The Los Angeles Times reports that Donald Trump Jr. traveled to France last fall to have "lunch at the Hotel Ritz Paris with a Syrian peace activist, who says she meets regularly with Russian officials, and her French husband, who nominated Russian President Vladimir Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize last year."
The couple is Randa Kassis and Fabien Baussart, and Baussart paid Trump Jr. at least $50,000 to speak that evening at a seminar he was hosting. Shortly afterwards, his wife reported back to Russia:
Kassis said she flew to Moscow days after the Oct. 11, 2016, event and briefed Foreign Ministry officials in Putin’s government. And after Trump won the election, she boasted in broken English about sending a message to the new president through his son.
“I succeeded to pass Trump, through the talks with his son, the idea of how we can cooperate together to reach the agreement between Russia and the United States on Syria,” she wrote in a Facebook post that was later removed.
Trump Jr.'s attorney says his booking agent found the speaking engagement, and the president's son did not know his hosts would want to talk about U.S.-Russia relations, even though Baissart's think tank website and Kassis' Facebook page are filled with photographs of them with Russian government officials:
Baussart and Kassis describe themselves as freelance diplomats, backing causes and foreign leaders of their own choosing.
Baussart, a lawyer by training, has worked with Russian oligarchs and with senior officials from former Soviet republics, according to a former associate who has known him since the 1990s and asked not to be identified.
His Paris-based think tank, the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs, has no address or phone number on its website or in the phone listings. Under French law, it is not required to disclose who funds it.
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The center’s website shows photos of the couple with current and former Russian, European, U.S. and Middle Eastern diplomats, officials, academics and businessmen. Kassis also uses Facebook, posting a May 2016 photo of herself with Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.
In February, the couple met with Alexander Lavrentyev, a Putin-appointed Syria peace negotiator, and another Russian diplomat, another photo shows. The caption says they discussed “preparations for the Geneva talks,” presumably the United Nations-backed peace negotiations between the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition that began Feb. 23 and ended eight days later without success.
The French journalist who hosted the evening seminar in Paris, Renaud Girard, told the LA Times he was struck by Trump Jr.'s confidence in his father's campaign:
“The one thing that amazed me was that [Trump Jr.] was confident that his father would win,” Girard said.
Full story: Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 trip to Paris for lunch with Moscow-linked couple remains a puzzle (LA Times)