1 1 SENATE JUDIC IARY COMMITTEE 2 U. S . SENATE WASHINGTON , 3 D. C . 4 5 6 7 INTERVI EW OF : IKE THOMAS KAVELADZE 8 9 10 FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 3 , 20 1 7 11 12 WASHI NGTON , D. C . 13 14 15 16 17 The inte r view in t hi s matter was held at the 18 U. S . Cap it ol Building, 19 9 : 34 a . m. 20 21 22 23 24 25 , commencing at 2 1 APPEARANCES : 2 SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE : 3 Jason Foster , Ch i ef Investigative Coun sel , 4 5 6 7 8 Chairman Grassley Patrick Davis , Deputy Chief I nve stiga t ive Counsel , Chai rman Grassley Saman tha Brennan , Investigative Counsel , Chairman Grassley 9 Joshua Flynn -B rown , Investigative Counsel 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Chairman Grassley Daniel P . Parker , Invest igative Assistant Chairman Grassley Lee Holmes , Chi ef Coun s el , Sen ator Graham DeLisa L . La y , Seni o r Investigati v e Counsel , Chairman Grass le y 1 7 Andrew Moats , Law Clerk , 18 Chairman Gra ss l e y 1 9 Brian Privor , Se n ior Couns el , 20 21 22 Se na to r Fein ste i n He ather Sawye r , Couns e l , Senator Feinstein 2 3 Mo ll y M. Cl afli n , Counsel , 24 25 Senator Feinst e in 3 1 APP EARANC ES : 2 SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE (Co n t ' d) 3 Lara G. Quint , Chief Counsel , 4 5 Senator Whitehouse Sarah Grisw old , Minority Staff 6 Alexandria Deitz , Minority St aff 7 8 FOR THE WITNESS : 9 Scott S . Balber , Herbert Smith Freehills 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 John O ' Donnell , Herbert Smith Freehills 4 I N D E X 1 2 EXAMINATION BY 3 COUNSEL FOR THE MAJOR ITY : 4 By Mr . Davis 5 By Mr . Foster PAGE 1 3 , 22 , 31 , 46 , 52 21 , 29 , 44 , 50 6 FURTHER EXAMINATION 7 By Mr . Davis 116 , 122 8 By Mr. Foster 118 9 By Mr . Foster 230 10 11 COUNSEL FOR THE MINORITY 12 By Mr . Privo r 60 13 14 FURTHER EXAMIN ATI ON 15 By Mr . Pr i vo r 153 16 By Mr . Pr ivor 235 17 By Ms . Sawyer 240 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5 1 EXHIBITS 2 KAVELADZE EXH IBITS 3 Exhibit 1 4 7 8 Exhibit 3 4 17 18 6 Exh ibit 8 1 23 Email chain 124 Email chain Exhibit 10 22 Ema i l 23 Exhibi t 11 25 122 Email chain 21 24 89 Email and Bloomberg Government Articl e 19 Exhibit 9 20 52 Emai l 15 Exhibit 7 16 31 Email chain 13 Exhibi t 14 31 Email 11 Exhibit 5 12 26 Ema il chain 9 Exhibi t 10 24 Email chain 5 Exhibit 2 6 PAGE Text mes sage 1 21 128 6 1 2 3 4 5 EXHIBITS Exhibit 12 135 Email and attachment Exhibit 13 136 Ema il chain 6 Exhibit 14 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 (Co nt ' d ) 139 Email and attachment Exhibit 15 1 46 Email and attachments Exhibit 16 - 162 t e lephone bill 17 188 Exhibit 18 207 Exhibi t Ema il Email Exhibit 19 214 Ema il Exhibit 20 216 Email Exhibit 21 222 Ema il Exhibit 22 224 Ema il 24 Exhibit 23 25 Ema i l 236 7 P R O C E E D I N G S 1 2 3 MR . DAVIS : Good morning . This is the transcribed interview of Irakly Kaveladze . On 4 October 18 , 2017 , Chairman Grassley sent Mr . 5 Kaveladze a letter stating that the Judiciary 6 Committee was seeking information related to a 7 meeting held on June 9 , 2016 , at Trump Tower , as 8 well as related matters . 9 interview and certain categories of documents . 10 The letter requested an In response , Mr . Kaveladze has through 11 his counsel produced documents and agreed to this 12 voluntary interview . 13 14 Would the witness please state your name for the rec ord . 15 MR . KAVELADZE: 16 MR . DAVIS : Ike Kaveladze . On behalf of the Chairman , I 17 want to thank Mr . Kaveladze for appearing here 18 today . 19 Deputy Chief Investigative Counsel with the 20 Committee ' s majority staff. 21 My name is Patrick Davis , and I ' m the I ' ll ask everyone else from the Committee 22 who is here at the table to introduce themselves 23 as well , and we ' ll get to your counsel in just a 24 few moments . 25 MR . FOSTER : Jason Foster , Ch ief 8 1 2 3 Investigative Counsel for the majority staff . MS . BRENNAN : Samantha Brennan , Inve stiga t ive Co u nsel for the majority staff . 4 MR . HOLM ES : 5 Senator Lindsey Gra h am. 6 MR . PRIVO R: 7 MS . CLAFLIN : 9 Senator Feinstein . 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Bria n P rivor . I' m Se n ior Counsel , minority staff , Senator Feinstein . 8 10 Lee Holmes , Chief Counsel to MS . QUINT : Molly Claflin , Counsel , Lara Quint , Chief Counsel , Senator White h ouse . MR . PARKER : Dan i el Parker , Invest i gative As si stant , Senator Grassley . MS . LAY : DeLisa Lay , Senior Investigative Cou n sel . MR . MOATS : And r ew Moats , Law Cl e r k f o r Senator Gra ssley . MR . FLYNN - BROWN : Josh Flynn - Brown , Investigative Counsel for Senator Grassley . MR . DAVIS : The Federal Rules of Civil 21 P r ocedure do not apply to any of the Committee ' s 22 investigative acti v ities , 23 int e rview s. 24 an d I ' ll go over those now. 25 including transcribed There are some gu i delines we follow , Ou r questioning will p r oceed in rounds . 9 1 The majority staff will ask questions first for 2 o ne hour . 3 o pport u nit y to ask que sti ons for an eq ua l 4 of time . 5 are no more questi ons and the in te rview is over . The n the minority staff will have the amount We wi ll go back and forth until there 6 We typically take a short break at the 7 end of each hour , but should you need to t ake a 8 break at any other time , please just let us kno w . 9 Depending o n how long the inter v iew takes , we can 10 discuss taking a break for lunch wh ene ver y ou ' re 11 ready to d o that . 12 We have an of fi cial reporter taking down 13 everything we say to make a written record , 14 ask that you give verbal responses to all 15 q uesti on s . s o we Do you understand? 16 MR . KAVELADZE : 17 MR . DAVIS: I do . So that the court rep o rter c an 18 take down a clear record , we 'l l d o our best to 19 limit th e number of people directing questions to 20 you during any given hour to those whose turn i t 21 is . 22 one another or interrupt ea c h other if we can help 23 it , and that goes for everybody present at today ' s 24 interview . 25 It ' s also important that we do n ' t talk over Wh ile Senators on the Committ ee may 10 1 observe , the Chairman and Ranking Member have 2 agreed that only staff will ask questions . 3 We encourage witnesses who appear before 4 the Committee to consult freely with counsel if 5 they so choose . 6 counsel . 7 8 You are appearing here today with Counsel , please s t ate your name for the record . MR . BALBER : Scott Balber , from Herbert 9 Smith Freehills , on behalf o f the witness . 10 11 12 13 MR . O ' DONNELL : John O ' Donnell , from Herb ert Smith Freehills , also on behalf of the witness. MR . DAVIS : Thank you. We want you to answer ou r questions in 14 the most complete and truthful manner possible , so 15 we will take our time. 16 or if you don ' t understand any of ou r questions , 1 7 please let us know . 18 If you have any questions If you honestly don ' t the answer to a question or don ' t 19 best not to guess . know remember , it's Just give us your best 20 recol lec ti on . It ' s okay to tell us if you learned 21 some information from someone else if you indicate 22 how you came to know the information . 23 are things that you don ' t 24 we ask that you inf orm us to the best of your 25 knowledge who might be able to pr ovide a more know or can ' t If there remember , 11 1 complete answer to the question . 2 3 It is this Committee ' s practice to hon o r va li d c ommon law pri v ilege cla ims as an 4 accommodation t o a witness o r par ty when those 5 claims are made in good faith and accompanied by 6 suffi cie nt explanation s o that the Committee can 7 evaluate the claim . 8 honor a pri v ilege , the Commi ttee weighs its need 9 for th e inf o rmation against any legit i mate basis When deciding whether to 10 for withho l ding it. 11 not honor c on tractual confident ia lity agreements . 12 The Commi ttee typically d oes You should understand that although the 13 interview is not under oath , by law you are 14 requir ed to answer questions from Co ngr ess 15 truthfully . Do you understand that? 16 MR . KAVELADZE : 17 MR . DAVIS : I do . Speci fi cally , 18 U . S . C . Section 18 1001 makes it a crime to make any ma ter ially 19 false , 20 r epresenta ti o n in the co urse of a congr essi onal 21 invest iga ti on . 22 stateme n ts in this interview . 23 that? fictiti o us , o r fraudu l ent statement or That statut e app lie s to your 24 MR . KAVELADZE: 25 MR . DAVIS: Do you understand I do. Witnesses who k now ingly provide 12 1 false statements could be subject to criminal 2 prosecution and impris onmen t 3 for up to five years . Do you understand this? 4 MR . KAVELADZE : 5 MR . DAVIS : I do . Is there an y reason you ' re 6 u nab le to provide trut hfu l an swe rs to today ' s 7 questions? 8 MR . KAVELADZE : 9 MR . DAV IS: There is no reas on for that . Finally , we as k that y ou not 10 speak about what we discuss in this interview with 11 anyon e e ls e out side o f who ' s her e in the ro om 12 to day in order to pres e rve the integrity of our 13 i nvestigati o n . 14 any exhibits or other Committee doc uments from the 15 interview . 16 17 18 We also ask that yo u not remove Is there anyth in g else that my colleagues fr om the mi no rity wa nt to add? MR . PRIVOR : Just to no te f or the record 19 that on e of ou r c o lleagues jo ined the room . 20 Please identify y ou rself f or the record . 21 MS . DEITZ : 22 MR . FOS TER: 23 MR . DAVIS : 24 Alexandria Deitz . With the minority s ta ff . The time is n ow 9 :3 9 a . m., and we will get started with the first hour of 2 5 questions. 13 1 2 EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE MAJORITY BY MR . DAVIS : 3 4 Q. Please state your fu l l name f o r the record . 5 A . Ike Thomas Kaveladze . 6 Q . Where d o you currently reside? 7 A. I reside at California 8 9 10 •• Q . Did you r eside there in June of 2016 as well? 11 A . Yes , I did . 12 Q . Wh e re are you fr om originally? 13 A . I was born in now Republic of Georgia . 14 Q . When did you move to t he United States? 15 A . I moved to the Un ited States in 19 9 1. 16 Q . When d id you become an Ame rican c itizen ? 17 A . I became an Ameri ca n citizen in the year 18 19 20 21 22 2 001. Q . Are you a dual citizen of Georgia or any oth er cou nt ry ? A . I ' m a dual citizen of the United States and Russian Federation . 23 Q . You are fl uent in Englis h , correct? 24 A . Yes. 25 Q . And you ' re fluent in Russian as well ; is 14 1 t hat co rrect? 2 A . Correct . 3 Q . What is your professional background? 4 A . I ' m a speci ali st in accounting and 5 finance . 6 Q . And do you current l y work at the Crocus 7 Group? 8 A . Yes . 9 Q . When d i d you begin working at the Crocus 10 Group ? 11 A . My initial employment starte d in the yea r 12 1989 . 13 then it con ti nued i n 2003 unt il cu rrent . 14 15 Then it terminated for a few years , and Q . What is the nature o f Crocus Group ' s b usin ess ? 16 A . Numerous activ i ties . Convention center , 17 and we actually own the conv enti on center and ru n 18 trade sh ows . Numerous retail sh opp ing pr oj ects , 1 9 different f o rmats , DIY formats , s omething like 20 Home Depo t style. 21 up pe r - middle - cl ass shopping mall cha ins . 22 Q . Wha t And middle - class sh opp ing mall , is your cu rrent title at the Crocus 2 3 Gr oup? 24 A. I ' m a se nior vice president . 25 Q . And as seni o r vice president , what are 15 1 your job responsibilities? 2 A . I was handling international projects , 3 anything with an international component in it , 4 such as contracting Chinese con structi on workers 5 for some constructi on project in Russia or 6 bringing U. S . architect into a construction 7 project in Russia or buying goods for like 8 inventory for the stores all over the world , and 9 construction equipment for construction projects. 10 11 Whate v er was happening internationally , handling it . 12 Q . Do you know Aras Agalarov? 13 A . Yes , I 14 Q . When did you first meet him? 15 A . We first met in nineteen eighty do . 16 either ' 89 or ' 8 8. 17 Yeah , I 18 I was it was Let me be more specific . think it was ' 8 9 , 1989 . Q . And what is the nature of your 19 relationship with him? 20 A . He ' s my boss . 21 Q . What is your understanding of Aras ' ties 22 23 to the Russian Government , if any? A. I know Mr . Agalarov has participated in 24 numerous go v ernment construction projects , so my 25 understanding - - that ' s my understa nding of ties . 