The eight person at the controversial Donald Trump Jr meeting was identified Tuesday, and like the other Russian members in the room, it is an unfamiliar name: Irakly “Ike” Kaveladze.
Kaveladze is the Senior Vice President of the Moscow-based Crocus Group, a real estate development company which is owned by Aras Agalarov, the father of Emin Agalarov, a singer, friend of Donald Trump, and the one who set up the Trump Jr. meeting, along with his publicist Rob Goldstone.
His attendance was confirmed by Kaveladze’s attorney Scott Balber who reportedly received a call from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He was asked to attend the meeting to represent Aras Agalarov, who once planned to build a hotel in Moscow with Donald Trump.
According to Balber, Kaveladze did not say anything at the meeting and has “never had any engagement with the Russian government in any capacity.”
Kaveladze, 52, was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia but now has U.S. citizenship and lives in Huntington Beach, Calif. He attended the Moscow Academy of Finance for his undergraduate in economics and his graduate in accounting, as well as earning a Master of Business Administration at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. According to his website he is “active with governments, businesses, and professionals on three continents,” and is a member of the US-Russia Business Council and the Georgian Association in the United States of America.
The New York Times reported in 2000 that Kaveladze was involved in a money laundering scheme, but was not found guilty. Kaveladze reportedly wired more than $800 million from abroad to 136 accounts that he had opened for Russian clients, most overseas. He denied he did anything wrong, calling it “another Russian witch hunt in the United States.”
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