a US citizen,” Futerfas told NBC, referring to the unnamed attendee presumed to be Akhmetshin. “He told me specifically he was not working for the Russian government, and in fact laughed when I asked him that question.” 
 
 Which is exactly what a spy would do if you asked them if they were a spy. “This is how it is done,” Glenn Carle, a CIA operative who spent 23 years at the agency, told me after reading NBC’s scoop. 
 
 Now, it’s too early to say with any certainty that Akhmetshin was actually a Russian spy. His ties to Russian intelligence are still murky at this point — he is a dual US-Russian citizen who has lived in the US since 1994 and worked in Washington for decades on all sorts of lobbying campaigns, including ones related to the Magnitsky Act, US sanctions punishing Russia for its human rights record. 
 
 But NBC’s report does prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there’s more to this meeting than what we know right now. The Trumps are still lying to us. 
 
 It is impossible to believe the Trump account of the meeting anymore 
 
 My colleague Dara Lind has put together a comprehensive timeline of Donald Trump Jr.’s shifting stories on the Russia meeting. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a shortened version: 
 
 First, Trump Jr. denied any meeting with Russians. 
 
 When the New York Times reported last Saturday that he had met with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, he said it was “a short introductory meeting” about “a program about the adoption of Russian children” — which is code for lifting Magnitsky sanctions. 
 
 When the Times reported in a Sunday follow-up that Trump Jr. went to the meeting to get dirt on Clinton, he admitted this was right — that Veselnitskaya was “an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign,” but didn’t mention any potential Russian government connections. 
 
 On Tuesday, to preempt yet another Times scoop, Trump Jr. published his emails with British publicist Rob Goldstone about the Veselnitskaya meeting — in which Goldstone states that the meeting was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” and Trump Jr. replies that “if it’s what you say I love it.” 
 
 Now, on Friday, Trump’s camp has admitted there was at least one more person at the meeting that we didn’t know about — and it seems plausible that this person, Akhmetshin, has at least some kind of connection to Russian intelligence. 
 
 What this demonstrates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the Trump camp cannot be trusted, at any point in time, to be telling the full and complete truth about what went down at the meeting. We now know, for a fact, that they have lied about the meeting having taken place, lied about the purpose of the meeting, lied about what they knew about the woman in the meeting, and lied (if only by omission) about who was at the meeting. 
 
 All of which raises a question: Why should we believe they’re telling the truth about what happened at the meeting? 
 
 So far, the line from the Trump camp has been that the meeting involved a brief conversation about Hillary Clinton, which yielded no information, and then shifted to the topic of Russian adoptions in the United States. That’s what Veselnitskaya said as well in an interview with NBC. 
 
 But why should we believe them? They’ve lied about everything else. If they actually discussed a complex scheme of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers at the meeting, would they just admit it? Of course not, given the past track record. 
 
 Which is why this NBC scoop is so vital. 
 
 Not only does it establish that the pattern of lying and obfuscation is ongoing, but it reveals that there was at least one more person at the meeting who could corroborate (or disprove) the story about what happened. That person is also someone whose background will now almost certainly be investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller to see just how real the suspicions of his continuing connections to Russian intelligence are. If someone could substantiate that Akhmetshin really was still a Kremlin asset, that would bring the Russian government’s ties to the Trump campaign one giant step closer. 
 
 So at bottom, there’s one clear takeaway from this story: We are not yet even close to the full truth about Donald Trump Jr.’s dalliance with Russia. 
 
 Sean Illing contributed reporting for this piece. ||||| 
 
 MANHATTAN (CN) – A law firm and a man accused of being a former Soviet spy hacked into a mining company’s computers to get an upper hand in overseas litigation, the company claims. 
 
 International Mineral Resources, or IMR, claims business rival and fertilizer maker EuroChem Volga-Kaliy hired New York City law firm Salisbury & Ryan to dig up information on a business rival when a mining deal went bad. 
 
 The law firm then hired alleged former Soviet military counterintelligence officer Renit Akhmetshin to conduct an illegal hacking campaign, according to a lawsuit filed by the mining company on Nov. 12 in New York County Supreme Court. 
 
 The lawsuit does not list any direct documentation of Salisbury & Ryan or EuroChem asking the alleged former spy to hack IMR, but it claims that the law firm “reached out to Akhmetshin specifically because they understood that Akhmetshin could gain access to private sources of information.” 
 
 The alleged espionage stems from a mining deal that went sour after unexpected delays held up construction of a mine in Russia, according to the complaint. 
 