16 1 Q. Are you aware of any in stances in which 2 Aras Agalarov sought to arrange meetings between 3 Mr . Trump or his ass o cia tes and Russ i an Government 4 offi ci als? 5 A . No , 6 Q . Do y o u kn ow Emin Ag ala rov ? 7 A . Ye s , 8 Q . When did y o u firs t meet him? 9 A . My best re co llecti o n wo uld be year 1 9 9 0 . 10 11 I ' m not a ware . I do . Q . And what i s the n at ur e o f you r relat i o nshi p wit h h i m? 12 A . He is my c o worker . 13 Q. What is your understanding of Emin He works for Crocus. 1 4 Aga l a rov ' s ti e s t o t h e Ru ssi an Governme n t , i f a n y? 15 A . I don ' t think the y exist . 16 Q . Are yo u aware of any inst an ces i n whic h 17 Emin Agal ar ov so u ght to a r range meet ings betwee n 18 Mr . Trump o r his ass oc iates and Russian Governmen t 19 o ffi c ial s? 20 A . No , I ' m not aware . 21 Q . We r e you invo l ved in the Crocus Group ' s 22 effo r ts re l ate d t o t he 2013 Mis s Uni v ers e Pagean t ? 23 A . Yes . 24 Q . What were your r esponsibi l iti es in t h at 25 conte xt? 17 1 2 3 A . Initial contract nego tiation and signing the contract . Q. What int eractions d id you have with 4 personnel in the Trump Organization in that 5 context? 6 A . I mostly interacted with attorneys 7 representing the Miss Uni ver se organization . 8 did not int eract -- my only i n eraction with 9 actual Trump Organization representatives was on 10 June 15 , 11 La s Vega s during the Miss USA contest . 12 I 2013 , when the documents were signed in Q . Ha ve you been inv olved in any efforts 13 between Crocus Group and the Trump Organization t o 14 pursue real estate projects? 15 A. 16 Q . Can you please describe the projects and 17 Yes. what your in vo lvement was in t hem? 18 A . I was in vo l ved in negotiations , initial 19 negotiations , which led t o the signing o f letter 20 of intent , MOU , memorandum of understanding , which 21 is l etter of intent . 22 23 Q . An d what was the result of that letter of intent? 24 A . It did n ot materialize into a project . 25 Q . Do you remember why it did not 18 1 materialize into a project? 2 A. Mr . Trump ' s side at some point of time 3 kind of walked out of this project and just 4 stopped responding to our emails . 5 6 7 8 9 Q . Mr . Kaveladze , when did you first interact with Natalia Veselnitskaya? A . My first interaction with Natalia Veselnitskaya was on J une 6 , 2016 . Q . To the best o f your knowledge , is Ms . 10 Veselnit skaya an attorne y for the Rus sian 11 Governme n t? 12 A . To the best o f my knowledge , Ms . 13 Veselnitskaya is not an attofney fo r Russian 14 Government . 15 16 17 18 19 Q . Do you kn o w if she ever ha s been an attorney for the Russian Gove rnment pre viously? A . No , I ha ve no kn owledge of her being an attorney for Russian Governmen t . Q . When you first interact ed with Ms . 20 Vesel n itskaya , what di d you un d ers t a nd her 21 business to be? 22 A . I understood that her business was legal 23 business , 24 attorney , pri vate Russian attor n ey . 25 l ega l profession , a nd she ' s a Russian Q. What is your u nderstanding of Ms. 19 1 Veselnitska ya ' s rela tio nship with Prevezon 2 Holdings? 3 A . Eve r yth in g I learned about Prevezon 4 Holding s I lea rn ed from the me di a 5 months ago . 5 So I cou ld just -- you kn ow , it ' s mo st ly going t o 6 be in artic le s in the media . Q . Tha t ' s fine . 7 8 As far as yo u kno w, does Ms. Veselnitskaya wo rk for the Crocus Grou p? A . No , she does not wo rk f or Crocus Group . 9 10 Q . What about the Agalarovs? 11 A . Bo t h Agalaro v s work for Crocus Group . 12 Q . I' m sorry 13 MR . BALBER : And just to clarify your 14 question , when you say " work for ," do you mean as 15 an employee? Or would you al so encompass in your 16 questi o n her providing lega l 17 o utside counsel? 18 MR . DAVIS : 19 MR . KAVELADZE : representation as Bo th . As I know cu rrentl y , Ms . 20 Veselnitskaya represents Crocus as an outs ide 21 co unsel in a real estate deal . 22 BY MR. 23 24 25 DAVIS : Q . Do you kn ow when that representation began? A . No . 20 Q . Do you know if she has represented the 1 2 Aga l arovs as an attorney? 3 A . No , I have no kn owle dge o f that . 4 Q . What is the nature o f you r relationship 5 with Ms . Vese l nitskaya? 6 A . I don ' t have much o f a relationship . 7 It ' s a working relationship related to that 8 situation , June 9 meeting s it uati on . 9 Q . Who first contacted you about a meeting 10 between Ms . Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump , Jr . ? 11 A . I was contacted by Mr . Aras Agalarov . 12 Q . When d i d he contact yo u ? 13 A . June 6 , 2016 . 14 Q . Wh at did Aras Agalarov tell you the 15 pu rp ose of the meeting was? 16 17 A . Fi rst call , he di dn ' t of the meeting . 1 8 City . s pec ify the purpose He just t old me to be in New York Second ca ll , he asked me if I knew anything 19 about Ma gnitsk y Act , and I said I did , and so he 20 said the meeting is going to be about Magnitsky 21 Act . 22 Q . And how did Mr . Aras Agalarov communicate 23 with you about this meeting? 24 phone ? 25 A. Mos tly ph on e. Was it email , t ext , 21 1 Q . To the best of your knowledge , does 2 Cr ocus Gr oup have a business r elat i onship with 3 Pre vezon Holdings? A . To the best of my knowledge , no business 4 5 relations h ip wi th Prevezon Ho l ding s. Q . As far as you know , are ei t her Aras or 6 7 Emin Agalarov involved with the Human Rights 8 Accountability Global Initiative? A . As far as I know , no . 9 10 Q . To the best of your know l edge , have 11 either of the Agalarovs been subject to Magnitsky 12 Act sanctions? 13 14 15 A . To the best of my knowledge , no. fact , In I know for a fact no . Q . So as f ar as you know , what is the basis 16 of Aras Agalarov ' s interest in the Magnitsky Act 17 and the Prevezon litigation , 18 if any? A . I can only guess here , and , again, 19 reading some accounts in the medi a , 20 people , 21 BY MR . FOSTER : 22 I 'm some words of just ... Q . I ' m sorry . You said ear li er , I think in 23 response to an earlier question , tha t you were 24 asked if you we re familiar with the Ma gnitsky Act , 25 and you said you were . How did you become 22 1 familiar with the Magni ts k y Act? 2 3 A. Well , suppo rter o f Magnitsky Act . 4 5 I rea d newspapers , and I ' m actual Q . So long before this mee t ing , you were aware 6 A . Oh , yeah. 7 Q . And just from reading the news. 8 A . Yeah . 9 Q . You didn ' t ha ve any official business - 10 Oh , yeah . related rea son t o be -- 11 A . No . 12 Q . -- to be up o n the act o r to be aware of 13 14 15 16 it? A . No . No . BY MR . DAVIS : Q . Do yo u know whether Aras Aga larov was 17 as ked by some o n e e ls e t o get involved in setti n g 18 u p this mee ting? 19 A . I do not know . 20 Q . How would you describe Aras Agalarov ' s 21 22 23 relationship with Mr . Putin , if any? A . I kno w they know each other , but as far as the nature of the r e l ationship , I don ' t know . 24 Q . Were you involved in contacting Rob 25 Go lds tone to ask him to contact Donal d Trump , Jr ., 23 1 in orde r to seek a meeting with Ms . Veseln it skaya? 2 A . No . 3 Q. Do you know who did contact -- I ' m sorry . 4 5 Go ahead. A . Correction . 6 a meeting . 7 Novembe r , yes , There was two at tempts t o do The second one was November . I was i n volved . But In initial 8 meeting I was not . 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q . Thank you . Do you know who did contact Mr . Go ldst one regarding the J u ne 9t h meeting? A . As far as I know , Mr . Goldstone was co nta cte d by Emin Agalarov . Q . Did Mr . Goldstone ever tell you h ow Emin Agalarov had portrayed th e purpose of the meeting? A . No . We never ha d a dis cu ssion about this with Mr . Goldstone . Q . Did Mr . Golds t one tell you wh o the 18 i ntended partic i pants were f o r this meeting be f ore 19 it happened ? 20 A . Yes . I have received an email o n Jun e 7 21 describi ng t he -- providing me wit h a list of 22 participants . 23 24 25 Q . What is you r re lati o nsh ip with Mr . Goldstone? A . I have n o relationship with Mr . Goldstone 24 1 aside of the fact that he wo rked as an agent for 2 Emi n Agalar o v , and since I was handling the Crocus 3 business , s ometimes , yo u kn o w, we ' ll make a 4 payment for his agen c y fe e s o r whatever o n behalf 5 of Crocus . Q . Other than t h ose occasi o nal payments , t o 6 7 t he b est of y o ur kno wl edge is Mr . Go lds to ne an 8 employee of the Crocus Group? 9 10 A . He never was an employee of Crocus Group . He was outside service provider . 11 Q . Wha t is your unde r s tanding of Mr . 12 Goldstone ' s ties with the Russian Government , if 13 a ny? 14 15 A . I d on ' t t h in k Mr . Gol d ston e h as ties with Russian Government . 16 Q . I ' d like you to tak e a loo k at this e ma i l 17 c hai n , whi ch I ' 1 1 labe l 18 is Bates - stamped DJTJR- 00 89 3 19 [Kavel a d z e Exhibit 1 wa s marked fo r 20 i dent i fi c ati o n . ) MR . BALBER : 21 22 you . 23 BY MR . DAV I S : 24 25 Exhi b it 1 . Th is docume n t Do y o u have one fo r me? Tha n k Q . Th i s i s a n e ma il c h a in b e t we e n Mr . Go lds to n e a n d Rh o n a Gra ff , Do nal d T r ump , S r . ' s 25 You are not listed 1 assistant , from July of 2015 . 2 as a rec ipi ent . 3 is fr om Mr . Goldstone to Ms . Graff on July 22 , 4 2015 , and states in part : 5 invite for Mr. Trump to attend his father ' s 60th The first email chronologically 11 Emi n has an email 6 birthday in Moscow on November 8th. 7 8 11 Ms . Graff responded back on July 24 , 2015 , stating in part : 11 I will certainly make Mr . 9 Trump aware o f this invitation , and I know he will 10 be honored that Emin thought of him . 11 given his Presidential campaign , it ' s highly 12 unlikely that he would have time on his calendar 13 to go to Moscow in November. 14 However , 11 Mr . Goldstone replies on th at same day , 15 stating in part: 16 Moscow , unless maybe he would welcome a meeting 17 with President Putin , which Emin would set up . 18 11 I totally understand re: 11 Were you involved in Mr. Goldstone ' s 19 of fer to arrange via Emin a meeting between Mr . 20 Putin and Mr . Trump? 21 A . No , 22 Q . Were you aware of the offer at the time? 23 A . No, 24 Q . Other than this email chain and the 25 I was not . I was not . circumstances leading up to the June 9 , 2016 , 26 1 meeting , are you aware of any other instances in 2 which Mr . Goldstone sought to arrange meetings 3 between Russian Government o fficials and 4 associates of the Trump campaign? 5 A . No , I ' m not aware . 6 Q . As you likely know , Donald Trump , Jr ., 7 publicly released the email chain between him and 8 Mr . Goldstone in which the June 9t h meeting was 9 arranged . I ' d like to turn to a ver si on of that 10 email chain beginning on June 3 , 20 16 , between 11 Trump , Jr ., and Mr . Goldstone . 12 Exhibit 2 . 13 through 897. 14 [ Ka velad ze Exhib i t The Bates n umbers are DJTF P- 0001 1895 15 16 I will label this 2 was marked for identifi cat i on . ] BY MR . DAVIS : 17 Q . On page 897 18 MR . BALSER : I would just suggest you read 19 from the back and read the whole th ing before you 20 answer anything , okay? 21 MR . DAVIS : 22 MR . BALSER : 23 [Pause . ] 24 MR . KAVELADZE: 25 BY MR . DAVIS: Sure . Take your time . Thank you . Okay . 27 1 Q. This email chain references p eople named As far as yo u can tell , these are 2 Emin and Aras. 3 references to the Agalarovs ; is that correct? 4 A . That is correct . 5 Q. Okay . The first email in this chain 6 chron olo gically states -- it was sent from Mr . 7 Goldstone to Donald Trump , Jr ., at 10 : 36 a . m. on 8 June 3 , 2016 . I t states that the Crown Prosecutor 9 of Russia met with Aras and o f fered to provide the 10 Trump campaign with some offic ial documents and 11 information th at would in c r imina te Hillary and her 12 dealings wi th Russia and would be ve ry useful t o 13 Mr . Trump . 14 Did you prov ide Mr . Goldstone this 15 account of the prosecutor ' s meeti n g with Aras and 16 the purported offer to help the Trump campaign? 17 A . Can you say it again? 18 that question? 19 Q. Sure . Ca n you r ephrase Did you tell Mr . Goldston e this 2 0 account of the Crown Prosecutor meeting with Aras? 21 A . No. 22 Q. Do you know who did? 23 A . Fr om that letter , I do not . 24 Q . And from the letter who do you 25 MR . BALBER : You mean by reading the email , 28 1 2 3 4 it I S MR . KAVELADZE : BY MR . DAVIS : Q . And j u st to c l arify , in tha t 5 Goldstone say s , 6 By reading t his ema i l , yeah . email Mr . " Emin just cal l ed ," an d th e n p rovides 7 A . Emin Aga l arov . 