Who is Rinat Akhmetshin? The mystery man who attended Donald Trump Jnr’s Russia meeting

Akhmetshin began his career working for central Asian oligarchs who needed a helping hand in Washington for one problem or another

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Published: 11:36am, 15 Jul 2017Updated: 10:14pm, 15 Jul 2017

Rinat Akhmetshin was not one to hide his connections to Russian intelligence. During his years working in the shadowy Washington DC world of corporate intelligence, his connections to former Russian agents were pitched as a valuable asset to private clients.

Akhmetshin – who courted journalists and politicians alike – was known for speaking as candidly about his years of military service in Afghanistan as his objectives on Capitol Hill.

On Friday, Akhmetshin, who is an American citizen, said that he also attended the 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jnr described as part of a Russian government attempt to undermine Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. The revelation raises new questions about the purpose of the encounter, and why the president’s son – who promised to be transparent about the meeting in Trump Tower – did not admit that Akhmetshin was also in the room.

Akhmetshin began his career working for central Asian oligarchs who needed a helping hand in Washington for one problem or another. But in recent years, his lobbying work seemed to take on a singular focus: reversing the 2012 Magnitsky Act, a law passed by Barack Obama that infuriated Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and was designed to punish Russia for the 2009 prison death of the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Just because I was born in Russia doesn’t mean I am an agent of the Kremlin

Rinat Akhmetshin

That fact that Akhmetshin, who told Politico last year that he once served as a Soviet counter-intelligence officer, is an American citizen also suggests that he would have at least been known to US officials. However, he has since denied reports he was once an officer in Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU.

One lawyer who knows Akhmetshin and has hired him in the past said that far from being seen as pro-Putin, the Russian American lobbyist assiduously avoided politics. In his business dealings with prospective clients, however, he used his connections to Russian intelligence as a selling point.