Soviet-born businessman also attended Trump Jnr’s meeting with Russian lawyer
A California businessman born in a former Soviet republic attended Donald Trump Jnr’s controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer at the height of the US presidential campaign last year, adding a new level of intrigue to the political scandal roiling the White House.
Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze, 52, is the eighth person known to have taken part in the unusual Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, the Los Angeles Times has learned. His identity was not previously disclosed.
Kaveladze, who lives in Huntington Beach, California, is an employee of a large Russian real estate development company. He was the focus of a scathing congressional inquiry in 2000 into alleged Russian money laundering through banks in California and New York but was not charged.
Balber said his client was “co-operating fully” with investigators. Mueller’s office declined to comment. No one answered the door or the phone at Kaveladze’s three-story home in a gated community in Huntington Beach. A dresser and other small pieces of furniture sat on the front lawn.
Kaveladze’s involvement is more evidence of the role that Moscow’s powerful Agalarov family played in arranging the meeting with Trump Jnr that is a key focus of Mueller’s probe. The former FBI director appears to be exploring the relationship between the Trumps and the Agalarovs, who were partners on a project for a Trump hotel in Moscow that was never built.
Aras Agalarov, a billionaire developer, and his son Emin, a Russian pop star, also hosted the Trump-owned Miss Universe contest in Moscow in 2013, which Trump attended.
Kaveladze has worked for the Agalarovs’ holding company, the Crocus Group, since 2004, Balber said. He is now a vice-president focusing on real estate and finance.
Kaveladze emigrated from the Republic of Georgia to the US shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and later became a US citizen. He was asked to take part in the Trump Tower meeting by Aras Agalarov, Balber said.
Neither the White House nor Trump Jnr had disclosed Kaveladze’s presence at the 2016 meeting despite repeated public statements about a sit-down that involved three of Trump’s closest aides — his eldest son, Donald, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, Trump’s then-campaign manager.
Senator. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday that Mueller had told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he doesn’t object to the panel publicly questioning Trump Jnr and Manafort.
Lawyers for the two have said they are willing to co-operate with congressional panels looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow, but it is unclear if they will agree to testify. Neither Trump Jnr nor Manafort are in the Trump administration.
During the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who had travelled from Moscow, handed Trump Jnr a sheaf of documents that she said showed improper donations to the Democratic National Committee, information that she said could be used against Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Kaveladze “was asked to attend the meeting purely to … make sure it happened,” said Balber, who is based in New York. “He literally had no idea what the meeting was about until he showed up right before.”
Kaveladze did not recall saying anything at the meeting, which lasted less than half an hour, and does not understand why the meeting has become so controversial, Balber said.
“He’s absolutely baffled,” said Balber, who also represents the Agalarovs. “Even the Agalarovs are absolutely baffled. Nobody had any expectation this would be what it’s become, especially this poor guy, who had not been involved before.”
Balber said Veselnitskaya — who did real estate work for the Agalarovs in Moscow — asked one of the Agalarovs to provide an introduction to the Trumps. The Agalarovs then asked a British music publicist, Rob Goldstone, to contact Trump Jnr, he said.
“This was not a highly important item to the Agalarovs,” Balber said. “If it were, I suspect it would have happened very differently.”
But Balber’s account of who set up the meeting is at odds with email exchanges at the time between Trump Jnr and Goldstone, which Trump Jnr released last week. They indicated that the Agalarovs, not Veselnitskaya, pushed for the meeting.
Goldstone told Trump Jnr in an email dated June 3, 2016, that Aras Agalarov had met that morning with a Russian prosecutor who had “offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary.”
Goldstone called the offer “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.”
During the 1990s, Kaveladze headed a Delaware-based company called International Business Creations and set up 2,000 US corporations for Russian brokers, according to a critical report in November 2000 by an arm of Congress now known as the Government Accountability Office.
