Trump son-in-law met executives of
sanctioned Russian bank, will testify
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[March 28, 2017]
By Elena Fabrichnaya, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian
bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into
Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner,
President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in
December.
A U.S. Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in
the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36,
who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to
testify.
Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to
Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that
executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had
talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.
The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a
new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes
in Europe, Asia and America.
It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives
of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States,
including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to
say where the meetings took place or the dates.
There was no immediate comment from Kushner.
Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were
behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading
disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge
the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim
dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.
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But there has been no doubt that the Russian ambassador to the United
States, Sergei Kislyak, developed contacts among the Trump team. Trump's
first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign on
Feb. 13 after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia
with Kislyak and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the
conversations.
U.S. officials said that after meeting with Russian Kislyak at Trump
Tower last December, a meeting also attended by Flynn, Kushner met later
in December with Sergei Gorkov, chairman of Vnesheconombank.
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed the meetings, saying
nothing of consequence was discussed.
Gorkov was appointed head of VEB in early 2016 by Russian President
Vladimir Putin. He graduated from the Federal Security Service, or FSB,
Russia’s internal security agency. He was awarded the Medal of the Order
of Merit for Services to the Fatherland, according to the bank's
website.
According to two congressional staffers, some Senate investigators want
to question Kushner and Flynn about whether they discussed with Gorkov
or other Russian officials or financial executives the possibility of
investing in 666 Fifth Avenue in New York or other Kushner Co or Trump
properties if the new administration lifted the sanctions.
VEB, aside from being under sanctions, has been grappling with bad debt
after financing politically expedient projects such as construction for
the Sochi Winter Olympics.
It received 150 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) in support from the
Russian budget in 2016, when its senior management was sacked and
replaced by a team of executives from Russia's biggest lender Sberbank.
In an article posted on Dec. 18, Forbes estimated that Jared Kushner,
his brother Josh and his parents, Charles and Seryl, have a fortune of
at least $1.8 billion, more than half of which Forbes estimates is held
in real estate.
Forbes did not provide a specific estimate for Jared Kushner’s net worth
on his own.
FOREIGN CONTACTS
On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Kushner
is willing to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee chaired by
U.S. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.
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“Throughout the campaign and the transition, Jared served as the
official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials
... and so, given this role, he volunteered to speak with Chairman
Burr's committee," Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.
The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate panel also said
Kushner had agreed to be interviewed but no date had yet been scheduled.
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![](../images/032817pics/news_m21.jpg)
President Trump and White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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Simply meeting with representatives of a U.S.-sanctioned entity is
not a violation of sanctions or against the law.
Evgeny Buryakov, 41, a Russian citizen who worked at Vnesheconombank
and whom U.S. authorities accused of posing as a banker while
participating in a New York spy ring, pleaded guilty to a criminal
conspiracy charge in March 2016. Buryakov admitted in federal court
in Manhattan to acting as an agent for the Russian government
without notifying U.S. authorities.
He was prosecuted by the office of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan
under Preet Bharara, who was among several chief prosecutors fired
or asked to resign earlier this month by the new administration.
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
Also on Monday, a mystery rooted in Trump's claim that he was
wiretapped by then President Barack Obama during the election
campaign deepened with the disclosure that a top congressional
Republican reviewed classified information on the White House
grounds about potential surveillance of some Trump campaign
associates.
U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House of
Representatives Intelligence Committee, visited the White House the
night before he announced on Wednesday that he had information that
indicated some Trump associates may have been subjected to some
level of intelligence activity before Trump took office on Jan. 20.
Democrats have said Nunes, who was a member of Trump's transition
team, can no longer run a credible investigation of Russian hacking,
the U.S. election and any potential involvement by Trump associates.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the top
Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have urged Nunes to
recuse himself from the Russia probe.
Nunes told CNN on Monday that he went to the White House grounds
because the intelligence information was not available to Congress.
He said he did not meet with Trump or his aides at that time and did
not coordinate the release of information with the Trump
administration.
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Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement that Nunes "met with
his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to
a secure location where he could view the information provided by
the source."
White House spokesman Spicer did not shed any light on who at the
White House helped Nunes gain access to a secure location.
It was the latest twist in a saga that began on March 4 when Trump
said on Twitter without providing evidence that he "just found out
that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the
victory."
FBI Director James Comey told Congress last Monday he had seen no
evidence to support the claim.
(This version of the story corrects paragraph 1 to show that meeting
was in December, not during 2016 presidential campaign. Paragraph 22
has also been corrected to show Buryakov pleaded guilty in March
2016, not Friday.)
(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Polina Devitt in Moscow and
Patricia Zengerle, Steve Holland, Mark Hosenball, John Walcott,
Arshad Mohammed, Eric Beech and Warren Strobel in Washington;
editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)
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