Luxury travel on the taxpayer, trips to Congress and links to the firm behind the dirty Trump dossier: Glamorous Russian lawyer who met Don Jr's deep involvement in U.S. politics revealed

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The Moscow lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. is an accused Russian government agent who once stuck U.S. prosecutors with a $50,000 Plaza Hotel and restaurant bill while representing a Russian oligarch client on money-laundering charges in New York.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, who landed a meeting with Trump Jr. last June by claiming she had dirt on Hillary Clinton's Russian financial involvements, has come under congressional scrutiny for her ties to the Washington lobbying world.

Veselnitskaya was part of an extensive pro-Moscow legal campaign in Washington that involved Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that later released the explosive dossier that claimed Donald Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley has been investigating a complaint filed last spring with the Justice Department, which claimed Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS were acting as unregistered foreign agents while working for Denys Katsyv, a Russian businessman accused of money laundering by the U.S.

Controversial figure: Natalia Veselnitskaya has traveled to and from the U.S., been to Congress, and worked for a legal team which also hired the firm behind the discredited dossier claiming Trump hired prostitutes to defile a bed in Moscow because Obama slept in it

Meeting: Donald Trump Jr, who took his wife Vanessa and daughter Kai to his father's inauguratin, met the Russian lawyer after a claim she would have information in Hillary Clinton

Defense attorney: Veselnitskya worked for Denys Katsyv, who was accused of a part in a massive tax fraud. When he was deposed in New York the taxpayer was on the hook for $50,000, including her $995-a-night stay at the Plaza hotel in New York

Also at the meeting: Paul Manafort, who was then Trump's campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, the then candidate's son in law, were both with Don Jr as he met the lawyer

Veselnitskaya travelled with Katsyv and two other Russian businessman to meet with U.S. prosecutors New York in 2015, when the group racked up a $50,000 tab for travel and interpreters, according to the Daily Beast.

The bill included nightly accommodations at the Plaza Hotel – which ran nearly $1,000 a night for Veselnitskaya – and an $793.29 dinner for five with two 'expensive' bottles of wine and glasses of grappa, even though only three witnesses were deposed.

Although the Russians were in New York to undergo questioning from federal prosecutors, the U.S. government had to pay their expenses under witness deposition rules, according to the Daily Beast.

The U.S. attorney in Manhattan at the time, Preet Bharara, objected to the lavish accommodations in a letter to the judge at the time, arguing that Veselnitskaya's expenses were unreasonable because she 'did not even attend the depositions in person.'

The U.S. charged Katsyv's company Prevezon Holdings as part of a $230 million tax fraud case. That case was settled for $6 million in May.

Katsyv has also faced financial difficulties due to the Magnistky Act, a 2012 U.S. law that placed financial sanctions on Russian officials and businesses.

The law is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died mysteriously in prison while defending his client Bill Browder, a businessman-turned-dissident who had made millions in Russia before turning against the government.

In retaliation for the sanctions, the Russian government banned Americans from adopting Russian children from its overcrowded orphanages, causing humanitarian concerns.

Over the past year, Katsyv has backed lobbying campaigns to undercut the sanctions, by raising questions about Magnitsky and Browder's credibility and pressuring U.S. lawmakers over the adoption ban.

Veselnitskaya appeared to have been working on this campaign when she met with Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower last June.

The meeting was arranged by Rob Goldstone a Russian music producer who had done work with the Miss Universe contest owned by Donald Trump.

Veselnitskaya claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton and Russian campaign financing, but she never provided details during the meeting, according to Trump Jr.

Defense attorney: Veselnitskya defended Denys Katsyz over a case arising out of the death of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Russian police custody and whose whistleblowing on corruption and subsequent  death prompted financial sanctions against Putin's regime.

Nice stay: While she defended Ketsyv, she billed the taxpayer for her stay at the Plaza - at almost $1,000 a night

Shadowy firm: Katsyz hired Veselnitskya for his defense and also had FUsion GPS working for him to help overturn sanctions which had led to a ban on Americans adopting in Russia. The firm was then involved in the discredited Trump dossier. It was founded by Thomas Katan (left) and Glenn Simpson (right), both former Wall Street Journal reporters

Demand, Senator Charles Grassley wants details of Fusion GPS's activities. Its other co-founder is Peter Fritsch, also a former Wall Street Journal reporter

Instead, the lawyer reportedly spent the time talking about the adoption ban.

'It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,' said Trump Jr. in a statement to the New York Times.

Democrats claim this is the first sign of active coordination between Russian nationals and Trump officials related to the presidential campaign.

A source close to Veselnitskaya denied there was anything nefarious about the meeting and said Veselnitskaya was very active in trying to speak to people about the adoption issue.

'She tried to tell her story to anyone who would listen,' said the source.

There are many signs Veselnitskaya was actively involved last summer in the anti-Magnitsky campaign in Washington.

Just a few days after the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya attended a June 14 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on U.S.-Russia relations.

She reportedly showed up with two lobbyists who were also working on Katsyv-backed efforts to overturn the adoption ban.

She also reportedly helped organize a screening for a movie that raised doubts about Russian involvement in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, and she claimed in a letter that she represented the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, a group set up by Katsyv to lobby against the adoption ban. 

That group was active on Capitol Hill last summer in reaching out to members of congress about the Magnitsky issue.

During this time, Veselnitskaya did not publicly register as a foreign lobbyist – prompting questions from the Senate Judiciary Chairman about whether she was acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

Katsyv's legal team also hired Fusion GPS, the group that later drafted the Trump dossier.

Fusion GPS has said it carried out research for Katsyv last year, after being hired by one of his lawyers, John Moscow. The firm has declined to turn over additional client information to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

'It is highly troubling that Fusion GPS appears to have been working with someone with ties to Russian intelligence - let alone someone alleged to have conducted political disinformation campaigns– as part of a pro-Russia lobbying effort while also simultaneously overseeing the creation of the Trump/Russia dossier,' wrote Sen. Grassley in a letter to the Justice Department in March. 'The relationship casts further doubt on an already highly dubious dossier.'

Questions remain about the specific nature of Fusion GPS's work for Katsyv, which appears to have overlapped with the firm's work on the Trump dossier.

Browder told Dailymail.com earlier this year that Fusion GPS had pitched journalists on negative stories about him as part of a larger effort to discredit the Magnitsky Act.

He also noted that Fusion GPS and its owner did not disclose their activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act or the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Fusion GPS denied that its work for Katsyv met the threshold for foreign lobbying.

Sen. Grassley has also pressed Fusion GPS for more information about the Trump dossier, including details on its clients.

The contents of the dossier, much of which has not yet been verified, include the allegation that Trump paid prostitutes in Moscow to urinate on a hotel bed that was once used by President Obama. 

The research was conducted by a former British spy named Christopher Steele and it was reportedly funded by unnamed Democratic operatives.