8 Q. Mr . Goldst o ne ' s e mail s t ates in part : 9 " This is obv iousl y ve ry hi gh l eve l and sens i ti ve 10 i n fo r mat i o n , but it ' s p art of Russia and its 11 government ' s support for Mr . Trump , helped along 12 b y Aras and Emi n ." 13 Did you and Mr . Go l dstone ever discuss an 14 effort by the Russian Government assisted by Aras 15 a n d Emin Agala r ov to suppo r t 16 t he Tr ump campaign? A . I have never discussed that with Mr . 1 7 Goldstone . 18 Q . We r e you othe r wise a war e o f an y su ch 19 e ff o r ts a t the time? 20 A . No . 21 Q . Prior to th e meeting on J une 9 , 22 did you tell about the meeting? 23 A. A lot of people . [ fa mi ly me mb e r s ] 2 5 neighbor . 2016 , wh o I told , I to ld my 29 1 2 Q . So would it be accurate to say you were not keeping the meeting a secret? 3 A . No , I was not keeping it secret . 4 MR . BALBER : 5 And just so the record ' s clear , when you say " told ab o ut the meeting ," I want to 6 ma ke sure that the witness unders t ands he means 7 I assume you ' re including people who may have 8 already known about the mee tin g that he was going 9 to speak t o . 10 MR . DAVIS: 11 MR . BALBER : 12 Right. So I guess I want to make sure yo u' re includi n g -- maybe just to clarify the 13 question , identify everybody you spoke to abou t 14 the mee ting before the meeti ng happened . 15 o kay? 16 MR . DAVIS : 17 MR . KAVELADZE : 18 That ' s fine . So whoever I just ment i o n ed , o bviously all participants of the meeting, and a 1 9 g e ntleman n a med Roman Beniaminov . He worked with I ca ll e d him on June 7 to 20 Rob Golds ton e . 21 should I conti nu e or wait for a quest i on? 22 BY MR . FOSTER : 23 Q . Please , pl ease . 24 A . Okay . 25 Is t h at And rig h t after I received an ema il fro m Mr . Goldst one about three indi viduals 30 1 we were going to be meet ing with , I got a little 2 bit puzzled because at that point o f time , all I 3 kn ew about the meeting , tha t i t ' s go i ng t o be 4 Magnitsky Act , and I was un c lear why exactly these 5 people are meeting wit h u s . I wa s in two 6 convers ati ons prior to that with Mr . Agalarov . 7 You know , my suggestion was to meet with attorneys 8 of Mr . Trump because she ' s an a tto rney , Ms . 9 Veselnitskaya , and probably the pro per level of 10 communication with her . 11 because I knew he worked with Rob , and I asked 12 him , 13 And , And so I called Roman " Do you know an yth ing about that meeti ng? " " Do you know anything about t he fact that 1 4 we ' re going to be meeting wit h three t op political 15 electoral campaign representat i ves to discuss 16 Magni ts ky Act? " And at that point of time , Roman 17 told me that , as far as h e heard , attorney had 18 some negative inf ormat i o n on Hil la ry Clinton . 19 Q . So what is the nature of Roman ' s job? 20 A . Musical business . They -- actually , Rob 21 Goldstone is a musical agent of Emin . 22 logistics of t h e i r musical to u rs , let ' s say 23 booking of the venues , you know , deal i ng with 24 promoters , selling tic k ets , and stuff like that . 25 MR . DAVIS : Roman did I ' d like to show you a document , 31 1 Bates - numbered SJC-KAV - 0 0045 . 2 [Kaveladze Exhibit 3 was marked for 3 ident ifi cat ion. ] 4 5 MR . KAVELADZE : Yeah , that ' s the email I ' m referring to . 6 BY MR . DAVIS : 7 Q . Okay . Thank you f or clarifying . And 8 approximately how long after you received this 9 email wa s it before you called Roman? 10 A . Approximately 1 to 2 hours . I can go 11 back to my phone records to be a little bit more 12 specific , but I think it ' s 1 to 2 hours . 13 Q . Thank you. I ' d also l i ke you to take a 14 look at the email chain Bates -numbered SJC -KAV - 15 00 111 thro u gh 112 , which will be Exhibit 4 . 16 [Kaveladze Exhibit 4 was marked for 17 i dent ifi cat ion. ] 18 19 20 BY MR . DAVIS: Q . This is an email cha in between you and Rob Goldstone on June 7th and 8th of 2016 . 21 A . Uh - huh . 22 Q. As you can see , ab out halfway down the 23 first page Bates-numbered 1 11 , there ' s mention of 24 an image whi ch is not rendered in this version . 25 bel ie ve , if I ' m correct , that ' s the version -- the I 32 1 other document which we looked at is that image. 2 Does that match your recollection? 3 A. Yes , it does match my recollection . 4 Q. I ' ll give you a moment to read over the 5 chain . 6 [Pause . ] 7 MR . KAVELADZE : Yes . 8 BY MR . DAVIS : 9 Q. In the first email chronologically , which 10 was sent at 2 : 27 p . m. on June 7th , according to 11 the document , June 7 , 2016 , Mr . Goldstone writes 12 to you that he has " confirmed a mee ting f o r you 13 both at 3 : 00 p.m . on Thursday with Donald Trump , 14 Jr ., at his office at Trump Tower ." When he 15 references " you both ," who did you understand him 16 to be referencing? 17 A. It ' s mys elf and Natalia Veselnitskaya . 18 Q. On June 8th at 3 : 40 , according to this 19 email chain , you emailed Mr . Goldstone saying, 20 " Just spoke with that lady from Russia . 21 if it wou l d be pos sible to move meeting to 4 : 00 . 22 She represents client i n court that morn i ng and is 23 afraid of being late ." 24 That ' s also a reference to Ms. 2 5 Veselnitskaya ; is that correct? She asked 33 1 A . That is correct . 2 Q . And how did yo u speak with her -- by 3 phone , text , o r ma il -- for t his interaction? 4 5 A . It was phone conversat i on . that? What time is Is that 3 : 40 p . m . ? Q . I believe it ' s a . m., but I could be 6 7 mistaken . 8 A. Ye ah , 9 MR. BALBER : 10 it ' s - - Well , the earlier one is 3 : 25 p . m ., so -- 11 MR . KAVELADZE : 12 MR . BALBER : 13 MR . KAVE LAD ZE : 14 MR . DAVIS : 15 16 yeah . Yeah , that ' s on June 7 th . Oh , that ' s r ight . S o rry . Okay . And the one after that is 8 : 31 a .m. MR . KA VELADZE : 17 day before -- well , 18 BY MR . DAV I S : Well , that ' s June 8th , the it ' s phone . 19 Q . At 8 : 31 a . m. o n June 8 , 2016 , according 20 to this email cha i n , Mr . Gol dstone proposes that 21 you and he meet before th i s scheduled meeting a t 22 Tr u mp To wer , that y ou meet him at 3 : 30 p . m ., which 23 you agree t o , writing , 24 25 " Sur e , l et ' s meet at 3 : 30 ." Mr . Goldstone rep lie d , " Okay . See you in f ront of Trump Tower on Fifth Ave . at 3 : 30 p . m . 34 1 Rob ." 2 3 4 5 When did you arrive in New York for this t rip? A . I arrived on June 9 , ar ou nd 7 : 00 a . m . in the morning ; 7 : 10 , I believe . 6 Q . And where were you tra veli ng from? 7 A . I was tra v el i ng from Los Angeles , 8 9 Calif orn ia . Q . What was your itin e rary while in New York 1 0 during th is tr ip? 11 A . I stayed for one day , and I returned back 12 home on Jun e 10 . My itinerary included only one 13 i tern as a meeting 14 wa s lunch with Natalia Veselnitskaya prior to the actually , two items . There 15 meeting and then meeting itself . 16 17 18 Q . When was that lunc h with Ms . Veselnitska ya? A . To the best o f my knowledge , it was 2 19 hours prior to the meeting , alth oug h she was 45 20 minutes late. 21 22 23 Q . And who else attended that lunch , if anyone? A . That lunch was attended by Natalia 24 Veselnits ka ya , myself , and then Anatoli 25 Samoch o rno v , who is the translator for Ms . 35 1 Veselni tskaya . 2 MR . FOSTER : 3 MR . KAVELADZE : 4 No one else at that point . BY MR . DAVIS : Q. Had you met Mr . Samochornov prior to that 5 6 No o ne else? lunch? 7 A . No , I have not . 8 Q . What did y o u discuss at t hat lunch? 9 A . Because of the fact that she was late , 10 and during that lunch I was supposed to read the 11 synopsis for the meeting , and syn op sis was 10 - 12 11 - pag e doc ument , 13 t hat synopsis . 14 di scussion with h er because eventual l y 15 little discussion , and then eventua ll y we started 16 walking towards the Trump Towe r. 17 reading synopsis . 18 19 I spent most of t he time readin g I don ' t think we had much of a maybe a So it was mostly Q . Was that synopsis written in English or Russian? 20 A . It was written in Russian . 21 Q . And when did you meet up with Mr . 22 to Akhmetshin? 23 A . I met Mr . Akhmetshin 1 5 minutes prior to 24 t he meeting . 25 Tower . He met us in front of the Trump 36 1 Q . Did you interact with anyone else on the 2 legal team representing Prevezon Holdings or wh o 3 was involved in the Human Rights Global 4 Accountability Initiative? 5 A . We had one episode , which has -- which 6 was , I believe , Natalia ' s birthday party where 7 there were some people from her legal team. 8 didn ' t 9 I interact with them , but I sat at the same table . 10 Q . Do you reca l l when th a t was? 11 A . No , I d o n ' t 12 MR. FOSTER : 13 MR . KAVELADZE: 14 MR . FOSTER : 15 MR . KAVELADZE: know n a mes. No ; when . Oh , wh e n . Do you r ec all when t h a t was? When it was . Very vague 16 recollection would be around Oct ober , November 17 2 016 . 18 BY MR . DAVIS : 19 Q . Do you reca ll where -- 20 A . Oh , y eah . 21 Q. - - the birthda y part y -- 22 A . I t ' s a re staura n t named Ne ll o . It ' s 23 Mad ison Avenue i n New Yo rk Ci t y bet wee n 62 n d and 24 63rd Street . 25 MR . BALBER : And that ' s th e same pla ce y o u 37 1 h ad lunc h with her , right? 2 MR . KAVELADZE : 3 BY MR . DAV I S : 4 5 Yeah . Q . And do you reca l l i ndi vidua l s yo u met a t A . No . 6 th a t the n ames of any of the bir thday p a r ty ? I know t he re we re two d a ughters of 7 Natalia , an d either one or t wo gentlemen who she 8 kind of i n trod u c e d a s a tt orne ys , Ru ssi an - s p eak i ng 9 indi vi ctuals. 10 Q . Di d yo u attend the court pr oceedings 11 related to Prevezon Holdings on June 9 , 20 16? 12 A . No , I did not . 13 Q . Did you , in fact , meet Mr . Goldstone 14 around 3 : 30 p . m . on J une 9th before the meeting as 15 you pl anne d? 16 17 A . My belief is that we were 15 minutes late . Q . Well , wh en you did meet with Mr . 18 19 Goldstone , what did you discuss? A . Nothi n g . 20 He welcomed us a n d escorted us 21 to the confere n ce room at the higher floor. 22 don ' t 23 I recall what fl oor was that . Q . Prior to the meeting itself , who did you 24 expect to attend? Did y ou expect Rina t 25 to attend or An atoli Samochornov ? Akhmetshin 38 1 A . No , I did not . My expectation was that I 2 will accompany Ms . Veselnitskaya and I will be 3 translating . 4 Q . All right . I ' d like to turn now to the 5 me eting itself on June 9 , 2016 . 6 A . Okay. 7 Q . Did anyone at the meeting offer to 8 release hacked e mails to aid the Trump 9 campa ign? 10 A . No . 11 Q . Did anyone offer to manufacture and 12 distribute fake news to aid t he Trump campa ign? 13 A . No . 14 Q . Did anyone offer to hack State voter 15 registration systems to obtain voter data to aid 16 the Trump campaign? 17 A . No . 18 Q . To the best of your rec ollection , was 19 there any discussion of anything tha t might 20 reas onab ly be considered collusion between the 21 Trump campaig n and the Russian Government? 22 A . No . 23 Q . Mr . Goldstone ' s prior email to you said 24 he ' d be bringing you and Ms . Veselnitskaya to the 25 meeting but would not sit in . Did Mr . Goldstone 39 1 stay for the entire meeting? 2 A . Yes , he did . 3 Q . Who else attended the June 9th meeting in 4 New York City at Trump Tower? Can you please list 5 everyone who was present for any portion of the 6 meeting , however brief , even if they did not 7 attend the entire meeting? 8 A . Natalia Veselnitskaya , Anatoli 9 Samochornov , myself , Rob Goldstone , obviously 10 Donald Trump , Jr ., Jared Kushner , Paul Manafort . 11 Did I mis s some 12 Akhmetshin . Rinat Akhmetshin . Rinat 13 Q. Was that everyone? 14 A . Yeah . 15 Q. Were all of the attendees i ntroduced? 16 A . Yes. 17 Q . How was Ms . Veselnits k aya introduced? 18 A . Well , actually , U. S . attendees were not 19 introduced . Ms . Veselnitskaya introduced herself 20 as a private attorney . 21 MR . FOSTER : 22 MR . KAVELADZE : 23 yeah . 24 BY MR . DAV I S : 25 Through her translator? Through her translator , Q. So Ms . Veselnitskaya did not claim that 40 1 she was working for the Russian Government in her 2 intr oduc tion ; is that correct? 3 A. No , she did not . 4 Q . Okay . 5 Trump, Mr . Goldstone ' s email to Donald Jr ., indicated that he would be bringing a 6 Russian Government attorney. Did anyone from the 7 Trump side ask about this discrepancy when she 8 i ntrodu c ed herself as a private attorney? 9 10 A . No , I don ' t believe so. Q . As best as you could te ll , did it appear 11 that anyone else in the meeting from the Trump 12 campaign had ever previous ly interacted with Ms. 13 Veselnitskaya? 