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Guest List at Trump Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Expands Again Guest List at Donald Trump Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Expands Again
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — A Russian businessman who helped arrange a meeting for Donald Trump Jr. to receive potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton in June 2016 sent his own emissary to the session at Trump Tower, according to his lawyer. WASHINGTON — Seventeen years ago, congressional investigators looking into money laundering stumbled upon an obscure Soviet-born financier who offered special services to his Russian clients. He had opened 2,000 companies in Delaware and more than 100 bank accounts for Russian clients who moved hundreds of millions of dollars through those accounts to overseas destinations, they found.
Scott S. Balber, a lawyer for Aras Agalarov, the businessman, said Mr. Aglarov had sent an associate, Ike Kaveladze, to the meeting, which took place during last year’s presidential campaign. Mr. Balber said Mr. Kaveladze had attended the meeting “just to make sure it happened and to serve as an interpreter if necessary.” On Tuesday, that man, Irakly Kaveladze, resurfaced as the latest foreign guest on the ever-expanding list of participants at the June 2016 meeting where Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials were hoping to get damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
In 2000, congressional investigators found that Mr. Kaveladze had set up more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for his Russian clients and then opened bank accounts for them. The General Accounting Office looked into his activities as part of an investigation that ultimately concluded it was easy for foreigners to hide their identities and form shell companies to launder money through American banks. Mr. Kaveladze’s lawyer, Scott S. Balber, said he was there to represent a prominent Russian family that had arranged the meeting, whose varied cast of characters includes at least one other Russian with a checkered past.
Mr. Balber, who also represents Mr. Kaveladze, said Mr. Kaveladze was never accused of any wrongdoing and was simply providing a financial service. His presence is of significant interest to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump. Mr. Mueller’s office contacted Mr. Kaveladze this past weekend to request an interview, and investigators there are also eager to talk to all the other meeting participants, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.
He said Mr. Kaveladze, who now serves as an American-based financial officer in Mr. Agalarov’s real estate company, was contacted last weekend by a representative of special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller. He will cooperate fully with the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election and possible obstruction of justice, Mr. Balber said. Mr. Kaveladze’s attendance also deepens questions about the apparent failure of Trump campaign officials to vet participants’ backgrounds. Several have said they strolled into Trump Tower without being asked for identification; no log of visitors was kept, and one participant said he received an impromptu invitation a few hours before the meeting.
Besides Donald Trump Jr. and Mr. Kaveladze, the meeting was attended by a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian-American lobbyist and other officials from the Trump campaign. The White House initially described the meeting as a brief chat with a Russian lobbyist interested in a once-obscure law called the Magnitsky Act. But accounts of how the meeting was arranged, who was involved and what was discussed have shifted repeatedly since The New York Times revealed the existence of the meeting this month.
Mr. Balber said Ms. Veselnitskaya, who had worked with Mr. Agalarov on real estate deals in Russia, asked Mr. Agalarov to introduce her to Donald Trump Jr. as a favor. In an email to the younger Mr. Trump, a publicist linked to Aras Agalarov — a Russian real estate magnate who has been honored by the Kremlin — promised damaging, sensitive information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
President Trump and Mr. Agalarov worked together in 2013 when Mr. Trump brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow. The participants at the meeting, which took place soon after Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination, now number eight. Besides Donald Trump Jr., the Trump officials at the meeting were Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, the campaign chairman at the time. The visitors included Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born lobbyist who has spoken openly of his past as a Soviet intelligence officer and was accused of hacking one company’s computer system in American lawsuits that were later withdrawn.
The names of the people who attended the June 2016 meeting first surfaced in an email sent by Rob Goldstone, a music producer and publicist working for Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star who is Mr. Agalarov’s son. Besides an interpreter, the others who traveled to Trump Tower that day were tied in some way to Mr. Agalarov and his son, Emin. The elder Mr. Agalarov provided the venue where Mr. Trump held the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, and his son Emin has remained friendly with Mr. Trump and his family.
“This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin,” Mr. Goldstone wrote to Donald Trump Jr. Mr. Balber, the lawyer, represents not only Mr. Kaveladze but also the Agalarov family. Court records show he has also represented President Trump in two cases.
Mr. Kaveladze is Facebook friends with Mr. Goldstone and the younger Mr. Agalarov. Mr. Kaveladze, who works as the United States-based financial officer for Aras Agalarov’s real estate company, attended as the family’s emissary “just to make sure it happened and to serve as an interpreter if necessary,” Mr. Balber said.
Mr. Balber said the Agalarovs had “no idea what Mr. Goldstone was thinking” when he wrote the email. “I would call it hyperbole or puffery,” he said. “It is absolutely not true.” He said Mr. Agalarov arranged the meeting as a favor to a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has worked with Mr. Agalarov on real-estate deals. Ms. Veselnitskaya also attended the meeting, as did Rob Goldstone, the Aras Agalarov publicist and the author of the email.
He described Mr. Kaveladze as a longtime American citizen who is fluent in Russian and nearly fluent in English. “They had somebody show up at the meeting to make sure the favor was executed, that they carried through on it. And now they are in the middle of this tremendous storm,” he said. Mr. Kaveladze had an especially colorful background. Born in the Soviet republic of Georgia, he graduated from the Moscow Finance Academy in 1989. He moved to the United States two years later, eventually becoming an American citizen, his lawyer said.
Mr. Mueller’s team, made up of veteran F.B.I. agents and prosecutors, thinks it has identified everyone who attended the meeting, according to one person familiar with the investigation. Agents and prosecutors are eager to question everyone who was at the meeting, the person said. He set up several companies providing corporate services, including one based in New Jersey. In 2000, investigators for the General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office, began looking into his activities.
They found that he had helped 50 Russians obtain Citibank credit cards, using his company’s address each time. He set up more than 2,000 corporations in Delaware for Russian intermediaries without knowing who owned the firms, the inquiry found. And at Citibank alone, he opened 136 American accounts for Russian clients who moved more than $560 million through those accounts to overseas destinations, investigators said.
Mr. Balber said Mr. Kaveladze was never accused of any wrongdoing and was providing a legitimate financial service. “Nothing ever came of it. Even the banks were not disciplined,” he said.
The inquiry concluded that it was fairly easy for foreigners to hide their identities and launder their funds through the United States. Carl Levin, then a Democratic senator from Michigan, said at the time that he would forward the report’s findings to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation, as well as to regulatory agencies. In an interview Tuesday, he said Mr. Kaveladze was “the poster child” of the money-laundering schemes.
At some point after the G.A.O. report came out, Mr. Kaveladze, nicknamed Ike, went to work as a financial officer for Mr. Agalarov’s real estate firm, Crocus Group. He also began importing Russian wines to the United States.
Mr. Mueller’s team believes all the meeting participants have now been identified, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Mr. Balber, the lawyer, said Mr. Kaveladze would cooperate fully with Mr. Mueller’s inquiry.
Asked if there were more mystery guests to be revealed, Mr. Balber gave a short laugh and said: “No. These are the eight.”