The Mueller report details efforts by Russian President Putin to urge an oligarch to establish contact with the incoming Trump administration
Alfa-Bank Chairman Petr Aven. Photo: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg News By Mengqi Sun April 19, 2019 7:42 p.m. ET Russian President Vladimir Putin urged a Russian banking executive with ties to one of the country’s largest commercial banks to establish a line of communication with the incoming Trump administration following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the election.
The Trump administration has taken a strategic approach of placing sanctions on Russian oligarchs and their assets, hoping that penalties against the business leaders who are close to the Kremlin would lead to changes in Russia’s actions, particularly as they relate to allegations by the U.S. that Russia interfered in its elections.
“The general theory for OFAC is that if these people are benefiting from Putin’s system and that system is doing malign activities around the world, these folks are part of that system and have to be held accountable for that,” said Mr. Dobson, now an attorney at Morrison & Foerster LLP. Mr. Putin recommended that Mr. Aven take steps to protect himself and the bank, the report said. Mr. Putin also indicated that the Russian government faced difficulties getting in touch with the incoming Trump administration and that Mr. Putin himself didn’t know the people around the U.S. president-elect, according to the report.
According to Mr. Mueller’s report, Mr. Burt asked the president of a think tank to help facilitate the request and to arrange a meeting with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, an influential adviser during the Trump campaign, to discuss setting up a “high-level communications channel between Putin and the incoming administration.”
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