Anatoli Samochornov, a witness to the event everyone is talking about.

[MyNameIsKhan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anatoli-samochornov-trump-jr-russia-meeting_us_5966ac00e4b0a8d46d11f69f


WASHINGTON ― When President Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign chairman met last June with a Russian lawyer they’d been told had “incriminating” information from the Russian government about Hillary Clinton, there were other people in the room. One of the previously unidentified attendees was Anatoli Samochornov, a Russian-born American translator who previously spent years working for the U.S. government.

Samochornov would not confirm that he was in the room, citing nondisclosure agreements. But The New York Times’ Ken Vogel said Friday on MSNBC that Samochornov was at the June 9 meeting in Trump Tower. The interpreter’s mother-in-law also confirmed his attendance at the meeting to The Daily Beast.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with the Trump team, had previously told the Times that an interpreter attended the meeting, but refused to name him. Veselnitskaya does not speak English, and Samochornov has worked with her several times over the past year, including around the time of the meeting with Trump Jr.

The Associated Press and NBC News confirmed Friday that Veselnitskaya’s top U.S. lobbyist, Rinat Akhmetshin, also attended the meeting with her. Akhmetshin is a Russian-American with past ties to Russian intelligence.

Samochornov’s presence at the meeting is key because he appears to be the only witness to the event who does not have close ties to either the Trump campaign or the Russian government. He wouldn’t tell HuffPost whether he had been contacted by investigators probing the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia. The office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence committees declined to comment.

......

[roamer65]

1. A NDA does not shield you when you witness illegal acts.

The NDA is null and void if any thing illegal was involved.

[MyNameIsKhan]

3. Well Mueller will find everything out... I am surprised they took this guy in ...

[Thomas Hurt]

2. non disclosure agreements with whom?

and if it was with Trump campaign...........can't get much better evidence of collusion.

I would laugh my ass off if a copy of it surfaced with Donnie's signature on it.

[MyNameIsKhan]

5. Well it will be Trump Org Counsel sign

[marylandblue]

6. It's probably with Veselnitskaya, she brought him to the meeting

And it's probably standard for translators to have an NDA. They deal with a lot of legal but sensitive negotiations.

[Igel]

10. It's standard ethics.

Should be in the contract, but if not it's in the various translator's and interpretation's associations published ethics. Often contracts just include those by reference.

The translator is simply a conduit. The translator has no opinion unless asked, and is not supposed to skew or taint the information--supply what's needed to make it an actual translation instead of word salad, to make it culturally equivalent. (So if what's being said is culturally inappropriate in the source language, the translator has to make it have about the same inappropriateness in the target language.)

Depending on the interpreter and the content and difficulty, a lot of interpreters don't remember much about what was said, anyway. Less so for consecutive interpreters, but it's fairly common for simultaneous interpreters to finish and have had such high cognitive loads that scant attention was paid to remembering what was said.

Translator's responsible for illegal things--they're not confidential and should be reported. But that sort of requires that the translator know the entire what, 30 000 pages of US statutes and case law? In this case, ignorance of the law really is an excuse.

[pnwmom]

12. Why are you assuming this translator isn't corrupt, too? He used to be in the NY FBI -- Giuliani

territory.

[Thinkingabout]

4. It's going to get harder from now on. Trump will continue to give fake stories on Hillary and

anyone else to try and divert the attention.

[rainbow4321]

7. His ass was employed by the State Dept at the time

I read he quit in September but...
While he was NOT in the role of a State Dept employee as far as the meeting goes, I would hope any NDA is null and void if someone on the State Dept payroll attends a meeting where there was this shit going on.
He was the fucking interpreter so the words that SHE SAID HE THEN SAID.
Very, very least dangle his employment file over him if he didn't list working with foreign agents on his paperwork. I imagine he will not be saying "but the NDA" when faced with prison time.

[murielm99]

8. Maybe he needs to avoid small planes,

open windows in upper story rooms, soup...

[OnDoutside]

9. Someone should ask him how he would interpret that meeting...

[pnwmom]

11. I think the writer is WRONG. There is no reason to think that translator is neutral.

He was brought there by the Russians, and before his current position (in a non-profit that works with the state department,) he worked with Rudy Giuliani's NY FBI.

I think his presence at the meeting indicates he may be a Russian mole.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. Has he been suicided yet?