Donald Trump Jr. is paid at least $50,000 to attend a private event paid for by a French think tank known to be a front for Russian intelligence.
The 30-person event at the Ritz Hotel in Paris is hosted by the Center for Political and Foreign Affairs (CFPA), which France’s own intelligence agency has assessed as a Russian influence operation.
The couple in charge of CFPA and the event are Fabien Baussart, an oligarch who once nominated Vladimir Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize, and his partner Randa Kassis (pictured), a former model from Syria who advocates for Russian intervention in her home country. Both are friends of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Renaud Girard, a moderator for the event Don Jr. attends, tells ABC News afterwards that Baussart and Kassis “are openly linked with the Russians. They don’t hide it at all.”
Kassis openly admits that she shared details about the meeting with Russian officials.
Trump’s appearance briefly made news after the event, including in a Wall Street Journal report that quoted one of the hosts, Randa Kassis. She told the newspaper she traveled to Moscow shortly after the U.S. election and discussed details of the Trump dinner with Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy head of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
ABC News
Kassis also posted on Facebook after Trump won the election, letting her friends and associates know that she expects the new administration to help Russia in Syria. Russian intervention in Syria is often marketed as fighting ISIS, but most military action has been aimed at other groups and resulted in countless civilian casualties.
Kassis recently posted comments on her Facebook page about the meeting, saying: “Syria’s opposition got hope that political process will move forward and Russia and the United States will reach accord on the issue of the Syrian crisis, because of Trump’s victory. Such hope and belief is the result of my personal meeting with Donald Trump Junior in Paris in October.”
“I succeeded to pass [to] Trump, through the talks with his son, the idea of how we can cooperate together to reach the agreement between Russia and the United States on Syria,” Kassis said in her Facebook posting.
The Guardian
This is not the first time and won’t be the last time that agents of Russia pass messages to Donald Trump through his offspring and associates.
External Sources
Wall Street Journal (Archived)
ABC News (Archived)
Craig Unger, American Kompromat (2021), p.15-17
Photo: Randa Kassis (Cropped & Color Edited)