MOSCOW. Jan 10 (Interfax) - Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has said she views the charges brought against her in the United States as an act of revenge of her procedural opponents - financier William Browder and a U.S. attorney.
"This is a personal vendetta of assistant federal attorney Paul Monteleone, who suffered a fiasco in the U.S. against Prevezon Holdings litigation and the initiator of that proceeding, William Browder," Veselnitskaya, who was representing the company in court, told Interfax on Thursday.
She thus commented on media reports, which said she had been charged in absentia in the United States with obstruction of justice.
It has been reported that the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York charged Veselnitskaya with obstructing justice.
The company Prevezon Holdings, whose interests Veselnitskaya represented, was suspected of laundering proceeds stolen from the Russian budget. Prosecutors demanded that all assets the company owned in the U.S. be confiscated. However, U.S. authorities and Prevezon Holdings settled the lawsuit in May 2018, and no charges were pressed.
There have been reports that Veselnitskaya was among the participants in a meeting with officials from the campaign of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including his son, Donald Trump Jr., on June 9, 2016. She allegedly promised to share damaging information about Hillary Clinton, though this has not been confirmed.