Rachel had a incisive look at this Kushner-Kislyak “breaking news" story today. Here’s some more back-ground, about the new cast of shady players … making the rounds bubbling-up to the surface, in Trump-world:
qz.com
[...] In December Kushner met with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak alongside fired former national security adviser Mike Flynn, and soon sent a deputy to see Kislyak again. Then, at Kislyak’s request, Kushner met Sergey Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank (VEB) — a meeting that wasn’t previously reported, according to the Times. The Senate’s intelligence committee wants to ask Kushner about those meetings.
VEB is a state financial firm long entrusted with carrying out Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “special projects,” and has been weighed down by US and European sanctions since 2014. It also has significant ties to Russia’s security services. Gorkov studied at the training school for the FSB, the Russian spy agency [...]. In 2016, a New York court sentenced VEB official Evgeny Buryakov to 30 months in jail after he pled guilty to spying for the Russian government under the guise of working for the bank.
BTW, the December meeting with a “sanctioned” Russian Bank broke all sort of protocols, for the Trump oligarch in waiting.
RawStory.com explains who was behind that Vnesheconombank prosecution — surprise, surprise …
[...]
Vnesheconombank also hosted a spy ring at its New York City offices, according to U.S. investigators.
Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen, pleaded guilty in March 2016 for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government and conspiring to act as an agent without notifying U.S. authorities, reported The Guardian.
[...]
Buryakov was prosecuted by former U.S. Attorney Preety Bharara, who was fired earlier this month by the president after refusing the White House order to resign along with 45 other U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Interestingly the rawstory link says that “InfoWars and Breitbart News, have come under investigation“.
And not so interestingly, the Vnesheconombank (VEB) that Trump’s alter-ego was holding a secret meeting with back in December, has a rather notorious track record, if you “follow the money” …
[...]
Putin’s pet bank
VEB became seen as a “quasi-ministry” as Putin reportedly took personal charge of big decisions, and from 2005 to 2015 both its debts and its holdings skyrocketed.
VEB was used to aid the Kremlin’s favored oligarchs; extending, for example, $4.5 billion to aluminum mogul Oleg Deripaska to help save his beleaguered company in 2009 (an analysis in a leaked US State department cable at the time suggested the loan would never have to be repaid). What’s more, it became a foreign-policy tool of sorts, reportedly handing out $8 billion in secretive loans to get Russian oligarchs to snatch up plants in eastern Ukraine.
This should make folks wonder, exactly what was VEB trying to “snatch up” in New York … (at the request of Kislyak of course).