"Suspicious" Transactions At Russian Embassy Sparked Deeper Bank Probe Than Previously Known
"Suspicious" Transactions At Russian Embassy Sparked Deeper Bank Probe Than Previously Known
The former Russian ambassador received a salary payment twice as large as past years, and bankers blocked a $150,000 withdrawal.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/suspicious-payments-kislyak-russia-embassy-mueller
When BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year on dozens of suspicious financial transactions by Russian diplomats living in Washington, Kremlin officials objected with ferocity. A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson denounced the news organization as a “tool of the American intelligence services” and insisted the transactions were purely run of the mill.
But new documents show that American bank examiners delved deeper into the embassy's financial activity than was previously known — and reveal why they flagged two of the transactions as suspicious.
The first, made just 10 days after the US presidential election in 2016, was a $120,000 lump-sum check to then-ambassador Sergey Kislyak that was twice as large as any payment he’d received in the previous two years.
The second, just five days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, was a blocked attempt to withdraw $150,000 in cash that a bank official feared was meant for Russians the US had just expelled from the country.
In their investigations into 2016 election interference, special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI are scrutinizing the financial activity by the Russian embassy, according to three federal law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Last November, BuzzFeed News began revealing suspicious embassy transactions, including a $29,000 wire transfer to the embassy's US bank account to “finance election campaign of 2016”; $325,000 in payments to the Russian Cultural Centre in Washington; and $2.4 million paid to small home-improvement companies controlled by a Russian immigrant living in Virginia.
But former ambassador Kislyak looms over the Trump-Russia investigation. After failing to disclose during his confirmation hearings a meeting with Kislyak, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, discussed with Kislyak setting up a line of communication at the Russian Embassy. And Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about multiple calls to Kislyak during the transition.