14 knew he r? Did anyone seem like they already 15 A . To the best o f my knowledge , no . 16 Q. How was Rinat Akhmetshin introduced? 17 A . As a lobbyist and proponent of the anti - 18 Magnitsky Act actions . 19 not sure , but yeah . 20 21 Actions cou ld mean -- I ' m Q. Di d he or any other attendee claim that he was working for the Russian Government? 22 A . No. 23 MR . FOS TER: 24 MR . KAVELADZE : 25 as far as like introducing , Did he introduce himself? I would say so . let ' s say I I mean , and don ' t 41 1 belie v e I have introduced my self or somebody else 2 introduced me . It ' s mostly like the key figures 3 were introduced , yeah . 4 introduced . Rob Goldstone was not I was not introduced . But , like , 5 Russian side kind of introduced themself . 6 BY MR . DAVIS : 7 Q. And other than meeting up with Mr . 8 Akhmetshin shortly before the meeting , had you 9 ever communicated with him previously? 10 A. No previous communications . 11 Q. Did it appear to you that anyone else in 12 the meeting from the Trump campaign had ever 13 previously interacted with him? 14 A . Yes , it did . At some point of time , 15 right before the meeting started , Mr . Akhmetshin 16 approached Mr . Manafort and suggested that they ' ve 17 met previously at some kind of meeting in 18 Washington , D. C ., like a conference or seminar or 19 whatever , some k i nd of meeting in D. C . 20 that I assumed they were introduced , although What was the response? 21 MR . FOSTER : 22 MR . KAVELADZE: 2 3 Mr . Mana fort. 24 25 So from There was n o response from He was texting and he continued texting , or whatever , sending emails or something . I don't think he even lifted his eyes off his 42 1 BlackBerry o r iPh o ne. 2 BY MR . DAVIS : 3 Q. So you ' ve already stated that you were 4 not introdu ced and tha t Mr . Goldstone was not 5 introduced . 6 A . Yeah . 7 Q . Was Mr . Samochornov introduced? 8 A . No ; as a translator . 9 Q. He was introduced as a tra nsla tor? As a translat or . 10 A . Yeah. 11 Q . Did h e or any other attendee claim that 12 he was working for the Russian Gove rnment? 13 A. No . 14 Q . And did it appear that anyone else in th e 15 meeting fr om the Trump campaign had ever 16 previously interacted with him? 17 A . With Anatoli? 18 Q . Ri ght . 19 A . No , it didn ' t 20 Q . Moving beyond the introductions , can you appear so . 21 recount for us in as much detail as you remember 22 what happened at t he meeting? 23 A . Me eti ng started with a short speech by 24 Natalia Veselnitskaya about Magnitsky Act and 25 about destructive role playe d by Bill Browder , t he 43 1 in itiator of that act , in ruining relationship 2 between U. S . and Russia. 3 that Mr . Br owde r is considered t o be a criminal in 4 Russia for tax dodging and ot her purposes . 5 she also suggested that the repeal of that act 6 could significantly improve the relation ship 7 between Russia and U . S . 8 synop sis of her speech . 9 MR . FOST ER : And she also claimed And I would call it a short So her opening speech , was that 10 consistent with the 10 -pa ge synopsis that you had 11 read prio r to the meeting? 12 MR . KAVELADZE: Yes . Then it would be - - 13 then Mr . Akhmetshin would step in , but I guess 14 that ' s the next question , right? 15 BY MR . DAVIS : 16 Q . Go right ahead . 17 A . Continue , okay . 18 At some point o f time , Mr . Akhmetshin continued that -- gave a lit tle bit 19 more deta il s , and this is when he mentioned a ban 20 for U. S . citizens to adopt kids in Russia and 21 basically said you realize if U . S . going to repeal 22 the Magnitsky Act , we ' re going to lif t 23 Russia will lift the ban , and United States 24 citizens could adopt Russian kids again . 25 MR . FOST ER : that ban , Did he say " we " when he 44 1 2 referred t o Russia? MR . KAVELADZE : I ' m not sure a b out " we . " 3 said Russ ia wo uld lift the ban , ye ah , somethi ng 4 li ke that . 5 BY MR. DAVIS : 6 7 8 9 He Q . Did anyone -- actually, I should let you continue . What happened after that? A . At some point of time , Mr . Kushner was sitting right next to me , to my left , and I 10 noticed Mr . Kushner was very frustrated that he 11 was in this meeting , and -- as opposed to Mr . 12 Manaf ort , who didn ' t pay an y atte nt ion to the 13 meeting and was continuing writing something on 14 his iPhone . And at some point of time , Mr . 15 Kus hner asked a questi o n . I c a n ' t give you word 16 by word , but I think the idea was : Why are we 17 h ere and why are we listening to t hat Magnitsky 18 Act story? 19 Eventuall y , Mr . Trump asked a question 20 I have to correct myself . There ' s one thing also 21 happened prior to this wh ole thing . 22 told story about Ziff Brothers , who we re the 23 own ers of Bill Browder ' s company in Russia . 24 BY MR . FOSTER : 25 Q. They also By " they , " you mean Vese l ni tska ya and 45 1 Akhmetshin? 2 3 A . Yeah , Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin . And they said it ' s a l s o , you kn o w, cor relates with 4 whatever -- with the syn opsis , and ba sically told 5 a st ory that because that money i s considered to 6 be a c riminal money because it ' s tax d odging and 7 t h en it goes to the shareholders here in New York , 8 to Ziff Brothers , and Ziff Brothers are heavy 9 sponsors of Democratic Party , then , you know , 10 basically this wh ole chain was kind of like 11 portrayed as a negative for Democratic Party . 12 then one of them , I th ink Mr . Akhmetshin , 13 suggested that the same thing could ha ve been done 1 4 with Hillary Clinton ' s campaign . And And after those 15 words , Mr . Tr ump asked both Ms . Veselnitskaya and 16 -- Trump , Jr . , Ms . Veselnits ka ya and Akhmetshin , 17 asked if t h ey got anything o n Hillary , and to 18 whi ch Mr. Akhmetshin responded , " Why don't you do 19 your own research on he r? 20 and conti nued talking about the Magnitsky Act . 21 We gave you the idea ," But , eve n tually , Mr . Trump suggested that 22 alt h ough it might be an interesting and important 23 story , he said , 24 c amp a ign ," and h e sa i d , 25 right now ." " We ' re in the middle of electoral " We ' r e ex tr eme l y busy And he said , " If we win , then we 46 1 might get back to you and continue that discussion 2 about Magnitsky Act , 3 conversat i on , ended the meeting . 11 and politely ended the We started exiting the room . 4 While 5 exiting the room , I saw Mr . Goldstone approaching 6 Donald Trump , Jr ., and apologizing for -- I mean , 7 I don ' t r emember the wording , but for stupid 8 meeting , or something like that , he has set up . 9 And Mr . Trump said , 10 the room . 11 BY MR . DAVIS : 12 11 It ' s okay . 11 An d so we exited Q . So you mentioned that Ms . Veselnitskaya 13 had said that if the Magnitsky Act were repealed , 14 there would be a general improvement in relations 15 with Russia , and that Mr . Akhmetshin had mentioned 16 that if the act were repealed , the ba n on 17 adoptions would go away . 18 Donald T r ump , Sr ., take any action speci f ically 19 regarding the Magnitsky Act or the Gl obal 20 Magnitsky Act if elected? 21 22 23 24 25 Did anyone ask that A . I don ' t believe anybody asked on actions . It was more like informative meeting . They were filling them in on the story . Q . Did anyone mention the Justice Department ' s lawsuit against Pr evezon Holdings? 47 1 A. No . 2 Q . Did anyone ask that Donald Trump , Sr ., 3 take any action regarding Preet Bharara , 4 Attorney in New York at the time? the U . S. 5 A . No . 6 Q . And other than generally improved 7 relations and reinstatement of adoption , did Ms . 8 Veselnitskaya or Mr . Akhmetshin offer the Trump 9 campaign anything? 10 A. No . 11 Q . And to clarify , wh en you referenced Ms . 12 Veselnitskaya speaking , was that always through 13 her translator , mostly through her translator? 14 15 16 17 A . Always through he r translator . I don ' t think she speaks any English . Q . What was Mr . Goldstone ' s role , if any , during the meeting? 18 A . He was silent . 19 Q . I ' d like you to take a look at an email 20 21 c hain Bates-numbered DJTJR-00454 to 56 . MR . BALBER : And , I ' m sorry , b efore we leave 22 the meeting , if you don ' t mind , 23 you sa id at the meeting? 24 the record ' s clear . 25 MR . KAVELADZE : Yes , I is there anything just want to make sure I did . 48 MR . BALBER : 1 2 3 Why don ' t you tel l what you said . MR. KAVELADZE : Okay . What I said during 4 t he meeting was , I believe , one sentence or maybe 5 tw o , and what I said was before becoming a 6 fugitive , Mr . Bill Browder was a darling of 7 Kremlin an d darling of Putin , which is my 8 understa ndi ng of the situation . 9 every investor in Russia , do business in Russia 10 conference . 11 c ard o f Russia . 12 He would speak on He was like a bi g , welcome business MR . BALBER : And with that addition , h a ve we 13 now covered eve r ything you remember being said at 14 the meeting? 15 MR . KAVELADZE : 16 MR. BALB ER : 17 18 Yes , y es . Okay. BY MR . DAVIS : Q . And be f or e we move on to that document , 19 di d anyone ment i on support of the DNC , 20 Democratic Na tional Committee , or the RNC , the 21 Republican National Committee? 22 was the context? 23 24 25 A. No . I don ' t the And if so , what think we mentioned t he committees . MR . FOSTE R : You don ' t recall any mention of 49 1 the RNC? 2 MR . KAVE LADZE : 3 MR . FOSTER : 4 MR . KAVELADZE : 5 I don ' t . RNC? Republican National Committee . To the best o f my knowledge , I d on ' t remember anyth ing abo u t it . 6 BY MR . DAVIS : 7 Q. Turning to this email cha in - - 8 MR . O' DONNELL : There ' s one ot her thing. 9 What , if anyth i ng , did Donald Trump , Jr ., say 10 about the Ziff Brothers and their campaign 11 c o n tributions? 12 MR . KAVELADZE : Yes , he said Ziff Brothers 13 support everybody - - Demo crats , Republicans . 14 contribute to everybody . They It c annot be counted as 15 ne gati ve in any wa y , shape , o r form . 16 MR . FOSTER : So other than everything else 17 we ' ve ta lked about , is there anything else you can 18 recall specifically fr o m the meeting? 19 20 MR. KAVELADZE : Let me think . The thing that surprised me was how Mr . 2 1 Akhmets hin was dr essed for t h e meet ing . He was 22 dressed in pin k -- p in k jeans wi th like holes on 23 the knees , and a pink T-shir t . So I thought i t 2 4 was high ly inapp r opriate , but , yea h , 25 I was certainly shocked to see him dressed l ike that . 50 1 2 MR . BALSER : I was going to wear the same thing today , but I changed my mind at the last 3 minute . 4 5 6 [Laughter . ] BY MR . DAVIS : Q . And what was your understanding of how 7 Mr . Akhmetshin came t o join t h e meeting? 8 Veselnitskaya explain his presence? 9 Did Ms . A . Yeah , well , my understanding was that he 10 was in town for something else , they were doing 11 lunch , and so it was like very unexpected type of 12 -- you know , u np lanned meeting -- I mean not 13 meeting bu t participation of Mr . Akhmetshin in 14 that meet i ng . 15 apparently it was clear in the 16 article , yeah . 17 BY MR . FOSTER : 18 But then I read an article , and okay , that ' s the Q . So had you ever been in any other 19 meetings with Mr . Akhmetshin? 20 A . I met wi th him once in Mo scow . 21 MR . BALSER : 22 This is subsequent to the meeting then? 23 MR . KAVELADZE : Subsequent , ye ah , 24 MR . O ' DONNELL : You had ne ver met him before 25 the June meeting? yeah . 51 MR . KAVELADZE : 1 2 Sorry , no . BY MR . FOSTER : 3 4 Oh , no , no , no . Q. So can you go ahead and tell us about the meeti ng with him in Moscow? A. Yes . 5 6 y ear . It was either Ju ne or July this He contacted me and asked fo r a quick 7 me eti ng , and he basically -- duri ng that meeting 8 he t ol d me about the article in CNN -- o n CNN ' s 9 s ite suggest ing that he had ties with military He told me that is complete lie and 10 in telligence. 11 the only c onnect ion with military intelligenc e he 12 eve r had was t he fact that he -- when he was 13 dra ft ed int o Sov iet Arm y i n the age of 18 , he had 14 some co nnecti o n with military in te lligen ce there , 15 an d he had no further connections . 16 into con sideration. And so I t ook 17 Q . Wh y were you in Mosco w at this time? 18 A . I travel to Mo sc ow every -- every 2 19 mo nths to meet with Mr. Agalarov to go over the 20 main top ics, mai n projects , d i scuss issues, 21 discuss f i nancing. 22 Q . An d where did yo u meet with Mr . 2 3 Akhmetshin? 