Banker Robert Foresman, who reportedly has ties inside the Kremlin, sought access to the Trump transition team shortly after the November 2016 election, ABC News is reporting.
At one point, Mark Burnett, producer of “The Apprentice” actually reached out to a Trump adviser to see if he would sit down with Foresman, according to the network news.
Foresman has long held ties to Russia and was touted by his own company as someone who maintains connections to Russia's President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle., ABC News said.
With the help of Burnett, Foresman scheduled a meeting with Thomas Barrack, who was chairing Trump’s inaugural fund, ABC News reported, attributing the information to internal emails. The meeting was later canceled.
But two sources tell ABC News he secured a January 2017 meeting with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was one of six co-chairs of the Trump’s transition team. Just weeks earlier, Foresman had met with the chairman of a state-owned Russian development bank, Sergei Gorkov, the network news said.
Foresman now serves as vice chairman of the Swiss bank UBS’s investment arm, ABC News reported. He is said to have lived for years in Moscow. He declined to comment on the ABC News story.
He has attracted the attention of congressional investigators as one additional name on a list of Americans with established ties inside the Kremlin who had sought access to the Trump transition team, ABC News said.
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