 In 2007, EuroChem entered into a contract with South African mining company Shaft Sinkers to design and dig a mine shaft in a small Russian town. Five years later, the mine flooded, the project was delayed, and EuroChem began examining potential legal action against Shaft Sinkers, court records show. 
 
 EuroChem hired boutique law firm Salisbury & Ryan to help prepare for the potential lawsuit and to dig up information on Shaft Sinkers’ affiliates, the complaint states. The three-attorney firm, known for handling international arbitration, then allegedly asked longtime collaborator Akhmetshin for help. 
 
 Akhmetshin, once a Russian government official, has for at least the last decade worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., running a little-known think tank called the International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political Research, according to IMR’s lawsuit. 
 
 The suit claims Akhmetshin has made a name for himself by developing relationships with reporters at Harper’s Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post. He disseminated inside information to journalists in an effort to tarnish certain companies’ reputations, IMR alleges. 
 
 Akhmetshin’s name was mentioned in an article in The New York Times earlier this year detailing a Russian business feud, in which Akhmetshin was quoted as being paid $70,000 by one Russian oligarch to discredit another. 
 
 In last week’s lawsuit, IMR claims EuroChem asked Akhmetshin in July 2012 to break into its company servers, then paid him $45,000 for the information he stole. A month and a half later, Akhmetshin allegedly met with his employers in London to drop off a thumb drive with 50 gigabytes of stolen Shaft Sinkers memos, emails and financial information on it. 
 
 In late 2012, after Akhmetshin allegedly delivered the stolen data, EuroChem filed arbitration proceedings against Shaft Sinkers, claiming misconduct in the mining project the two companies had once shared. 
 
 EuroChem also brought claims against IMR in the Netherlands in 2013. EuroChem sought about $1.2 billion in the Dutch case, according to court records. 
 
 But Akhmetshin’s work wasn’t done yet, the lawsuit states, as he then allegedly spent the early months of 2013 contacting journalists to put out negative stories on Shaft Sinkers and its parent company IMR. 
 
 Akhmetshin was paid $100,000 for the smear campaign and bragged about it, saying he was paid that much to do “certain things that the law firm could not do,” the mining company says. 
 
 The stolen data was still being shopped to others last year, according to IMR. Akhmetshin met a businessman in a London coffee shop in January 2014 and offered to sell the thumb drive, saying “there’s a lot of the stuff, so … but that’s why you are paying money,” IMR’s complaint states. 
 
 The lawsuit also claims the potential ringleader of the conspiracy is Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian billionaire who chairs EuroChem. Melnichenko, who boasts the world’s biggest yacht, has a longstanding relationship with Salisbury & Ryan, which helped the Russian oligarch in a legal dispute over a defective paint job on his yacht, IMR alleges. 
 
 “It should come as no surprise that Melnichenko turned to Salisbury,” the complaint states. “It should also come as no surprise that this group engaged in the wrongful hacking of IMR’s computer systems to gain an unfair advantage in those legal proceedings and cause IMR harm.” 
 
 Melnichenko, the lawsuit continues, “has personally, and through companies he owns, been associated with a number of allegedly improper and illegal activities throughout the world,” including bribery allegations against executives at a chemical company where Melnichenko sat on the board of directors, and money laundering charges against a bank he founded. 
 
 As a result of the stolen data, Shaft Sinkers and IMR have taken sizeable hits financially, the mining company’s lawsuit alleges. Shaft Sinkers, which was 48 percent owned by IMR at the time of the 2013 arbitration, has been in financial trouble ever since it was sued by EuroChem, IMR says. 
 
 A Dutch court dismissed the foreign action against IMR last year, saying the company had no operational control over Shaft Sinker and could not be held liable. 
 
 IMR has maintained that Shaft Sinkers has been run as a separate entity with distinct corporate governance. The parent company seeks punitive damages against EuroChem, Akhmetshin and Salisbury & Ryan. 
 
 Akhmetshin could not be reached for comment. Emailed requests for comment from EuroChem and Salisbury & Ryan were not immediately returned. 
 
 Jonathan Cogan, the attorney representing IMR in the lawsuit, did not return calls for comment. 
 
 Like this: Like Loading... ||||| Donald Trump Jr. Meeting Included Russian Lobbyist 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Richard Drew/AP Richard Drew/AP 
 
 Updated at 11:23 a.m. ET 
 
 When Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June at Trump Tower to gather information on Hillary Clinton for his father's presidential campaign, it's now clear there was at least one more Russian in the room. He has been identified in published reports as a Russian-American lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin. 
 