24 A . At the lobby of Lotte Plaza Hotel . 25 Q . An d he contacted you to ask you to meet 52 1 him? 2 A . Yes . 3 BY MR . DAVIS : 4 5 6 Q . Do you know how he had your contact information? A. Oh , we exchang ed p ho nes after that 7 meeting . 8 9 I have his con tact informati on as well . MR . DAVIS : We ' ll turn to t h e docume nt now . I ' l l give you a moment to read ove r i t . This 10 will be Exhibit 5 . 11 [ Ka veladze Ex hib it 5 was marke d for 12 identifi c ation . ) 13 14 15 BY MR. DAVIS : Q . Th is i s an ema il fro m Mr . Goldstone to Dan Scav ino , copyin g Do nald Trump , J r ., Rhona 16 Graff , and Konstantin Sidorkov . 17 t his ema il chain . 18 MR . BALBER : You are n ot o n Do you have one for me , if you 19 don ' t mind? 20 MS . BRENNAN : 21 MR . HOLMES : 22 23 24 25 I ' m sorry . Oh , I ' m so rry . Thank you . Appreciate it . MR . KAVE LADZE : I ' m not on that emai l. BY MR . DAVIS : Q . You ' r e no t on t his e mai l cha in . 53 1 A. Yeah . 2 Q. I ' ll give you a moment to read it over . 3 [Pause . ] 4 BY MR . DAVIS : Q . So , again , this email was sent by Mr . 5 6 Goldstone on June 29 , 2016 . It states in part , 7 " Dan , I am following up an email awhile back of 8 something I had mentioned to Don and Paul Manafort 9 during a mee ting recently . There are believed to 10 be around 2 mi ll ion Russian American voters living 11 in the USA and more than 1 . 6 mi llion of these use 12 the Russian Facebook site VKon tak te , VK , as their 13 preferred social media outlet . 14 you guys thr o ugh Emin and my contact at VK , they 15 want t o create a Vote Trump 20 1 6 p romotion aired 16 di re ctly at these users , people who will be voting 17 in November. 18 welcome it , and so I had the VK f o lks mock up a 19 ba si c sample page , which I am resending for your 20 a ppr ova l now. " As I mentioned to At the time Paul had said he would 21 To the best of your recollection , did Mr . 22 Goldston e discuss this VK proposal during the June 23 9 , 2016 , meeting? 24 A . No , un le ss he stayed after the meeting. 25 Q . Did you not leave the building with him? 54 1 Did he remain behind ? 2 A. No , I left the building with Natalia 3 Veselnitskaya , Anat ol i Akhmetshin -- Anatoli 4 Samochornov and Rinat Akhmetshin. 5 Q. To the best 6 A . Correction , correction . 7 t he building. We didn ' t leave We walked into a Trump bar which 8 was located inside of the building , and after a 9 10 round o f drinks , I left the building myself . stayed in the bar . MR . BALBER : 11 12 13 14 15 And t h a t was in the lobby , right? MR . KAVELADZE : Lobby , yeah . We didn ' t leave t he building technically . MR . DAVIS : 16 c larifi cation . 17 BY MR . DAVIS : 18 They Thank you for that Q . Do yo u have a ny knowledge of whether Mr . 19 Go lds tone or Emin ever pursued further this VK 20 21 propo s a l wi t h the Tr ump campa ign? A. I h ave n o kno wl edg e o f tha t 22 if they h ave ever pursued . 23 that s oc ial network either . 24 25 i ni tiative or I n ever be longed to Q . And to t h e b e st of your r ec oll ect ion , during the meeting did Mr . Kushn e r ta ke any n o tes? 55 1 A . To the best of my recollect i on , no . 2 Q . And ot her than the question you 3 previously ment i oned wher e he asked wh at they were 4 doing t here , something to that effect , did he ask 5 any ot her questions or make any othe r comments? 6 A . I do not believe so . 7 MR . BALBER : 8 MR . DAVIS : 9 MR . BALBER: 10 11 12 I ' m sorry . You said Ku s hner? Yes . Okay . MR . KAVELADZE : I'm s orry . Yeah , Thank yo u . I do not believe . BY MR . DAVIS : Q . Was Mr . Kushner present for the entire 13 meeting? 14 15 A . He re ' s where my recollection differs with what I read in the media . I tho ught that h e was - 16 17 18 19 MR . BALSER : He j u st wants yo ur reco llec tion. MR. KAVELADZE : 20 present . 21 BY MR . DAVIS : My reco ll ect i o n , he was 22 Q . As best as you could tell , did Mr . 23 Manafort take a ny notes during the meeting? 24 A . De f initely not . 25 Q . You said he was using his p h one the 56 1 entire time ; is that correct? 2 A . Uh - huh . 3 Q. Did Mr . Manafort ask any questions or 4 make any comments , to the best of your 5 recollection? A. On the other hand , he could have been 6 7 taking notes on the phone . 8 MR . O' DONNELL : You don ' t MR . KAVELADZE : I don ' t know what he was 9 doing 10 11 the ques t ion again , please? 12 BY MR . DAVIS : 13 14 kn ow , yeah . So ask Q . Did Mr . Manafort ask any questions or ma ke any comments during the meeting? No , he was silent . 15 A . No . 16 Q . Was he present f or the entire meeting? 17 A . I believe so . 18 Q . As best as you could tell , did Donald 19 Trump , Jr . ' take any notes du rin g the meeting? A. I can ' t 20 tel l . I do not remember. Those 21 two individuals were sitting next to me , but 22 Do nald Trump , Jr ., was across the table , so I 2 3 don ' t know . 24 Q . Other than the comments and questions 25 you ' ve already described Mr . Trump , Jr ., making , 57 1 were there any other conune nts or questions he made 2 during the meet ing? 3 A . To the best o f my knowledge , no . 4 Q . You mentioned the Russian language 5 synopsis that Ms . Veselnitska ya had . Did she 6 bring that with her to the meeting? 7 8 9 A . Yes , she did . well , She offered -- she offered I think she offered that synopsis , you know , to keep for the Trump party , but I ' m not 10 su r e if they accepted it or not , because I already 11 exited t he room . 12 13 MR . FOSTER : The versi o n that she brought to the me eti ng was also in Russian , t hough? 14 MR . KAVELADZE : 15 MR. FOSTER : It was only in Russian . It was only in Russian? So she 16 didn ' t have an English translati on of it? 17 MR . KAVELAD ZE : 18 least I didn ' t 19 BY MR . DAVIS : 20 I don ' t believe so , no . At see it . Q . Other than that document , did she o r any 21 of the other attend ees bring any othe r docume nts 22 to the meeting? 23 24 25 A . I don ' t recall anybody bringing any do c uments . Q . To the best of your kn owledge , what time 58 1 did the meeting begin and when did it end? 2 A . I would say it began maybe 4 : 03 , 3 And to the best of my recollecti o n , 4 35 minutes . 5 translation . 4 : 05 . it was o ver in And that is co nsidering the Q . Did any of the attendees request 6 7 a dditi o nal meetings or commu ni c a t ions with the 8 , Trump campaign at the J une 9 th meeting ? A . The re was n o request , b ut as I said , 9 10 was a s ugges t ion th at if Tr u mp campaign wins , t h ey 1 1 might g e t 12 b ac k t o the Magnit s ky Ac t topi c in t h e future . 13 14 it Q . Did you rep o rt b ac k to Aras Agalarov abou t t he me e ting ? 15 A . Yes , 16 Q. How did you describe it to him? 17 A . That it wa s compl ete l o ss of t ime and i t 18 19 20 I did . was useless meeting. MR . BALB ER : Was th e r e a prio r conversation , though? 21 MR . KAVELADZE : 22 MR. BALSER : 23 24 25 But -- Yea h . Why d o n ' t y o u run thr o ugh bot h t h e co n ve r sat i o n s . MR . KAVELADZE : Okay . Well , when we wal ked o ut of t h e mee ting r oom a nd went do wn to th e ba r , 59 1 he called me , and Natalia was present there , and I 2 said , oh , well , everything is f i ne , we had a great 3 meeting and stuff , because I didn ' t 4 he r . 5 another conversation where I gave details of the want to upset But then I believe 2 hours later we had 6 meeting , and at that conversation I expla ined that 7 it was loss of t ime . MR . DAVIS : 8 9 10 All right . I think my hour is up now , record . Thank you very much . so we will go off the We ' 11 take a short break. 11 [Recess at 10 : 41 a . m . to 10 : 46 a . m . ] 12 MR . PRIVOR : We are back on the record . 13 is 10 : 46 a . m . Good morn ing , Mr . Kaveladze . 14 you for coming in today . 15 MR . KAVELADZE : 16 MR . PRIVOR : It Thank Good mo rnin g . We appreciate you tra veling to 17 meet wit h us. 18 we had two more colleagues join us o n the minority 19 staff . 20 record? 21 22 Just so we can note for the record , Do yo u want to ide nti fy yourselves for the MS . SAWYER : Sure . Heather Sawyer . I 'm Senator Feinstein ' s General Counsel . 23 MS . GRISWOLD : And Sarah Griswold . 24 MR . PRIVOR : 25 EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE MINORITY Very good . 60 1 BY MR . PR IVOR : 2 Q. Mr . Kaveladze , I apologize in advance . 3 I ' m going to jump around a little bit . 4 try to fill in some -- where I had questi ons about 5 some of Mr . Dav is ' line of inqui ry first , but I ' ll 6 try to keep us in orde r . 7 I want to You started out discussing your 8 background for the Crocus Gr o u p . 9 left it for a few years . Yo u said you You started in 1989 , 10 left for a few years , a nd came bac k in 2003 , 11 t hink . 12 I What did you do during the gap? A . I ran my business in U.S . Amo ng othe r 13 cl ients , Crocus was my client . We ' ve handled 14 for Croc us I handled p ur chasing just th e same way 15 I was doing as an employee . But I also -- we were 16 also running incorporation business f or Eastern 17 18 19 20 21 Eu ropean clientele , secretarial services . Q . That creation business , is that International Business Creations? A . International Business Creations , yes , t h at is corre ct . 22 Q . And is tha t IBC for sh ort? 23 A . Yes . 24 Q . I s IBC still in busi n ess ? 25 A . It ' s -- it ' s inactive f o r numerous years , 61 1 but , ye ah , company still exists . 2 Q . When did it go inactive? 3 A . I mean , I don ' t file inactive tax 4 returns . It still has an account . 5 doing bus i ness , it has n ' t been d oing business for 6 la st 5 years . But as far as 7 Q . Okay . So approximately since 2012? 8 A . Yeah . Actually doing business , 9 IBC was not doing business . 10 Q . Other than the Crocus work and related 11 matters that yo u jus t described , do you do any 12 othe r wo rk for the Agala r ov family? 13 A . Sometimes I would handle personal 14 matters . Let ' s say he wan ts to buy a h o use . 15 wi ll get in to u ch with me and ask , you know , to 16 look fo r properties or find a real estate br o ker 17 o r secure a mo rtgag e for the hous e . He That would be 18 me . 19 Q . With regard to IBC or any business 20 related to IBC , d id you set up corporations fo r 21 the Agalarovs ? 22 A . No , not for Agalarovs . 23 Q . How about for th e Crocus Group? 24 A . No . 25 Q . I understand that you li ve in California . 62 1 Do you h ave any other addresses in the U . S . o r 2 have you lived elsewhere in the U. S . ? 3 A . I have l i ved elsewhere in U . S . 4 Q . Where else have you lived? 5 A . I lived in Riverdale , New York ; New York , 6 New York ; Irvington , New York ; Santa Monica , 7 California ; Palos Verdes Estates , California ; and 8 now in 9 Q . Okay . 10 say , 20 15 . 11 whole time? Going back just to -- let's go to , Have you lived in California that 12 A . Yes . 13 Q . From 2015 to the present? 14 A . Yes . 15 Q . And during that time period , did you have 16 any other addresses? 17 A . Individual persona l 18 Q . Yes . 19 A. No . 20 Q . Okay . 21 addresses? Do you h ave businesses in New Jersey? 22 A . Yes . 23 Q . Do yo u ha ve a residence in New Jersey 24 25 that you stay at? A . No . 63 1 Q. What ' s the co nnectio n to New Je rse y? Why 2 do you have bus i ness the r e? 3 A . My of fice initia lly , bef o re I moved to 4 California , was lo cated in Ne w Jersey , and this 5 off i ce most ly hand les Crocus mat t ers r i ght no w, 6 and it ' s being paid by Crocus . So that ' s why we 7 decided to keep t hat office there beca u se there 8 are some emp loyees the re . 9 Q . You said it ' s mostly Cr o cus business . 1 0 What el se does it do? 11 A . I wou ld sa y it ' s 95 percent Crocus 12 b usin es s , but we did do some pharmaceutical 13 projects , purchasing ingr edie nts for 14 pharmaceutical prod ucts . 15 business is Crocus related . 16 17 Also , well , musical Q. IBC Group , do you know wher e its office is or was? 18 A . Same place. 19 Q. 20 A . Yeah . In New Jersey? We also -- at some point of time , 21 I believe I registered doing business in 22 Californi a for IBC Group , but it nev er 23 ma ter iali ze d , ne ver did b usine ss in California . 24 Q . Did yo u e ver regis ter a business for the 25 Agalarovs at the same New Je rsey location? 64 1 A . I believe there was a company registered 2 in the ' 90s , like mid - ' 90s , called Crocus 3 International or something like that , Crocus 4 but it was -- didn ' t do any business , didn ' t have 5 account , didn ' t 6 7 do anything . Q. Have you ever heard of a company called Saffron Property Management? 