emptywheel

It was essentially an Engel special, and NBC chose the Maddow slot b/c of her numbers (which are, deservedly, the highest on cable). Richard is Chief Foreign Correspondent for one of the Big 3 U.S. nets, so from Veselnitskaya's pov, it doesn't come any loftier than that.

I think Boris Epshteyn would’ve informed Putin that Engel’s specials run at Maddow’s spot and are a part of her podcast versions. She didn’t choose RT or Fox for this.

Yes, Russians chose to go w/ Engel. But I don't assume that Veselnitskaya expected to end up confirming her GRU identity. I think Richard legitimately shook her up w/ the emails connecting her to the Prosecutor General and, to some extent, squeezed the 'confession' out of her.

She did seem feisty, defensive and angry at various times.

She didn't seem to understand how we would interpret "informant". The translation seems obvious but maybe it's like living where jaywalking is so common people don't think of it as illegal. Perhaps being an informant in Russia doesn't have the same implications as in the US.

In Russian it has got slightly different meaning, but she obviously did not want to use more correct words like "agent" or "operative"

"Informant" in Russian got closer meaning to "confidential informant" CI as used in police, but given that she was "informing" whilst being abroad that makes her a spy

She was describing providing info to the prosecutor that they would use to deny US legal request (which we do all the time on the equivalent RU requests for Browder's arrest), no?