 Trump Jr. did not mention Akhmetshin in the emails and statements he released about the meeting earlier this week, although one email he received alluded to a second person. It said: "I will send the names of the two people meeting with you for security when I have them later today." 
 
 Akhmetshin has been described as a Russian "gun for hire" and a former Soviet-era spy and has worked in the West for years as an advocate for Russian interests. 
 
 But in an interview with The Associated Press published Friday morning, Akhmetshin denied having ties to Russian intelligence agencies. He also denied ever serving as a Russian counterintelligence officer, as he has been described in some media reports. "That is not correct," Akhmetshin told The Associated Press. Asked Friday about Akhmetshin, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "We don't know anything about this person," The Associated Press also reported. 
 
 Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, named Akhmetshin in a complaint in March about people who are effectively engaged in lobbying work but do not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Specifically, Akhmetshin has focused on trying to get Congress to repeal restrictions imposed under the Magnitsky Act, intended to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009, and he has dueled with advocates for the restrictions including financier Bill Browder, as described last year by Radio Free Europe. Browder was among the first to publicly identify Akhmetshin Friday morning after an NBC News report that said that network had learned the identity of a second Russian advocate in the meeting with Trump Jr. and top aides to the Trump campaign. 
 
 Akhmetshin was also accused in a 2015 lawsuit with attempting to hack into a mining company's computers. 
 
 Along with Trump Jr., at last June's meeting were then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. 
 
 President Trump has repeatedly defended his son, calling him "a high quality person" and saying he "applaud(s) his transparency." The president also said the meeting was one "most people in politics would have taken." ||||| But, given the email traffic suggesting the meeting was part of a Russian effort to help Trump’s candidacy, the presence at the meeting of a Russian-American with suspected intelligence ties is likely to be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate panels investigating the Russian election interference campaign. 
 
 As has been previously reported, the meeting was set up by music publicist Rob Goldstone, who told Donald Trump Jr. in an email chain that Veselnitskaya has "information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." 
 
 Goldstone called Veselnitskaya a "Russian government attorney" — though she disputes that — and said the information was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.” 
 
 The Associated Press quoted Akhmetshin saying that Veselnitskaya brought with her to the meeting a plastic folder with printed-out documents that detailed what she believed was a flow of illicit funds to the Democratic National Committee. 
 
 The lobbyist said Veselnitskaya presented the contents of the documents to the Trump team, suggesting it could help the Trump campaign, he said. 
 
 “This could be a good issue to expose how the D.N.C. is accepting bad money,” The AP quoted Akhmetshin recalling her saying. 
 
 Veselnitskaya told a slightly different story in her interview with NBC News. 
 
 She said she brought with her a two-page document, one small part of which involved alleged D.N.C. funding issues. Most of it involved allegations against the Magnitsky sanctions, she said. 
 
 Donald Trump Jr., she said, asked if she had any further supporting documents. 
 
 “He clearly asked me if I had any financial records to back and support the idea that some funds from illegal sources went to DNC, went to Hilary Clinton," she told NBC News. “In reply to that, I told him that not only I don't have any financial records of that time — there was no chance that I could somehow, anyhow, have such records.” 
 
 She added that Trump Jr. ended the meeting by saying, “Well, the story that you've told us, it sounds very interesting but unfortunately at the moment, there is nothing that we, we can help you with about it. But maybe if we come to power, maybe one day, we will get back to you on that, because it really sounds interesting.” 
 
 Related: What's Next in the Trump-Russia Saga? Here's What We Know Now 
 
 Contacted by NBC News, representatives for Kushner and Manafort declined to comment. 
 
 On April 4, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to the Homeland Security department seeking information about Akhmetshin, saying that Akhmetshin admitted to having a background in Soviet counterintelligence. He reportedly served as a sergeant, a non-commissioned role in the Soviet military. 
 
 Grassley said Akhmetshin had failed to register as a foreign agent even though he had been lobbying in the U.S. for Russian interests. Grassley also charged that Akhmetshin had been working with Fusion GPS, an opposition-research firm that had compiled a highly disputed dossier on Donald Trump. 
 
 Fusion GPS has also worked on the campaign to raise questions about the story behind the Magnitsky Act. 
 
 Alan Futerfas, the attorney retained by Donald Trump Jr., told NBC News two other people accompanied Veselnitskaya to the meeting — someone Futerfas described as a translator and someone he described as a "friend of Emin [Agalarov]’s and maybe as a friend of Natalia [Veselnitskaya]’s.” 
 
