Page 9 - Simon Kukes News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> it seems much more conspiratorial to me. the whole tone of the e-mail sz conspiratorial. >> do you think that these donations were part of a russian campaign to influence the election and help president trump? >> absolutely. after reading this e-mail exchange, i have nary a doubt. >> we wanted to ask simon kukes about his background and this mysterious e-mail exchange. why was he offering political briefings to a russian official? why did he send those photos? was he just bragging? look at how close i got to a presidential candidate. or was there more to? unfortunately, kukes wouldn't talk ...

David, thank you so much for being with us. >> good to be with you. congratulations on a great spot you just did. >> well, i'm very happy to hear you say that because i'm curious to hear your thoughts. what do you think about what we uncovered about simon kukes? >> well, you know, that's just another piece in a mosaic that continues to grow, and it fits in with a pattern. it fits in with a pattern of big money, a lot of money rolling into trump's coffers during the campaign and after the campaign into the inaugural fund. you talked about the amount of money that kukes gave. in january of 2017,...

The big question is was this orchestrated to essentially act as a loop hole to get money legally into the campaign. >> if it was orchestrated or done at the behest of a foreign power, would it be then illegal? >> yes. >> simon or simeon kukes was born in russia to jewish parents in 1946. he worked hard in school and earned a ph.d. in chemistry from this prestigious institute in moscow. but once kukes graduated in the 1970s, he didn't want to stay put in the stagnating soviet union. he wanted something bigger and better. so he did something few highly-trained russian scientists were allow today...

Of stuff that you have a special counsel to investigate. you know, you call people in, you try to find other e-mails if these e-mails exist. there might be other e-mails out there in the same chain or that go later or earlier, and these are things that you can bear down on depending how far robert mueller wants to go in chasing the russian money trail into the trump campaign. and there's a whole lot of other russian money trail over the years into trump's businesses. and we just don't yet have a strong indication whether mull certificate including both those money trails in his ongoing investi...

In politics, money buys access. and simon kukis got his money's worth. the russian-born american businessman donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to donald trump's 2016 run. that got him and his young russian girlfriend right up close to the future president. in political circles, no one had ever heard of simon kukes before. >> he's an american citizen and he's never given a political contribution. >> robert meyer works at the center for wisconsin politics. >> suddenly he starts giving to trump allies, joint fund raising kmeetz, republican party committees and to the trump campaign itself....