Big donor to Trump campaign made overture to top Russian official, boasting of connections
Source: NBC News
The businessman, who donated $273,000 in 2016, wanted a face-to-face meeting with a Russian official.
by Richard Engel, Kate Benyon-Tinker, Charlotte Gardiner and Kennett Werner / Sep.28.2018 / 7:00 AM EDT
A Russian-born American businessman who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Donald Trump's run for president in 2016 offered to brief a high-ranking Russian official during the final months of the campaign, according to a series of emails reviewed by NBC News.
The businessman, Simon Kukes, a Houston-based oil executive, sent an email to the official in Moscow in July 2016, boasting of his connections to the Trump campaign and requesting a face-to-face meeting.
“I have been actively involved in Trump’s election campaign, and am part of the group on strategy development,” Kukes wrote in the email to Vyacheslav Pavlovsky, vice president of the state-owned Russian Railways and a former Russian ambassador to Norway. “I will be in Switzerland July 20th till August 2nd. Let me know how you are doing, and whether you want to meet.”
The emails were obtained through the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative project funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The Center gathers information to try to expose high-level corruption in Moscow. NBC News reviewed the emails in conjunction with The Guardian. They cannot be independently verified, but the account from which Kukes's messages originated is one that he currently uses.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/big-donor-trump-campaign-made-overture-top-russian-official-boasting-n913791
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