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Cozen OâConnor managing partner Howard Schweitzer is listed here on a DOJ form from an investigation into the breaking of lobbying laws by Russians trying to repeal the Magnitsky Act â which was just a front to get Russians in the room with Don Jr. We know now that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually operating out of the Cozen OâConnor offices.

Schweitzer worked as general counsel for the Export-Import Bank under George W. Bush and was chief operating officer of the TARP bailout program under both Bush and Obama from 2008-2009.
âIn October 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appointed Howard as the first COO of TARP. In this position, Howard led program execution and built the TARP infrastructure. He served as a key point person regarding the financial crisis through the presidential transition and continued to serve as TARP COO under Secretary Timothy Geithner until August 2009,â reads Schweitzerâs Cozen OâConnor bio.
âHe served as chief operating officer of the TARP in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations,â reads Schweitzerâs bio for a Politico piece he wrote in August 2016 headlined â7 Reasons Why Trump Would Hate Being President.â
Schweitzerâs virulently anti-Trump piece for Politico tries to make the case that Trump was âsabotaging his own bid for the White House.â Schweitzer said that if Trump became president then âHeâll be investigated to deathâ by Congress and the Justice Department for his business dealings and ârelationships with foreign leaders.â
The narrative was being set.
The Philadelphia-based Cozen OâConnor law firm also has a political action committee that donated to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, in addition to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Martin OâMalley. In the 2018 election cycle, the Cozen OâConnor PAC donated more money to Hillary Clintonâs dormant campaign.
Here is Veselnitskaya seated behind Obama ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul at a June 2016 congressional hearing focused on Russia.

Cozen OâConnorâs connections to the anti-Trump âOperation Crossfire Hurricaneâ plot are wide-ranging, and show up in unexpected places.
James Comeyâs friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, leaked classified information that Comey gave him. During this leaking period, Richman was apartment-building neighbors with a partner at the Cozen OâConnor law firm that strategized with Fusion GPS operative Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian plant who set up Don Jr. in Trump Tower.
Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, led by Glenn Simpson, were part of John Brennan and Peter Strzokâs CIA-led âOperation Crossfire Hurricaneâ plot aimed at President Donald Trump and the Trump campaign.
âYes, he is my neighbor,â Amy Wenzel, a partner at Cozen OâConnor, confirmed in a phone conversation with Big League Politics, confirming that they spoke. They live near each other in a Brooklyn high-rise.
The Washington Postâs release of Trump Tower documents shows the crowd surrounding non-sexual honeypot Natalia Veselnitskaya. The crowd of conspirators knew they were damaging Trump by setting up the meeting.
The Post confirms British-citizen music promoter Rob Goldstoneâs testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he described the conspiratorsâ push to get the meeting despite the fact that they knew it would create trouble for the Trump campaign.
The Post reports:
âRob Goldstone told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between President Trumpâs son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstoneâs own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.
âHe said, âit doesnât matter. You just have to get the meeting,âââ Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.
The intensity with which Agalarov and his father, the billionaire Aras Agalarov, sought the Trump Tower meeting, which has become a key point of scrutiny for congressional inquiries and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was revealed in more than 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.â
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Natalia Veselnitskaya is also inextricably linked to the case against Paul Manafort.
The Russian attorney partner of Paul Manafort who was named as a defendant in new Robert Mueller charges is also linked to the Russian spy Natalia Vesenilskaya, who attended a meeting with Don Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower.
According to Muellerâs new charges, Manafortâs Russian partner Konstantin Kilimnik tried to intimidate or coerce witnesses in Manafortâs upcoming money laundering trial. That puts Konstantin Kilimnik at the center of the Mueller effort to find obstruction of justice in Trump-World (Mueller is giving himself until September 1 to try to find obstruction of justice, after finding no Russian collusion involving Trump).
So who is Konstantine Kilimnik? It turns out that Kilimnik is linked to Veselnitskaya, the Fusion GPS agent, according to Senate documents.
Here is how ProPublica described Kilimnik:Â âKonstantin Kilimnik: Manafort, who worked for the pro-Russian party in Ukraine before running Trumpâs campaign, had an employee in Kiev named Konstantin Kilimnik who U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence, according to Politico. Kilimnik served in the Russian army and learned English at a school that experts say often trains spies. Kilimnik denied being a spy to The Washington Post. Manafort had dinner with Kilimnik last August in New York, just before he was forced out of the Trump campaign amid growing questions about his work in the Ukraine, the Post reported.â
Documents reveal Kilimnikâs ties to Veselniskaya. Letâs take a look at United States Senate Judiciary Committee documents questioning Veselniskaya in October. Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Veselniskaya if she knew a handful of characters believed to be conspirators in the case.
Grassley and Feinstein specifically asked Veselnitskaya if she knew Konstantin Kilimnik.
Here is page 4 of the documents, naming Kilimnik:

Current Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee as senator from Alabama.
Veselnitskayaâs meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower provided some of the basis for warrants to surveil Trump Tower and for other FBI surveillance measures on the Trump campaign.
The fact that Veselnitskaya, a lawyer herself, was in the meeting with Trump Jr. and Kushner opened the presidentâs son and son-in-law up to being qualified as âtarget associationsâ for law enforcement under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed during the Bush administration.
Veselniskayaâs link to suspected conspirator Kilimnik is now coming under scrutiny.