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Rh could be supported, you know, I ended up doing work on Vladimir Putin's biggest critic. And you know, that wasn't what I set out to do. And it made me uncomfortable.

MR. SCHIFF: But it may have been within the understanding of either the Kremlin or the Russian intelligence agencies that the party on the opposite side of this, the party that had instigated this was their nemesis, Mr. Browder.

MR. SIMPSON: You know, if you want to spin it out far enough, it's possible they knew that's where the trail would go. But we didn't -- at least the other lawyers and I didn't know that was where this would head.

MR. SCHIFF: The reason I am asking this is you have Ms. Veselnitskaya working on this litigation, which leads to Mr. Browder.

MR. SIMPSON: Uh-huh.

MR. SCHIFF: And therefore leads to the Magnitsky Act. You have Ms. Veselnitskaya at this meeting at Trump Tower about the Magnitsky Act. You have the Magnitsky Act being one of the highest priorities of the Kremlin to repeal.

Does that in your experience tell you something about Ms. Veselnitskaya's importance to the Kremlin, relationship with the Kremlin? Is it suggestive in any way that she may have had a bigger role than you knew at the time?

MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean let me say, you know, I have certainly been mulling whether my original view of her as a minor player was wrong. And I think it would be natural to ask yourself that. But I will add that, I mean a couple of things there. One, you know, this legislative issue wasn't about overturning the Magnitsky Act, it was about the name of some global Magnitsky Act, which as I understand it wasn't really even targeted at Russia. So, you know, it's unclear to me what the real plan was if there was some Kremlin plan behind all of that. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE