Russian-US oligarch claimed to be 'actively involved' in Trump election strategy | Times of Israel - Sept. 28, 2018 |

A Russian-American businessman told a senior former Kremlin official that he was "actively involved" in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign after he made a sizable donation to the election effort, the Guardian reported.

Jewish oligarch Simon Kukes told Vyacheslav Pavlovsky in an email that he was assisting then-candidate Trump with "strategy development," the newspaper reported, and shared a photo of his 29-year-old Russian then-girlfriend (now wife) with Trump and his running mate, vice president Mike Pence.

Russian-US tycoon boasted of 'active' involvement in Trump election campaign | The Guardian |

Kukes was born in Moscow in 1946. He left the USSR in 1977, while in his twenties. Kukes lived in Texas, Oklahoma and Illinois, became a US citizen in 1982, which allows him to make political donations, and worked for Phillips Petroleum and Amoco.

In 1996 he returned to Moscow. He spent the next two decades there and held a series of executive jobs in the Russian oil industry [became head of Yukos in 2003]. In 2011 he told a New York court he was not domiciled in the US and lived in Russia. By 2016 he had based himself in America again, moving from Switzerland.

Kukes's communications in summer 2016 are likely to be of interest to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

They are revealed in a joint investigation by the Guardian, NBC News, and the London-based investigative unit Dossier. Dossier is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic and former head of the oil firm Yukos.

○ A complete guide to the Jewish machers in the Russia probe | Times of Israel |

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