The Daily Beast publishes the results of an investigation into Jared Kushner’s relationship with Putin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, with the help of over a dozen Trump Administration officials.
Dmitriev can be tied back to Donald Trump as early as 1996, but his first interaction with Jared Kushner (that we know of so far) was in January 2017.
Dmitriev was one of the main participants in the infamous January 2017 Seychelles meeting with former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, in which the two discussed a roadmap for U.S.-Russia cooperation in the new administration. In the years since, Kushner and Dmitriev have communicated—often at a distance, and at times through intermediaries—about ways the U.S. and Russia could work together. The conversations have touched on everything from creating a joint business council to increase investment, to working on a Middle East peace deal, to helping lead negotiations on a recent OPEC deal, to delivering those medical supplies, according to multiple senior officials.
Administration officials reveal that Trump wanted Kushner working on Russia relations away from the view of government officials whose job is to prevent Russia from threatening our national security. Connecting Kushner with Dmitriev was Putin’s idea.
“Dmitriev came into the picture because Putin was always saying, ‘Talk to my guy because he can help you with the Gulf and with the Middle East peace plan, we can help stabilize,’” said one former senior administration official. “A lot was going on behind the scenes… they kept it to themselves.”
Putin had tasked Dmitriev with connecting to the Trump transition team before the president-elect assigned Kushner to the job, though. Dmitriev tried arranging a meeting with Kushner or Donald Trump Jr. through George Nader, an American colleague who is currently in prison for child pornography.
Dmitriev also got in touch with Rick Gerson, a close friend of Kushner’s. Together they drafted a plan for how the Trump administration could support Russia’s motives for the U.S., and Dmitriev shared the plan with Putin.
On January 11, 2017, Dmitriev and Nader met with Erik Prince on a remote island in the Indian Ocean to go over the plan. Prince is a close friend of Steve Bannon, and Bannon sent Prince to the meeting on his behalf. He’s also the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The meeting is believed to have been arranged by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates.
On January 18, 2017, Gerson met with Kushner at the White House to pass the Putin-Dmitriev plan to the Trump transition team. Trump was briefed on the plan and talked to Putin ten days later.
Not long after, Trump informally named Kushner as his go-to adviser for all things foreign policy, especially with matters related to the Middle East. This made Kushner the #1 contact for Mohammad Bin Zayed in the UAE and Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.
In October 2017, Kushner took an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia where he likely met with Dmitriev. Saudia Arabia was holding a conference called the Future Investment Initiative, and Dmitriev was there to spend Russia’s money.
Dmitriev told reporters there that he would invest “billions” in NEOM, a high-tech, futuristic project led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in the northwestern part of the country. Several individuals who attended the conference said Kushner met with individuals on the sidelines of the summit…
That same month, Dmitriev announced that RDIF pledged to invest again, this time with the Chinese Investment Corporation—China’s sovereign wealth fund—in [Richard] Branson’s Hyperloop.
“There were questions being asked about where Russia might want to spend its money. Dmitriev was the money guy and held the strings,” one former U.S. senior official said. “And the idea on Russia’s part was, ‘We can sell to Jared and everyone else on Middle East peace.’”
The Daily Beast
Over the next two years, Kushner included Dmitriev in conversations about his Middle East peace plan. The two met sometime in May 2019 in person, arranged by the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, Jon Huntsman. No one knows where or when exactly this meeting took place. Officials refuse to say.
Two months later, in June 2019, Kushner and his team flew to Manama, Bahrain, to attend a summit for a series of meetings on how to implement one of the major aspects of his plan—investing in Palestine. Hundreds of foreign dignitaries, and investors from across the globe, including Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, attended the lavish event at Manama’s Ritz-Carlton. They gathered in ballrooms for panels and speeches. Kushner gave a presentation on investing in the Palestinian territories. Dmitriev attended.
That summit spurred additional conversations in Bahrain and afterward among Kushner’s peace plan team, Dmitriev, and a host of other financiers and banking executives on how best to bring about investments in the Palestinian territories. But the details of those conversations remained closely held within Kushner’s inner circle.
“No one ever really knew what Jared was up to,” one former official said.
Another former senior official said they heard bits and pieces of the Kushner peace plan—and word of Russia’s involvement in helping craft portions of it—but that officials in the State Department and National Security Council were primarily kept in the dark.
“There were maybe three or four people who really knew what Jared was up to and who he was speaking with and what was included in the plan,” that official said. “But they didn’t dish to anyone. And sometimes even people working with Jared didn’t know exactly who or how he was communicating with foreign officials.”
The Daily Beast
A peace deal was reached on August 14, 2020.
//Post still being updated//
Sources
Mueller Report, p. 151
Photo: Duncan C.