A Russian oligarch who was questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller and recently sanctioned by the US visited President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen in Trump Tower during the presidential transition in January 2017, according to video reviewed by CNN.
The January 9, 2017, Trump Tower appearance by Viktor Vekselberg, which was also reported Friday by The New York Times, adds to the questions swirling over the payments to Cohen, which Mueller's team questioned Vekselberg about after the FBI stopped his private jet at a New York-area airport earlier this year.
Vekselberg, chairman of Russian asset manager Renova Group, was accompanied at Trump Tower by Andrew Intrater, who is Vekselberg's cousin and head of Columbus Nova. Vekselberg is Columbus Nova's biggest client.
A person familiar with the meeting told CNN that Vekselberg and Intrater met with Cohen and discussed improving US-Russia relations. The meeting was brief, the person said, and Vekselberg was not originally expected to attend.
An attorney for Cohen did not respond immediately to a request for comment. A representative for Vekselberg also did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Intrater's firm, Columbus Nova, paid $580,000 to Cohen for a consulting contract starting in January 2017.
Since the payments have become public, Columbus Nova has attempted to distance itself from Vekselberg, denying Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit to pay Cohen. Columbus Nova recently removed references to Renova Group from the biography of its partners. It has stated it's a "management company solely owned and controlled by Americans," and that it hired Cohen after Trump's inauguration.
But the newly discovered video shows that Vekselberg and Intrater were meeting with Cohen before that, and they were just steps away from the President-elect during the transition.
Vekselberg was questioned by FBI agents working with Mueller earlier this year about the Columbus Nova payments to Cohen, as well as more than $300,000 in donations made by Intrater to Trump's inauguration and the Republican National Committee, sources said.
Intrater was also questioned, the sources said. Intrater's lawyer, Richard Owens, said, "Columbus Nova has cooperated with all requests for documents and information from federal authorities."
The questions asked of Vekselberg suggest that Mueller's team has been examining some of Cohen's business relationships as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen's home and office were raided last month as part of a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. In court documents, the prosecutors said at least part of their inquiry stemmed from a referral from Mueller's office.
The-CNN-Wire
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