Russian ‘Gun-For-Hire’ At Trump Jr. Meeting Once Ran Smear Campaign Alleging Anti-Semitism

The former Soviet intelligence officer who was at the bombshell meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last June allegedly helped organized a campaign against a fellow Russian seeking political asylum in the United States — by calling him anti-Semitic.
Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born political lobbyist now living in Washington D.C., was accused of mounting a smear campaign against former Russian politician Ashot Egiazaryan, who at the time was seeking political asylum in the United States, according to Radio Free Europe.
A lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court charged that the campaign sought to derail Egiazaryan’s asylum request and force him back return to Russia, by alleging that he was an anti-Semite. Lawyers allege Akhmetshin was enlisted to help publish at least one article in the Jewish Journal accusing the deputy of anti-Semitism.
Akhmetshin has been described as a shrewd lobbyist who has mounted numerous under-the-radar political campaigns.
“I know of no Russian gun-for-hire who managed to run his campaigns so successfully, running circles around purportedly much more seasoned Washington hands,” Steve LeVine, a Washington reporter who has written about Akhmetshin’s work, told Radio Free Europe.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO