Russian Prosecutor Who Sullies Foes Tied to Trump Jr. Meeting

Yuri Chaika an expert at 'kompromat': 'NYT'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 18, 2017 11:49 AM CDT
Russian Prosecutor Who Sullies Foes Tied to Trump Jr. Meeting
Vladimir Putin meets with Russia's Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika on Oct. 21, 2016.   (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

It isn't clear what incriminating information on Hillary Clinton, if any, was provided to Donald Trump Jr. during his meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. What is known, however, is that the man believed to have been the source of the information promised is an expert in kompromat, which the New York Times describes as "the Russian art of spreading damaging information to discredit a rival or an enemy." Indeed, Yuri Chaika exploited kompromat back in the 1990s to become one of the most powerful figures in Russia's justice system, claiming a video leaked to Russia's state media showed then-Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov in bed with two women, though Skuratov denied he was the man featured, reports the Times.

Skuratov, who was investigating then-President Boris Yeltsin for corruption, was subsequently relieved of his position, which Chaika took on temporarily. Chaika was again named prosecutor general in 2006 after a nomination from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who would later award him for services to the state, reports Newsweek. In an email exchange ahead of the June 2016 meeting, publicist Rob Goldstone told Trump Jr. that "the crown prosecutor of Russia" had offered to pass incriminating information on Clinton through Veselnitskaya. Since there is no crown prosecutor in Russia, it's believed he was referring to Chaika, whom Veselnitskaya was working with in an attempt to repeal the US law known as the Magnitsky Act, per the Wall Street Journal. (More Russia stories.)

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