Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team have uncovered hundreds of suspicious transactions involving Russian diplomats in the U.S. and are currently analyzing them, according to a BuzzFeed News report.
Among these diplomats is former Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, whose name has been central to the Russia scandal because of his contact with multiple people in Trump’s camp during the 2016 campaign.
Ten days after Trump’s election victory, Kislyak received $120,000 in a transaction marked “payroll.” The activity was flagged as suspicious by banks, since it didn’t match up with the pattern established by previous payments.
One other suspicious transaction, which took place five days after Trump was sworn into office, was a person’s attempt to withdraw $150,000 from the account of the U.S.-based Russian embassy.
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Some of the flagged activity goes back to years before Trump was in office and raise general concern of how the Russian embassy has been run in the U.S. and what exactly officials have been up to. Thirty checks from March 8 to April 7, 2014 made out to embassy employees — also highlighted for breaking previous pay patterns — totaled $370,000 and were cashed immediately upon receipt, making the destinations of where they were sent untraceable. According to BuzzFeed’s report, bank officials noted that this took place close to the date of a referendum concerning whether sections of Crimea should secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia — an issue Putin is heavily invested in.
This news is the latest piece of evidence suggesting that Russian officials have long been engaged in trying to carry out their political agendas through deceptive means.