8 A . Saffron Property , ye a h , 9 Q . What i s that company? 10 I ha ve . A . I believe it manages the personal 11 properties of Mr. Agalarov , which is the Fisher 12 Island properties . 13 Q . Is it just t he one property? 14 A . I believe it ' s two properties . 15 Q . Do you know wh at the other one is other 16 than Fisher Island? 17 A . No , both on Fisher Island . 18 Q . Oh , 19 20 I 'm sorry . Two p r ope rti es on Fisher I sland? A. I believe so , to the best of my 21 knowl e dg e , unl e ss - - Agalarov g ot divorced this 22 year , in February. 23 t her e was any division of properties . 24 25 So , honestly , I ' m not sure if Q . Do you have any resp ons ibility for Saffron Property Management? 65 1 A. No , I do not. 2 Q . Is there anyone in the United States who 3 4 5 works on behalf of Saffron Property Management? A . To the best of my knowledge , Mr . Agalarov himse lf is a director , and I believe they got an 6 accountant . 7 Q . Mr . Davis had asked you whether -- I 8 th ink he asked whether you had worked for the 9 Russ i an Government . 10 A. Ye s , he did ask me this que sti on . 11 Q . And your answer 12 A . The answer is no . 13 Q . Have you ever done any lobby ing work 14 related to the Russian Government? 15 A . No , I have not . 16 Q . You stated that you had some familiarity 17 with the Ma gnits ky Act -- 18 A . Yes . 19 Q . -- even before the June 9th meeting . 20 Have you ever done any work related to the 21 Magnitsky Act before the June 9th meeting? 22 A . No , I have not . 23 Q . How about since the June 9th meeting? 24 A . No , I have not . 25 Q . Have you ever been asked to d o any kind 66 1 of work by any Russian Government officials? 2 A. 3 Q. Mr . Davis had asked you about your No . 4 contacts with the Trumps . You described meeting 5 some people related to the Trump Or gan ization in 6 June of 2013 related to the Miss Universe Pageant . 7 A . Correct . 8 Q . And you had a meeting signing papers in 9 Las Vegas ; is that right? 10 A . Uh - huh . 11 Q . Did you meet any of the Trump family 12 members at that meeting? 13 A . No . 14 Q . You didn ' t meet -- 15 A . I don ' t 16 Q . Who was present on behalf of the Trump 17 18 think they were present there . Organization? A . Mr . Trump himself , numerous other 19 employees which I have no knowledge of names or 20 positions or anything . 21 22 Q. When you say " Mr . Trump himself , " is that Donald Trump , the current President? 23 A . Se nior , yeah . 24 Q . Okay . 25 And although you do n ' t know the names , do you know the positions o f the people 67 1 that were there representing the Trump 2 Organizati on? 3 A . No , unfortunately not. 4 Q . Were any o f them lawyers for the Trump 5 Organization? A . They were lawyers for Miss Universe 6 7 Pageant . That I know . 8 I was nego t iating with them the set of documents 9 for Miss Universe , and they were present during 10 that meeting . 11 I They were lawyers because So yeah , two l ad ies : Andrea -- and forgot the other name . 12 Q . Both women? 13 A. Both women , yes . 14 Q . With regard to the Miss Universe Pageant , 15 o ther than signing the -- or procuring the 16 signatures on the letter of intent , did you have 17 any other work t o do with the Miss Universe 18 Pageant in 2013? 19 A . Yes . My other work was trying to secure 20 sponsorship for this pageant . 21 Q . Were you successful? 22 A . Not very suc ce ssful. 23 I secured one sponsorship . 24 Q . Which s p o nsorship was that? 25 A . Sberbank. 68 1 Q. And Sberbank is a Russian bank? 2 A . Yes . 3 Q . How did you make that conn e ction to 4 5 6 secure them as a sponsor? A . Well , you know , all Crocus accounts are in Sberbank , and Sberbank is a main creditor of 7 Crocus . So it was easy . 8 t he y probably couldn ' t 9 I appr o ached them , and say no . Q. Other than securing their sponsorship and 10 the letter of intent , did you have any other work 11 related to the Miss Universe Pageant? 12 A . No . 13 Q . Did you attend the pageant? 14 A . Yes , I did . 15 Q. In Moscow? 16 A . Yes . 17 Q. Did you attend any o f the after - parties 18 19 related to the Miss Universe Pageant? A . I atte n ded after - party right after the 20 pageant . 21 building , Crocus City Hall, 22 23 There was this after - party in the same reception hall . Q. Did you meet any of the members of the Trump family at that after - party? 24 A . No , I didn ' t meet anybody . 25 Q . How about before the pageant? Were there 69 1 any related events like a lunc h o r a dinner , 2 anything like that to kick o ff the Miss Un ivers e? 3 A . I heard about the luncheon s , but I didn ' t 4 attend any luncheon . 5 Q . Okay . So your only connection to the 6 Miss Un iverse Pageant then i s you attended the 7 actual event . 8 A. Uh - huh . 9 Q . Is that right? 10 A . Yes . 11 Q . And then you went to an after - party? 12 A . Yeah. 13 Q . And othe r than that , you don ' t have any 14 ot her connections to the actual event taking place 15 in Moscow? 16 A . Two days prior to that , there was also 17 one Miss Universe party where the participants 18 showed up , and it was like a little reception . 19 But there was no Mr . Trump . 20 Universe -- it was before he actually visited 21 Moscow . 22 It was jus t Miss Q . Was there anyone there from the Trump 2 3 Organi zat io n? 24 25 A . We ll , if you consider people from Miss Universe a part of Trump Organization , which they 70 1 probably were at that time , yes . Paula Shugart , 2 the president of Miss Un i verse , was there , and a 3 4 5 couple o f employees I think I saw . Q . Anyone else that you would associate with the Trump Organization itse l f as opposed to the 6 Miss Univ erse Pageant company? 7 A . No , not at that reception . 8 Q . Okay . 9 A . It was kind of quick , this thing . 10 Q . Okay . And So other than attending the event 11 itself , one afte r- party , and then th i s event 2 12 days befo r e whe r e you met some of the participants 13 o r they were a t 14 other events related to the Miss Un iverse Pageant 15 t hat you attended? 16 A . No . 17 Q . There was a dinner at the restaurant Nobu this same eve n t , we r e there any 18 around that time with Aras Agalarov . 19 aware o f that dinner? Were you 20 A . I ' ve heard about it . 21 Q . You didn ' t attend it? 22 A . I did not atte n d . 23 A . You had mentioned that you had engaged in 24 negotiations toward a letter of intent or a 25 memorandum of understanding related to another 71 1 pr opert y , and you t est ifi ed e ar lie r t hat i t d i d n ' t 2 mater i alize because Mr . Tru mp sto ppe d 3 communica t ing wi th t h e Cr oc us Gr oup . 4 Is t hat ri ght? 5 A . Yes . 6 Q . What project was that that you had wo r ked 7 on? 8 A . Trump Tower , Moscow . 9 Q . And wh at was t h e time fra me of that? 10 A . I believe the firs t communication I 11 received in regards to t h e proje ct happ e n ed in 12 Decembe r o f 20 1 3 . 13 commu nicati on in rega r ds to t h e p r oject was some 14 time in October , Novemb er 20 14 . 15 go t was ca l ls fr om my a r ch i tec t s comp l a ini ng tha t 16 T r ump people don ' t 17 And I b el i eve my l ast respond . pa r ticula r pro j ect was? 19 letter of intent? 21 Calls a n d emai l s . A . Well , Wha t How d i d it come to a was your involvement? I was negotiating t h e conditions of t hat project . 22 Q . With whom? 23 A . With Donald Trump , 24 Q . And how did you first 25 I Q . Do you know what the origi n of that 18 20 And then al l Jr . -- who first t o lead t o that project? who approac h ed 72 1 A . It ' s hard for me to say , but I was 2 brought i nto this communication by Emi n Agala r ov , 3 so I ' m not sure who approached whom . Q. And that was a commun i cation between Emin 4 5 So -- and? 6 A . And Do n ald Trump , Jr . 7 Q . So the two of them were discussing a 8 project , and then Emin brought you into the 9 project? 10 11 A . Yeah , basically as a person who was going to be doi n g this negotiating points a n d stuff . 12 13 Q . And did you take ove r the negotiations at that point , or was Emi n still involved? 14 A . Still invol ve d . I was consulting with 15 him , like every n ow and then I ' m, li ke , 16 ou r fina l acc e p t able fo r as co n d i t i on s ? " 17 we 'l l 18 and get as close as possible to those conditions , 19 things like that . 20 with him , obviously . 21 my conditions or something , 22 from Agal a rovs . 23 24 25 se t cond i t i ons , a n d I ' l l Q . And this , So , yeah , And t ry to negot i ate i t I was coordinating I d on ' t ha ve rights to set so I need to get okay I presume , was a project on behal f of the Crocus Group? A . Sure . " What ' s 73 1 2 Q . Was anyone else involved from Crocus other than Emin and you? A . Well , his attorney , Ser gey Sharov , was 3 4 involved. Mr . Yuri Grossman , my associate and my 5 employee , was involved in negotiations . 6 Q . Who was that? 7 A . Yuri Gr ossman. 8 Q . Oh , Yuri is your employee . 9 A . Yeah , my employee . Yeah , I work with him 10 in Moscow . Ou r architect , Bill McGee , was 11 involved . 12 representin g us in this tra nsaction . 13 la ter Ja son Tropea , a U . S . individual and friend 14 of Emin , also was involved in this tra nsaction . He ' s a U. S . architect , but he was And I think 15 Q . What was his role? 16 A . Als o negotiating , discussing log istics of 17 a pr ojec t . 18 did , but I know he was copied , and I know , 19 he participated in one or two conference calls . 20 21 I can ' t be too specifi c about what he I think Q . Do you recall how long the negotiations took? 22 A . Well , as I said , actually the - - I ' m not 23 sure when we signed LOI , but to the best of my 24 knowledge , best of my recollection , maybe 2 to 3 25 months , then we sign LOI ; then architects kicked 74 1 in . Q . Were those negotiations between largely 2 3 you and Emin on the on e hand and Donald Trump , 4 Jr ., on the other? 5 A . Correct . 6 Q . Was there anyone e l se on the Trump side 7 of that e q uation? 8 A . I ' m sure there were peop l e cc ' d . 9 don ' t remembe r . 10 responded , 11 their side . 12 13 14 I didn ' t pay attention who was cc ' d on Q . Di d you communicate with Donald Trump , Jr ., by telephone , by email , combination? A . Combination . Well , phone was conference calls , a nd as far as emails , 16 emails as well . 18 19 just I mean , since he , was the one who 15 17 I yes , ther e were Q . How often did you communi cate with him to negotiate this letter of intent? A . I would say seven to ei ght emails and 20 maybe two to three conference calls . 21 Q . Did y o u ever meet in person? 22 A . No. 23 Q . Regarding this pr oject . 24 A . Regarding -- no , n e v e r . 25 Q . In between the time when you were 75 1 negotiating this pr oj ect and t he June 9th meeting 2 that we 're go i ng to come to in a moment , had you 3 ever met Donald Trump , J r ., 4 time? in that period of 5 A. No , I have not . 6 Q. And bef or e this negotiation , had you ever 7 met him be fore ? 8 A . No , I have not . 9 Q . So the first time that you met Donald 10 Trump , Jr ., in pers o n was at the June 9t h meeting? 11 A . That is correct . 12 Q. Other than meet i ng h i m in person , had you 13 communicated with him during that interim period 14 betwe en the Ju ne 9th meeting and the negotiations 15 o f this letter of intent f or the Mo sco w tower? 16 17 18 A . No , nothing outside of th at Moscow tower negotiations . Q . Okay . And yo u said tha t the project wen t 19 until , you gue ssed , Oc tober or November of 2014 . 20 I take it a signifi c ant period of that time was 21 after the letter of intent had already been 22 signed? 23 A . Yeah . 24 Q. Did yo u have communications with Donald 25 T r ump , Jr ., du r ing that period of time? 76 A . I think I did. 1 I think at some point o f I sent an ema il k ind of asking why are they 2 time , 3 silent . 4 response they were " too busy , we g ot some st uf f , 5 projects going on overseas , and we ' ll get back to 6 you " type of thing . 7 undertaken like Mr . Caul , 8 architect ' s name was , so Mr . Caul was t rying to 9 communi c ate with Bil l McGee , an d t h e n Bill wrote 10 Yeah , and I t hink there was some kind o f And I think it was an effort I belie v e the to me aga in sa yin g that he d isa p pe ar ed aga i n . Q . So other than tha t 11 last e mail 12 communi cation that you described , were there any 13 other communications with Donald Trump , Jr . ? 14 A . No . 15 Q . An d abou t any topic , not even just this 16 particular develo pment? A . No , I have not dis cu ss ed any topic with 17 18 him . 