Kushner Met With Russian Banker Who Is Putin Crony, Spy School Grad

by TOM WINTER and ROBERT WINDREM
MAY 27 2017

The Russian banker Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with in December is viewed by U.S. intelligence as a "Putin crony" and a graduate of a "finishing school" for spies who was often tasked with sensitive financial operations by Putin, according to multiple U.S. officials and documents viewed by NBC News. Sergey Gorkov, 48, graduated from the FSB Academy, which was chartered in 1994 to educate Russian Intelligence personnel. He has long served Russian President Vladimir Putin in critical economic roles. Most recently, Putin chose him to head of the state-owned VneshEconomBank (VEB). As the Russian state national development bank, VEB has played a critical role in blunting the impact of U.S. sanctions against Russia by finding other sources of foreign capital. Before that, Gorkov was the deputy chairman of Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, also state-owned, and also under U.S. sanctions since 2014.

It is not known what has drawn FBI scrutiny, but congressional aides have said they would like to question Kushner about a meeting Kushner had with Gorkov in December 2016. At the time, Kushner was an adviser to President-elect Trump and Gorkov was chairman of VEB. Both the White House and VEB confirm that Kushner and Gorkov met at a banking "road show" but haven't disclosed either the location for the meeting or the specific date in December. Details of what they discussed have not been released, although Kushner's lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said Kushner is prepared to cooperate with congressional investigators or the FBI if asked.

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Rogue Valley said:

Kushner Met With Russian Banker Who Is Putin Crony, Spy School Grad

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Vnesheconombank (VEB) is owned by the Kremlin and is not an ordinary bank. VEB financed the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics where billions went unaccounted for (kickbacks). VEB also finances projects of the Russian security/intelligence services. Kushner sure has some sketchy Russian friends in very high places.

Kushner's lawyer, Jamie S. Gorelick, served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration. Gorelick is a senior partner at WilmerHale LLC which is the law firm from which former FBI Director Robert Mueller recently resigned to accept the DoJ Special Counselor position investigating Trump/Russia collusion.

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