 Futerfas said he has talked with that individual. "He is a U.S. citizen. He told me specifically he was not working for the Russian government, and in fact laughed when I asked him that question.” 
 
 It was not clear whether Futerfas was referring to Akhmetshin. 
 
 Agalarov is a pop star and a client of Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who arranged the meeting with Trump Jr. Agalarov appeared in a music video with Trump when the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time, was held in Moscow in 2013. 
 
 Futerfas confirmed that, “for the purpose of security or otherwise, the names were reviewed” but said Trump Jr. knew nothing about the man's background at the time of the meeting. 
 
 When asked about whether he had concerns, knowing what he knows now, Futerfas responded: “I have absolutely no concerns about what was said in that meeting.” 
 
 Veselnitskaya, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, denied having any connection to the Kremlin and insisted the meeting was to discuss sanctions, not the presidential campaign. ||||| In this July 11, 2017, photo, Donald Trump Jr. is interviewed by host Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel television program, in New York Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., posted a series of email... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian-American lobbyist says he attended a June 2016 meeting with President Donald Trump's son, marking another shift in the account of a discussion that was billed as part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican's White House campaign. 
 
 Rinat Akhmetshin confirmed his participation to The Associated Press on Friday. 
 
 The meeting heightened questions about whether Trump's campaign coordinated with the Russian government during the election, which is the focus of federal and congressional investigations. In emails posted by Donald Trump Jr. earlier this week, an associate who arranged the meeting said a Russian lawyer wanted to pass on negative information about Democrat Hillary Clinton and stated plainly that the discussion was part of a Russian government effort to help the GOP candidate. 
 
 While Trump Jr. has confirmed that the Russian attorney was in the meeting he did not disclose Akhmetshin's presence. The president's son has tried to discount the meeting, saying that he did not receive the information he was promised. 
 
 Akhmetshin said the meeting was "not substantive" and he "actually expected more serious" discussion. 
 
 "I never thought this would be such a big deal to be honest," he told AP. 
 
 Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and current White House senior adviser, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting. 
 
 Asked about Akhmetshin and his possible participation in the June 2016 meeting, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Friday: "We don't know anything about this person."
– Another intriguing detail to Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer: We already knew that he, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort were in the room. Now comes word that Veselnitskaya brought along a Russian-born lobbyist described by NBC News as a "former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some US officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence." The lobbyist's name is Rinat Akhmetshin, and he confirms to the AP that he attended the meeting. Like Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, however, he said the meeting didn't yield much of substance. "I never thought this would be such a big deal to be honest." He also denies being a spy. Coverage: His background: Akhmetshin was born in Russia, emigrated to the US after serving in the Soviet military, and reportedly holds dual citizenship. He insists to the Washington Post that he is not and was never a Russian intelligence officer. He says that he served two years in the Soviet army as an 18-year-old draftee and that his unit had some unspecified role in intelligence matters. But he says he never trained as a spy. Now a lobbyist: Now a Washington resident, he is well-known in congressional circles as a pro-Kremlin lobbyist, reports the New York Times. He has been working with Veselnitskaya trying to get the Magnitsky Act overturned. (The act, which punishes Russians accused of human rights abuses, is bitterly opposed by Vladimir Putin.) Grassley's letter: Now getting a lot of attention is a letter written by Sen. Chuck Grassley in April to Homeland Security seeking information about Akhmetshin. Grassley said he "has been accused of acting as an unregistered agent for Russian interests and apparently has ties to Russian intelligence." Read it here. Why was he there? Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya invited him to attend the meeting at the last minute. This part gets vague: He said she had come across evidence that a US hedge firm seemingly linked to the Democratic National Committee was violating Russian tax laws and sought his advice on how to present the information, per the Post. Documents left behind? Both the Post and the AP suggest that Veselnitskaya did indeed leave behind a folder of documents about what she had uncovered regarding allegedly shady funds going to the DNC. Never heard of him: A spokesman for Putin says "we have no knowledge of this person." Putin similarly has denied knowing Veselnitskaya. Hacking accusation: NPR notes that in 2015, a mining firm accused Akhmetshin of hacking into its computer system. Details on that via Courthouse News. All this means what, exactly? Everyone will have to stay tuned. "Apparently the White House is content to let the media put together the puzzle, piece by piece," writes Aaron Blake at the Washington Post. "If they truly have nothing to hide, that's a really bad strategy." A similar sentiment from Zack Beauchamp at Vox: If nothing else, the new scoop "does prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there’s more to this meeting than what we know right now."