19 Q . How about -- 20 A . Outside of this dev e lopment . In 21 connection -- sometimes t h ey were also as king 22 about -- we also had a Marriott p ro ject on the 23 property , and t h ere was a l so n egot iations where we 24 shou l d place tower i n re l ationsh ip to that 25 Marriott pr oje ct . So sometimes we would s e nd him 77 1 Marriott pr oject draw ings so he would unde rstand 2 the positioning . 3 So yeah . Q . How abo ut with Donald Trump , Sr . ? Ha v e 4 you communicated with him , sa y , before the Ju ne 5 9 th meeting? 6 A. 7 Q . Had you e v er met him , 8 A . June 9 . No . I think , other -- June 9 would be the first time - 9 10 Q . I am talking about Se n ior . 11 MR . BALBER : 12 BY MR . PR I VOR : 13 Q . Se nio r . 14 A . Yeah , 15 16 17 Slow down . I ' m sorry . Senior , I met him on June 15 , 20 13 , in Las Vegas . Q . At the Miss -- I ' m sorry , at the Vegas signing for this -- 18 A . Correct . 19 Q~ -- project that didn ' t come to fruition . 20 A . Correct . 21 Q . Okay . Other than tha t meeting with 22 Donald Tr ump , S r. , had you ever met him at any 23 oth er ti me in pers on? 24 A. I saw him during the Miss Uni v erse . 25 Q . Did you speak with him at the Miss 78 1 Uni verse Pageant? 2 A . No . 3 Q. And other than that meeting there and 4 signing of the LOI , ha d y o u ever met him in person 5 at an y other time? 6 A . No . 7 Q . Ha ve you spoken to him o n t h e telephone 8 at any other t ime? 9 A. No . 10 him on the telephone. Q . Have you exchanged a n y emails with him at 11 12 I don ' t belie ve I ever spoken with any time? 13 A . No . 14 Q . And have you ever communicated with him 15 t hr ough h i s secretary , f o r instance , Rhona Graff? 16 A . No . 17 Q . You haven ' t pass ed any messages to him 18 t hr ough Rhona? 19 A . I don ' t 20 Q . Okay . know Rhona . Let ' s move fo rward to the June 9t h 21 meeting , whi c h we ' ve s p ent some co nsiderable time 22 on . 23 you us e d th e phrase " working re latio nsh ip " tha t 24 y o u h a d wi th her? 25 When you were describing Ms . Veselnitskaya , A . Uh - huh . 79 1 Q. 2 relationship " ? 3 What did you mean by " working A . Because we got back to the topic in 4 Nov ember , s o she wanted to go over this thing 5 again , try to arrange the meeting . 6 arrange the meeting . 7 attorney in New York to discuss this Magnitsky 8 matter . 9 that ' s what I call " wo rking relationship ." So we tried to Then she was looking for I introduced her to my attorney , and so Q. And your working relationship with her is 10 11 something that developed after the June 9th 12 meeting? 13 A . Yeah. 14 Q . You didn ' t have an y pri o r relationship -- 15 A . No , You know , that ' s where I saw her first time . 16 9. 17 Obvio usl y , I communicated on June 6 with her . Q . Right . 18 19 I had no knowledge o f her until Ju ne And before June 6 , you had no communicati ons with her? I have no kn owl edge who she is . 20 A. No. 21 Q . You anticipated my next question . 22 didn ' t You know her at all? 23 A. 24 Q . Be fore the meeting , did you kn ow what her 25 No. you learned her name on Ju ne 6th ; is that 80 1 right ? 2 A . That ' s correct . 3 Q . Okay . 4 Did you do anything to investigate her , do some due dilige n ce to find out who she is 5 before you showed up to the meeting on June 9th? 6 A . No , I did not . 7 Q . Did you -- 8 A . I know she was Mr. Agalarov ' s friend or 9 pers on from Mr . Agalarov , so I didn ' t do any 10 11 investigation . Q . Did you have any conversation with Mr . 12 Agalarov before the June 9th meeting and after - - 13 i n the time period -- I ' m sorry. 14 between June 6th when you learned her name and the 15 June 9th meet i ng , did you have any conversation The time period 16 with Mr . Agalarov , Aras , about Ms . Veselnitskaya? 17 A. No . 18 Q. How about with Emin? 19 A . No . 20 Q. And h o w about Rob Goldsto n e? 21 I had no conversation with Emin . Did you speak with him about Ms . Veseln it skaya ? 22 A. 23 Q. Rinat Akhmetshin , had you known anything 24 25 No . a bout him b efore the June 9t h meeting? A. No . 81 1 Q. Did you do any sort of investigation or 2 due diligence on him before the meeting? 3 A . No . 4 Q. Did you even know that he was going to 5 appear at this meeting before you met him? A. Thirty minutes prior to th e meeting , I 6 7 realized he ' s going to appear . No , I didn ' t know 8 him . 9 Q. And in that interim 30 minutes before the 10 meeting until the meeting , did you take Rob 11 Goldstone aside , for instance , and ask him who is 12 Mr . Akhmetshin? 13 14 A . We didn ' t have that opportun i ty . greeted by - - we walked into the build i ng . 15 Goldstone was standing at reception . Mr . He greeted We didn ' t have no time 16 us and wa l ked us through . 17 to discuss anything wi t h Mr . Go l dston e. 18 We were Q . In the period of time between June 6th 19 when you first learned of the meeting and when the 20 meeting occurred on June 9th , did you have any 21 conversations with the Agalarovs in connection 22 with this meeting 23 A . Yes. 24 Q . -- of what to expect? 25 A . Yes . 82 1 Q . What were those conversations? And just 2 to back up so we don ' t have to cause you to repeat 3 yourself , I know you me nti oned t wo brief call s . 4 A . Two phone calls . 5 Q. Anything other than those two calls? 6 A . There was also that synop sis sent to me , 7 shorter version , four - page version of synopsis by 8 Mr . Agalarov . 9 Q . Okay . When did he send t hat to you? 10 A. I believe it was either June 6 or June 7 . 11 Q. What was in t hat synops is ? 12 A . That ' s the document you 13 Q. Oh , that ' s the one we were looking at 14 -- this morning . 15 A . Yeah . 16 MR . BALBER : 17 MR . KAVELADZE : 18 MR. BALBER : Which one? The sho rter version . I think you ' re confused , so 19 slow down , be thoughtful , because I don ' t 20 you ' ve see n t hat . 21 MR . PRIVOR : We h ave n ot seen that yet . 22 MR . BALBER : We ' ve had all o f your 23 24 25 think col l eagues shown th is thing . MR . KAVELADZE : testimony . Sorry . I t ' s from previous 83 1 MR . BALBER : Yeah , 2 MR . PRIVOR : Fair enough . 3 4 so just slow down . BY MR . PR IVOR : Q . So why don ' t we back up. Tell us about 5 that communicat i on . First of all , when 6 recall when it was whe n you first received this? 7 A . June 6. 8 Q . Okay . 9 A . First communication ab out Ms . 10 11 12 do you Veselni ts kaya . Q . Did it come to you via ema il or some ot her method? 13 A . Synopsis? 14 Q . Yes . 15 A . Yes , 16 MR . BALBER : it was email . Are you sure? I ' ll state fo r 17 t he reco rd that we ' ve looked for t his email with 18 this attachment in connection with the request by 19 the Committee , and we have not identified it . 20 I ' d just ask the witness to be cautiou s about 21 being sure the means by whi ch it was sent to you . 22 23 24 25 I ha ve no doubt you saw it , MR . PRIVOR : but Fair enough . Thank you for t h e c larif ic ation . MR . KAVELADZE : So Maybe it was an e -f ax , 84 1 maybe , but I saw synopsis . 2 BY MR . PR IVOR : 3 Q . Okay . And it was , you sa i d , 4 approximately four pages? 5 A. Four or five pages . 6 Q . Was it in English o r in Russian? 7 A . Russian . 8 Q. Do yo u know who the author of that 9 document was? 10 A. No , I have no idea . 11 Q. Do you recall what it said? 12 give us a gene r al descr i ption of it? 13 14 Could you A . I t ' s about deteriorating relationship between Russia and U.S . after Magnitsky Act was 15 adopted , and then it was this whole stor y of Bill 16 Browder and being a cr iminal and tax dodger , and 17 then basically the story of Zif f Brothers of being 18 -- being a shareholder of Mr . Browder ' s company in 19 Moscow and receiving the proceeds of these 20 activitie s in Russia , and then funding the 21 Democratic Party with that mo ney . 22 was mostly abo ut Browder . And , yeah , it 23 Q. Wa s the conte nt of t h is four-page 24 synopsis similar to t he longer Russian document 25 t hat you had see n from Ms. Veselnits kay a? 85 A . Yeah , 1 2 it just had a little bit more details , yes . 3 Q. Ms . Veselnitskaya ' s had more details? 4 A . More detai l s , obviously . 5 Q . Were there any topics discussed in the 6 shorter version that were not contained in t he 7 lo n ger Russ ian version? 8 A . I don ' t believe so . 9 MR . BALS ER : 10 And I thin k he said both versio ns were in Russian . 11 MR . PRIVOR : 12 MR . KAV ELADZE : 13 MR . PRIVOR : 14 Oh , I ' m so r ry . Bo th o f them were , Okay . Ve ry good . yes . Th ank you . BY MR . PRI VOR : 15 Q . Do you recall -- I know yo u ' re n ot 16 certain , but you seem to think it might have come 17 to you by email . 18 else rec ei ved the same commun i cation at the same 19 t ime? Do you recall whether anyone 20 A . No . 21 Q . Do you know whether in the lead - up to 22 this Ju ne 9th meeting , say from Jun e 6th when you 23 firs t 24 whether the Agalarovs , either fa ther or s on , were 25 communicating with anyone at the Crocus Group l earned of it until the date , do you kn ow 86 1 other than you about t he upcoming meeting? 2 A . No . 3 Q . I n any of 4 A . Not at the Crocus Group. 5 Q . Okay . 6 A . Emin was commu n ica t ing wit h Ro b 7 Goldston e , but -Q . Right . 8 9 10 No . I wa nt to foc us on y ou r commun icati o ns , th oug h . You mentioned the couple of phone calls with Aras Agalarov . 11 A . Uh-huh . 12 Q . Was any one else on t h ose te le p h one c a lls? 13 A . No . 14 Q . Just the two o f you? 15 Just him . And did you have a n y i n - pe r s o n me e tings wi th a n yone relat e d to the 16 meeting other than the s h ort 30 minutes befo re 17 s h owing up o n Jun e 9th? A. No , no . 18 It was p rob a b l y a li tt l e bit 19 more t han 30 minutes with Ves elni ts kay a and 20 Samo c h or nov . 21 half , Yeah , it was probably an h our and a I would say . 22 Q . Oh , yo u ' re refe rri ng to th e lunch . 23 A . Yeah . 24 Q . Okay . 25 The 30-minu te window of t ime when yo u we r e in front of Trump To we r before wal king - - 87 1 A . Yeah , that ' s what I mentioned . 2 mentioned 30 minutes , 3 Q . Okay . Yeah , I yeah . Very good . Did the Agalarovs , 4 either Aras or Emin , ask you to speak with anyone 5 else in advance of the meeting , even if not 6 associated with the Crocus Group? No . 7 A. 8 Q . And is there a n yone e lse you can think of 9 10 11 that you did speak to A . I was told to coordinate th i s effort with Mr . Goldstone . 12 Q . Who told you to do that? 13 A . Mr . Agalarov , 14 the details for the meeting . that Mr . Goldstone holds 15 Q . How did he communicate that to you? 16 A . Verba l ly over the phone call . 17 Q . Was that in your first call with him? 18 A . I believe so . 19 Q . Do you recall what , i f any t hing else , he 20 said in t h at f ir st phone call other th an , 21 you to at te nd this meeting " ? 22 A . First call , he didn ' t 23 Magnitsky Act . 24 mentioned , not the first call . 25 need to be in New York , " We want even mention It was the second call in which he He just said I and I was kind of hesitant 88 1 to leave on June 6 because June 7 was event] 3 !if•::flfj , and I didn ' t want to miss it . It was kind o f negotiated , later date , my arrival . 4 Q. And you were leaving from California? 5 A . Yes . 6 15 [descriptions of family members] - Q . Before you learned of this meeting on 16 June 6th , had the Agalarovs ever suggested t o you 17 that they wanted to arrange a meeting with the 18 Trumps? 19 A. No . 20 Q. Had you ever h eard that f rom anyone else 21 that they were interested in arrangi ng a meeti ng 22 with anyone from the Trump family? 23 A . I have n ot . 24 Q. So June 6th t h e n was the ver y first time 25 you had heard about any meeting? 89 1 MR . BALBER : You have to answer out loud . 2 MR . KAVELADZE : Oh . Yes . I ' m sorry . Like 3 I said , 4 obviously the Agalarovs asked me to discuss this 5 whole Trump Tower thing , and there were conference 6 calls , but I don ' t 7 me etings . 8 BY MR . PR IVOR : 9 10 11 12 13 I ' m a lit tle bit confused here because think meetings . No , no Q . And that would be co nf erence calls -A . During that Trump Tower negotiation pe ri od . Q . Okay . So about the real es ta te developme n t deal . 14 A . Yes . 15 Q . Was there ever any mention fr om the 16 Agalarovs about arranging a meeting with the 17 Trumps or discussions with the Trumps about 18 anything other than real estate development 19 projects? 20 A . I don ' t believe so , except , 21 that last one , June 9th , June 6th. 22 [Kaveladz e Exhibit 6 was marked for 23 identification . ] 24 25 MR . PRIVOR : obviously , I ' m go i ng to show you our next exh ib it which we ha ve marked as Exhibit No . 