Trump campaign energy consultant and foreign policy adviser Carter Page meets with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during a trip to Moscow to speak at a university.
On the same trip, Page meets with Andrey Baranov, the head of investor relations for Rosneft, and Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft. Igor Sechin is a close ally of Vladimir Putin and worked for him directly over the years. In the 1990s, he worked for Putin in the mayor’s office. In the 2000s, he served as the deputy chief of staff for the Kremlin, as Putin’s top adviser, and as Deputy Prime Minister.
Page also met with Igor Diveykin, Putin’s deputy chief of internal policy and the man that U.S. investigators later believe is at least partly responsible for Russian intelligence gathering in the 2016 election. According to former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, Diveykin told Page that he had useful material on Hillary Clinton.
Page claims he never met with Sechin or Diveykin, but Steele says otherwise. Page does admit to meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as with Sechin’s senior aide.
Whether or not to take Page at his word isn’t difficult to deduce. Page’s story of his Russia trip changes multiple times over the months that follow. First, no one in the Trump campaign knew about the trip. Then, campaign staff only knew about the trip after he returned, not before he left. And finally, Page eventually admits to the House Intelligence Committee that campaign adviser J. D. Gordon, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump aide Hope Hicks, and Sen. Jeff Sessions all knew about the trip beforehand.
Page’s story also starts with him having not met with a single Russian official during the trip, and later on he admits to meetings with Dvorkovich and Baranov.
But wait, there’s more.
Page admitted to sending an email to Trump officials after the trip promising a ”readout” of “incredible insights and outreach” from “Russian legislators” and “senior members of the Presidential administration” in Moscow.
ABC News
Page lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007, where he worked for a firm on deals for Gazprom, the energy giant in business with Putin friend and crime ring leader Semion Mogilevich. In 2008, Page founded a U.S. investment fund called Global Energy Capital with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatsenko. In April 2013, he wrote a letter to an academic publisher boasting about his previous work as an adviser to the Kremlin. Sometime in 2014, the FBI received a warrant to monitor Page under suspicions that he was a victim of Russian intelligence targeting.
Sources
https://www.smh.com.au/business/detained-billionaire-may-reveal-vladimir-putins-gas-cash-secrets-20140324-35ccx.html
https://www.justsecurity.org/46786/timeline-carter-pages-contacts-russia/
https://jamestown.org/program/semyon-mogilevichs-arrest-a-blow-to-medvedev-or-a-favor/
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2010/09/02/why-russia-is-afraid-victor-bout/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/carter-page-told-trump-campaign-officials-moscow-trip/story?id=50977310
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