MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. The CNN television company deleted an article connecting Antony Saramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund and apologized to the US financier.

On June 22, CNN reported, quoting a source in the democratic faction of the Congress’ upper house, that the Senate intelligence committee was checking the details of the meeting between US financier Anthony Scaramucci and Head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev Dmitriev on January 16, 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland’s Davos.

"On June 22, 2017, CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund," CNN wrote on its website. "That story did not meet CNN's editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci."

In January, 2017, the leading US mass media, including Washington Post and Bloomberg, reported that Trump planned to appoint Scaramucci, who used to work in the Goldman Sachs investment bank, as the White House liaison to the business community. The financier agreed to this position, according to mass media reports. However, this appointment never happened.

Media pressure

CNN stated that the US financier had confirmed that this meeting had taken place in Switzerland and had been informal and fleeting. Dmitriev "came over to say hello in a restaurant, and I was cordial," Scaramucci said in a recent email to CNN. "There is nothing there."

The US sanctions against Russian companies do not outlaw joint investment projects with RDIF or meetings with the Fund’s representatives.

President Trump and his near circle are often under the US media pressure, including from CNN, for his alleged relations with Russia. The president denies categorically existence of such links.

Breitbart News, a portal close to Trump, referring to a high-ranking administration official said there "was a demonstrably untrue allegation that the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department were probing a Russian investment fund with ties to senior Trump allies like Anthony Scaramucci." The source also disclaimed the statement, made earlier by CNN, about the Treasury Department’s intended investigation into the meeting between Saramucci and Dmitriev.

"The necessity for a dialogue between Russia and the USA is stronger than the attempts to restrict such dialogue through media pressure frequently based on misleading information and its misinterpretation," the Russian fund’s spokesman said on Friday after the CNN publication.