Mission Torshin

In May 2016, the deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, Alexander Torshin, tried to organize a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with Donald Trump, who then waged the struggle for the right to become a presidential candidate from the Republican Party. It is reported by The New York Times with reference to sources.

During the investigation in the US Senate, the Trump team relations with Russia became aware of an electronic letter on behalf of Torshin, in which the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank proposed organizing dinner for Trump and Putin. The letter of Trump Jared Kushner, who was one of the main employees of the campaign headquarters, got acquainted with the letter. It was Kushner who decided that the proposal should be abandoned, the sources of the publication said.

The letter became the basis for the Senate Law Committee to accuse Kushner of concealing an important correspondence. However, his lawyers rejected this prosecution, saying that the letter was not addressed to Kushner, but passed along a long chain before getting to him.

“Although the meeting did not take place, the request of Mr. Torshin is the next example of how the Russian authorities activated their efforts on contacts and influence on Trump’s campaign last year,” writes the newspaper. “The latest certificates of Mr. Torshin, which is the leading figure in Putin’s party United Russia, testifies to the direct participation of a senior Russian official in the propaganda campaign Kremlin ". NYT also celebrates Torshin’s connections "both with Russian security services and organized crime."

In August last year, Bloomberg, citing a statement by the Spanish police, reported that Torshin, when he was a member of the Federation Council, could instruct members of the Tagansk organized crime group on issues of laundering money through banks and real estate in Spain. It was alleged that the leader of the organized crime group Alexander Romanov called Torshin a "godmother" or "boss" and carried out "operations and investments" on his behalf.

Torshin himself denied any connections with organized crime groups. According to him, he has known Romanov since the beginning of the 1990s, but his connections have been "exclusively social" in nature. Out of the Central Bank added that he did not communicate with Romanov since his arrest in 2013. “I am an official and I am not hiding,” Torshin said.

In 2004, Torshin headed the Commission of the Federation Council to investigate the attack in Beslan. In December 2006, the commission published a report to which the actions of the security forces were recognized as correct.

In April, The Washington Post wrote that in early December 2016,Kushner, at a meeting with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, proposed to establish secret contact between the Trump team and the Kremlin through the Russian embassy or consulate to avoid information leakage. As reported, Kislyak was discouraged by such an idea, since it was dangerous for both Moscow and the team of the elected president.

In July, in his testimony, Senate Kushner said that during the meeting, the ambassador only asked him if there was a safe communication line in the temporary office of the elected president in order to negotiate with Russian generals regarding Syria. Kushner also assured that he was not in conspiracy "with any foreign government." Kushner also did not know anything that Kushner said that he also knew other members of Trump's headquarters in such a conspiracy.