US banker with ties to Putin’s inner circle sought access to Trump transition: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Nine days after Donald Trump won the presidency, as scores of supporters clamored for meetings with his transition team, the Hollywood producer of “The Apprentice,” Mark Burnett, reached out to one of Trump’s closest advisers to see if he would sit down with a banker who has long held ties to Russia.

The banker, Robert Foresman, never got the role he was seeking with the fledgling Trump administration. But he has recently attracted the attention of congressional investigators as one more name on an expanding list of Americans with established ties inside the Kremlin who appears to have been seeking access to the newly elected president’s inner circle, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Foresman, who is now vice chairman of the Swiss bank UBS’s investment arm, lived for years in Moscow, where he led a $3 billion Russian investment fund and was touted by his new company as someone who maintains connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Reached by phone, Foresman declined to comment. Attorneys he has hired, including one in Washington who was hired to deal with the congressional probe, also declined to discuss the matter.

PHOTO: Robert Foresman in an undated profile photo from TMK where he is a board member. (TMK-group.com) More

What is known about Foresman’s efforts to meet with Trump’s team during the post-election period in late 2016 stems from internal presidential inaugural committee emails reviewed by ABC News, testimony and court filings in an unrelated legal matter and three sources who had knowledge of Foresman’s communications, but who would only talk about the subject on the condition that they not be named due the sensitivity of ongoing investigations.

(MORE: Special counsel eyeing Russians granted unusual access to Trump inauguration parties)

Foresman was not an early Trump supporter. In 2015, he donated to both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, campaign records show. But in mid-November, Foresman sought contacts inside Trump’s orbit. And with Burnett’s help, he found his way onto the daily calendar of Thomas Barrack, who at the time was chairing what would become Trump’s $100 million inaugural fund, internal emails show.

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Foresman was listed on Barrack’s schedule after a series of other meetings Barrack had that day – including a 10 a.m. sit-down with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and a 3 p.m. meeting with the president-elect. Foresman’s name appears without a scheduled time, and a notation, “Mark Burnett contact,” next to it. A spokesperson for Burnett declined to comment.

Email exchanges shared with ABC News show Barrack’s meeting with Foresman was ultimately canceled. But sources said Foresman continued to pursue a role with the Trump team. In January, he secured a meeting with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Foresman’s contacts. An attorney for Flynn, Robert Kelner, declined to comment. Flynn was one of six co-chairs of Trump’s transition team.

Also during the transition, Foresman held a December meeting in New York with the chairman of a state-owned Russian development bank, Sergei Gorkov, according to a recent court filing in an unrelated case. Gorkov was the same banker who flew from Moscow to New York for one day that month to meet with Kushner.

(MORE: Who is Sergey Gorkov, the Russian banker who met with Jared Kushner)

Foresman’s meeting with Gorkov has been one focus of a legal fight in a civil matter related to the Russian oil business, which has spotlighted new details about Foresman’s Russian connections. In a series of court filings, Foresman’s attorney has defended his refusal to answer questions about his meeting with Gorkov, about his responses to requests for documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee and about interviews with federal agents.

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