White House, Russian views contradict
The Russian bank that met with presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner says the meeting was related to business; the White House says it was diplomacy.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The White House and a Russian state-owned bank have much different explanations for why the bank’s chief executive and Jared Kushner held a secret meeting during the presidential transition in December.
The bank maintained this week that the session was held as part of a new business strategy and was conducted with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business. The White House says the meeting was unrelated to business and was one of many diplomatic encounters the soon-to-be presidential adviser was holding ahead of the inauguration.
The contradiction is deepening confusion over Kushner’s interactions with the Russians as the president’s son-in-law emerges as a key figure in the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Moscow and the Trump team.
The discrepancy has thrust Vnesheconombank or VEB, known for advancing the strategic interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin and for its role in a past U.S. espionage case, into the center of the controversy enveloping the White House. And it has highlighted the role played by the bank’s 48-year-old chief executive, Sergey Gorkov, a graduate of the academy of the FSB, the domestic intelligence arm of the former Soviet KGB, who was appointed by Putin to the post less than a year before.
Either account of the meeting could bring complications for a White House undergoing intensifying scrutiny.
A diplomatic meeting would have provided the bank, which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2014, a chance to press for rolling back the penalties even as the Obama administration was weighing additional retaliations against Moscow for Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.
A business meeting between an international development bank and a real estate executive, coming as Kushner’s company had been seeking financing for its troubled $1.8 billion purchase of an office building in New York, could raise questions about whether Kushner’s financial interests were colliding with his impending role as a public official.
VEB did not respond to questions about the Kushner meeting and the institution’s history and role in Russia.
Gorkov, cornered Wednesday by a CNN reporter in St. Petersburg, responded “no comments” three times when asked about the Kushner meeting.
The Kushner-Gorkov meeting came after Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. At the meeting, Kushner suggested establishing a secure communications line between Trump officials and the Kremlin at a Russian diplomatic facility, according to U.S. officials who reviewed intelligence reports describing Kislyak’s account.
The bank and the White House have declined to provide the exact date or location of the Kushner-Gorkov meeting.
Flight data suggest the meeting may have taken place on Dec. 13 or 14, two weeks after Kushner’s encounter with Kislyak.
A jet owned by a company linked to VEB flew from Moscow to the U.S. on Dec. 13 and departed from the airport in Newark, N.J., at 5:01 p.m. Dec. 14, according to positional flight information provided by FlightAware, a company that tracks airplanes.
The Post could not confirm whether Gorkov was on the flight, but the plane’s previous flights closely mirror Gorkov’s publicly known travels in recent months, including his trip to St. Petersburg this week.
After leaving Newark, the jet headed to Japan, where Putin was visiting on Dec. 15 and 16. The news media had reported that Gorkov would join the Russian president there.
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Kushner intends to share with investigators the details of his meeting with Gorkov.