Officials: Russian, Trump fan met

January aim: Set up back channel

Erik Prince is the founder of Blackwater Worldwide.
Erik Prince is the founder of Blackwater Worldwide.

WASHINGTON -- The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and then-President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

The meeting took place around Jan. 11 -- days before Trump's inauguration -- in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria.

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

In addition, court filings recounted that a foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign met with a Russian intelligence operative in 2013 and provided him with documents about the energy industry.

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Trump has denied that he or his associates were in contact with Russia during the election campaign. He's blasted the focus on his possible Russia ties as a "ruse" and has insisted that the real story is the leaking of information to the media and allegations that he and his associates were improperly surveilled by former President Barack Obama's administration.

In a burst of four Twitter messages starting at 5:15 a.m., Trump renewed criticism of Hillary Clinton and her team on Twitter, while seizing on Fox News reports to justify his assertions that the Obama administration spied on him.

Ties to Trump

Prince was an avid supporter of Trump who gave $250,000 last year to support the GOP nominee's campaign, records show. He has ties to people in Trump's circle, including Stephen Bannon, who now serves as the president's chief strategist and senior counselor. Prince's sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in New York in December.

U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting, which one official said spanned two days, as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump. The FBI declined to comment.

"We are not aware of any meetings, and Erik Prince had no role in the transition," said Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman.

"Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication," a spokesman for Prince said in a statement. "The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump."

Prince is best known as the founder of Blackwater, a security firm that became a symbol of U.S. abuses in Iraq after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which the company's guards were accused -- and later criminally convicted -- of killing civilians.

Officials said the Seychelles meeting came after private discussions in New York involving high-ranking representatives of Trump, Russia and the Emirates.

The White House has acknowledged that Michael Flynn, Trump's original national security adviser, and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, in late November or early December in New York.

Flynn and Kushner were joined by Bannon for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who made an undisclosed visit to New York later in December, according to the U.S., European and Arab officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Officials said Zayed and his brother, the UAE's national security adviser, coordinated the Seychelles meeting with Russian government officials with the goal of establishing an unofficial back channel between Trump and Putin.

Officials said Zayed wanted to be helpful to both leaders, who had talked about working more closely together, a policy objective long advocated by the crown prince. The UAE, which sees Iran as one of its main enemies, also shared the Trump team's interest in finding ways to drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran.

At the time of the Seychelles meeting and for weeks afterward, the UAE believed that Prince had the blessing of the new administration to act as its unofficial representative. The Russian participant was a person whom Zayed knew was close to Putin from his interactions with both men, the officials said.

When the Seychelles meeting took place, official contacts between members of the incoming Trump administration and the Russian government were under intense scrutiny, both from federal investigators and the press.

Less than a week before the Seychelles meeting, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report accusing Russia of intervening clandestinely during the 2016 election to help Trump win the White House.

Government officials in the Seychelles said they were not aware of any meetings between Trump and Putin associates in the country around Jan. 11. But they said luxury resorts on the island are ideal for clandestine gatherings like the one described by the U.S., European and Arab officials.

"I wouldn't be surprised at all," said Barry Faure, the Seychelles secretary of state for foreign affairs. "The Seychelles is the kind of place where you can have a good time away from the eyes of the media. That's even printed in our tourism marketing. But I guess this time you smelled something."

Current and former U.S. officials said that while Prince refrained from playing a direct role in the Trump transition, his name surfaced so frequently in internal discussions that he seemed to function as an outside adviser whose opinions were valued on a variety of issues.

After the New York meeting between the Emiratis and Trump aides, Zayed was approached by Prince, who said he was authorized to act as an unofficial surrogate for the president-elect, according to the officials. He wanted Zayed to set up a meeting with a Putin associate. Zayed agreed and proposed the Seychelles as the meeting place.

The Seychelles meeting was deemed productive by the UAE and Russia, but the idea of arranging additional meetings between Prince and Putin's associates was dropped, officials said. Even unofficial contacts between Trump and Putin associates had become too politically risky, officials said.

Court documents

Separately, court filings detail efforts by Russian Victor Podobnyy to recruit Carter Page, an energy consultant working in New York at the time, as an intelligence source. Podobnyy was one of three men charged in a Cold War-style Russian spy ring. Page is referred to in the filing as "Male-1."

Page briefly served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump's campaign, though he split from the campaign before the election and the White House says the president has no relationship with him.

He's among the Trump associates under scrutiny as the FBI and congressional committees investigate the Russian interference and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Page acknowledged in a statement Monday night that he "shared basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents" with Podobnyy. He described the information as "nothing more than a few samples from the far more detailed lectures" he delivered at New York University in 2013.

The court filings include a transcript of Podobnyy speaking with Igor Sporyshev, who was also charged in the spy ring, about Page.

"I like that he takes on everything," Podobnyy says. "For now his enthusiasm works for me. I also promised him a lot."

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Entous, Greg Miller, Kevin Sieff, Karen DeYoung, Julie Tate, Devlin Barrett, Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman of The Washington Post; by Julie Pace of The Associated Press; and by Peter Baker of The New York Times.

A Section on 04/04/2017

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