Report of bid to set up secret back channel
NEW YORK — Special counsel Robert Mueller has quietly gathered evidence that a Donald Trump associate met with a Russian official shortly before the president’s inauguration to create a back-channel between the Kremlin and the incoming White House administration, according to a report.
Erik Prince, founder of controversial private military contractor Blackwater USA, met with an official close to Russian President Vladimir Putin last January in the Seychelles, the small island off the eastern coast of Africa, several people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
One of the witnesses cooperating with Mueller’s probe has told investigators that Prince, 48, set up the meeting in order to discuss future relations between Washington and Moscow, serving as a de facto representative for Trump’s transition team.
Prince was never officially part of Trump’s transition. He’s also the younger brother of Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The revelation could land Prince in trouble, as he has previously testified before Congress that he attended the Seychelles meeting as a businessman, not as a representative of the Trump administration. He also testified that he randomly encountered the Russian official, Kirill Dmitriev.
Trump claims his administration has no ties to the Kremlin and frequently blasts the notion that his campaign colluded with Russians as a “hoax” cooked up by vengeful Democrats.
In another development, it was revealed this week that Trump recently approached two key witnesses cooperating with Mueller about what they told investigators, breaking with the advice of his lawyers.
Mueller recently learned that Trump asked his ex-chief of staff, Reince Priebus, how his special counsel interview had gone and whether the investigators had been “nice” to him, two people familiar with the discussion told The New York Times.
In a second instance, Trump directed White House counsel Donald McGahn to draft a statement pushing back against reports that he had asked for Mueller’s firing, the sources said. But McGahn declined to draft the statement, reminding Trump that he did in fact once ask him to see to it that Mueller be booted.
While the episodes likely do not amount to witness tampering, Trump’s insistence on approaching Mueller’s witnesses about their testimony could give the appearance that he’s attempting to interfere.