6 . 90 1 Th is is , 2 for the record - - MR . BALBER : 3 appreciate it . 5 For some reason we only have two of them . MR . BALBER: 6 7 I 'd Do you have an extra one? MR . PRIVOR : 4 If you hav e one for me , That ' s okay . BY MR . PR I VOR : 8 Q . For the record this is Bates marked SJC- 9 KAV - 00263 , and it has attached to it a three - page 10 Bloomberg Government article titled " Trump ' s Long 11 Romance with Russia ." 12 A . Oh-h uh . 13 Q . I ' ll note for the record that the email 14 produced to us is the single page , 15 a h yper l ink to an article , and we ' ve taken the 16 liberty o f attaching the actual article that that 17 link att aches to . 263 , and it has Th e first question fo r you , 18 19 the first page of the document . 20 an ema il fr om you to 21 19 , 2016 . sir , on just You can see it ' s dated May is? Do you know 22 A . Yes. 24 Q . Wh o is she? 25 A. She ' s She is - - her name is amily member l " FMl " 11111 91 1 Q. Look ing at the subject , " Trump - Agalarov ," 2 and the arti cle , which you can see atta ched , 3 yo u ' ll n ot e on the first p ag e of t he artic le 4 there ' s a photograph o f Donald Trump , 5 Trump . 6 son? And are those t he Agalarovs , 7 A . Uh - huh . 8 MR . BALSER : 9 MR. KAVELADZE : President father and Sa y " yes ." Yes . 10 MR . PRIVOR : Tha nk you . 11 MR . BALSER : The court reporter can ' t 12 t rans cr i be -- 13 14 MR . KAVE LADZE : kn ow . I ' m sorry . I 'm very sorry . 15 16 I MR. BALSER : It ' s okay . BY MR . PRIVOR : 17 Q . Do you k now what cause d your to send t h is article to you on May 19 , 19 2016? 20 A . I tho u ght I sent it to 21 Q . I ' m sorry . 22 A . She ' s involved in , For y ou to s e nd it to h er . like , politics and she 23 reads news and s h e obvio u sly -- we discussed the 24 fact that Agalarovs are clos e to -- y ou kn o w, 25 fr i ends hip with T rump fami ly and ever ything with 92 1 he r , and I send her article . 2 Q . I ' ll note that this email is 3 approximately 3 to 4 weeks before the June 9th 4 meeting that took place . 5 Was this article something that you sent in any relation to the 6 effort to establish a meeting on June 9th? 7 A . No . 8 Q . So ju s t entirely coincidence? 9 A . Yeah . 10 Q . An d you r 11 12 13 14 wa s she your at that time? A . Yes . We maintain good relationship with her , though . Q . You had identifi ed a number of people 15 that you had spoken to about the meeting before it 16 took place , the June 9th meeting . 17 stated you weren ' t 18 was taking place . 19 A . No. 20 Q . You menti oned family members. 21 22 I think you trying to hide that the meeting Is your one of t he peop le that you spoke to in advance of the meeting? 23 A . I don ' t believe so . 24 Q . Okay . 25 A. I don ' t believe I di scussed June 9 93 1 meeting with her. 2 Q . Of your family members , do you recall wh o 3 they were , which ones you spoke to in advance of 4 the meet ing? 5 I I description of discussions with family members 2 and 3 , and a possible discussion with famil 13 member 4 " FM 2 " " Fl1 3" "FM 4" Q . And you mentioned your family members 1141? 15 A . Yes , 16 Q . Who ' s your neighbor? 17 A . His name is 18 Q . Anyone else that you can recall that you 19 FM 5 & 6 , my neighbor . spoke to about the meet ing before it occurred? 20 A . To t h e best o f my knowledge , that ' s it . 21 Q . Okay . Le t ' s ta ke these o n e at a time . tlfff · 22 We ' ll start with 23 discussed with him about the meeting before it 24 occ u rred? 25 A . First , Do you recall what you I discussed t h e meeti n g going to 94 1 be about Magnitsky Act . Then after I received 2 not whi le I received -- when I placed the call to 3 Roman and rece i ved that inf o rmati on that that 4 lawyer mig ht have negative info r mat ion on Ms . 5 Clinton , I di s cussed that with him as well . Miffj? 6 Q. 7 A . Yeah , and wit h 8 Q . And I ' m sorry if you ha d stated earlier , You discussed that wit h Mlffi· 9 when was the call with Roman? 10 A . Ju ne 7 . 11 Q. So you spoke to w about the meeting 12 both befo r e -- s o in between June 6t h and June 13 7 th , and t hen you spoke to him a ga in a f ter the 14 c all with Roma n on J une 7th ? 15 A . Yes . 16 Q. Okay . So in you r first con versat i on with 17 11111111 , 18 the basis for your understand i ng that it would be 19 about th e Magn its ky Act? 20 21 you mentioned the Magnitsky Act . A . We ll , What was I received a communication from Mr . Agalarov th at it ' s going to be about Magnitsky 2 2 Act . 23 24 25 Q. An yt hing else that gave you the impression it would be abou t the Magnitsky Act? A . Aside of what I received fr om Mr. 95 1 Agal arov , n o . 2 Q. Okay . And after you r call with Roman , 3 you spoke t o - 4 i n that conv ersati o n? again. What d id you discuss A . I expressed my concern . 5 I was concerned 6 at that time that there wou l d be some negati ve 7 i nformation about Hillary Cli nt on during the 8 meeting , and it was -- informati on was 9 inconsistent with what I h e ard befo re, which is 10 what I was preparing for . 11 guess that ' s t he reas o n why -- ma ybe i t ' s stupid 12 to discuss with a 13 there was my nervousness or something. 14 15 16 17 te e nage family member Q . You mentioned -? yo u mean And I was puzzled , so I 20 Q. ? We re yo u referring t o Did you speak to 11111 about the n e ga t i ve in fo rmati o n about Hilla r y Clint o n? 21 22 I see . Did t ee n age fa mily me mbe r I 19 , but I guess A . I b el i e v e I me nti one d that to as well . 23 Q . And - 24 A . Yeah . 25 Q . Okay . is older th a n ? What do you recall telling 11111 96 1 about the negative information about Hillar y 2 Clinton? 3 what you ' ve said . 4 it t o . 5 I just want to be clear . I understood I just wasn ' t sure who you told A. I did not have -- I did not have much 6 i nformation exc e pt that phrase , 7 information on Hillary Clinton ." " negative So all I could 8 h ave told him i s that there ' s a rumor that -- I 9 mean , obv i ously , this thing was on the level of 10 gossip at that point for me because I didn ' t have 11 no documentary confirmation that they would be 12 talking about . 13 that , yea h, 14 negative information . 15 16 Q. So all I could ha ve told him is someone told me that there might be Where did you get the phrase " negative information on Hillary Clinton " ? 17 A . From Roman Ben i aminov . 18 Q . I n you r conve r sat i on wi th Roman , did you 19 20 ask him wh at he meant by that? A . I believe I did , and h e responded that he 21 does not have details , he does not know the 22 details . 23 He overheard it from Rob Goldstone . Q . Did you ask him any further details about 24 his conversation -- or , I ' m sorry , what he 25 ove rheard from Rob Goldstone? 97 1 A. No , I d idn ' t ask for de t ails. 2 Q . Did you ever reach out to either of the 3 Agalar ovs , for insta nce , to ask them if the y knew 4 anything about t his negative info rmati on? 5 A . No . I thought it was -- you kn ow , 6 Agalarov is ba sed in Russia , an d I ' m pret ty sure , 7 you know , h is phone is being , you kn ow , monito red. 8 So I decided not to discuss it with -- I decided 9 to wait until that lunch with Vese lnitska ya and 10 just to go ove r the whole situation , ask her 11 q u estions . 12 13 14 Q. And that ' s the lunch on t he day o f the J une 9th meeti n g . A . Yeah , whi ch I did , and at tha t lunch I 15 realized that ex cept tha t one sentence about it 16 co uld be that Ziff Brot her s co ul d be financing 17 Hillary Clinton ' s campa ign , 18 ne gative sent ence since this whole 11 - page that wo uld be the only 19 pre sen ta tion . 20 Q. I ' m sorry . Did you ask Ms . Veselnitskaya 21 what was meant by it , or you were inferring that 22 from h er statement? 23 A . I don ' t believe I as ke d her , but I read 24 this s ynops is , a nd I r e ali ze d -- an d I aske d h er , 25 " Is there anything e ls e you want to dis c uss during 98 1 the meeting? " 2 go i ng to stick to that synopsis ." 3 And she said , " No . I ' m strictly Q . Did you ever ask her spec i fically if she 4 was g o ing to discuss negative information about 5 Hillary Clinton? 6 A. I didn ' t , but at t h at p o int I assumed 7 t hat this whole negative information was about 8 that one sentence , could have . Q . So , in other words , 9 10 from her 11 - page or so you inferred that -- 11 A . Yeah . 12 Q . - - Russian statement? 13 A . Yeah , my assumption was there ' s nothing 14 15 else . So I was relieved at that point . Q . You stated when you were describing this 16 information to 17 about it . 18 tfttf that y ou had some concern What did you mean by " concern " ? A. Look , I didn ' t want to be a part of a 1 9 meeting where some negative information on a 20 Presidential candidate would be discussed. 21 honestly , I was considering if I realized during 22 the lunch that the meeting would be about negative 23 informat i on on Ms . Clinton , 24 t h at meeting . 25 Q . Why not? So , I ' m not going to go t o 99 1 A . Be cause I don ' t want to be a part of a 2 first of all , 3 voted for Hillary , a nd s o I d i dn't want a part of 4 this. 5 I voted for Hillary and my fa mi ly Q . Was there a particular concern you had 6 about being a pa r t 7 conseque n ce from being a part of it? 8 9 A . At of it? Were you fearing some that point I did n ot u nderstand the aspects of lega l ity , so I was less concerned about 10 that . 11 morality and ethics of the situation . 12 I was more conce rned about aspec ts of Q. I ' m sorry . I want to probe a little bit 13 more o n what you meant by " concern ." 14 concern some sort of alarm , 15 short o f alarm? 16 Was your or was it something A . No , it wasn't alarm , but it was more -- I 17 wouldn ' t call it " alarm ." No , I wo uld call it 18 " concern ," and -- which disappeared after that 19 lunch . 20 Q . After the lunch wi t h Ms . Veselnitskaya? 21 A . Yeah . Whe n I wa s goi ng to the meeting , 22 was confident it was abo u t Magnitsky Act , 23 was about Magnitsky Act . and it 24 Q . Had you e xp l ored what was meant by 25 " negative information about Hillary Clinton " with I 1 00 1 anyone else in between the time when Roman told 2 you that and when you had the lunch with Ms . 3 Veselni tskaya? 4 A. No , 5 Q . And so you didn ' t 6 I have not . A . No . 8 Q . Fa ir e n ough . 10 as k anyone else what the y kne w about that? 7 9 I have not . I decided to ask the source . We were talki n g about your conversation with - . The first conversation was ab o ut the Magnitsky Act . The second one you 11 mentioned what Roman had told you . Was there 12 anything else you can recall from the conversation 13 with 14 15 Aiifj, or conversations? A . There wa s no co n vers ation with 4114 · I ju s t mentioned about this nega t ive i nfo r mation . 16 There was no response , mu c h of a re sponse from 17 He just took it into consideration . Aflfi, 18 same goes wit h 19 don ' t 20 something . 21 as k ed of me - - 22 information , and I wo uld say , 23 24 25 same th i ng . The It just -- I think we had like a discussion about that or They could have they might have I ' m not sure -- what ne gative " I don ' t kn ow ." Q . Do you re call that you di d say that , o r you ' re jus t surmising you might A . No , I don ' t recall -- 101 1 Q . -- have said that? 2 A . I ' m speculating r ight now . 3 Q . Okay . 4 the mention to 5 A . Yeah . 6 Q . Okay . 7 That ' s all you can remember from ? You also spoke to at the same time as - or separately? 8 A . I believe so , 9 Q . Both conversations? 10 11 A. - I believe they were both in the room when I discussed it . And I think was also in the room. 13 Q. Did you have any other co nversatio ns with 14 t!tff 15 present? 17 same time . and 12 16 Was it other t han the o ne s where W was A . She asked me a few days la ter , sh e as ke d me how was meeting , and I responded. 18 Q . Do you recall wh at you said? 19 A . I said the meeting was boring and there 20 was n o negative info rmation about -- and th e y g ot 21 nothing on Hillary . 22 Q . You mentioned Did you have FM 6 23 a ny conversations with h er about t he June 9th 24 meet ing other th a n y o u thou g ht she was pres e nt 25 when you spoke to W and ? 102 1 2 A. No , I do not have a -- inde pe ndent from t h at conversation. Q . Okay . 3 4 How abo ut FM 5 ? Did you speak with her as well? 5 A. I did discuss -- yes , I did discuss it 6 with_. 7 Q . What did you tell 8 A. I told her everything , pretty much what I 9 told Iliff and •lfff . - FM S ? was agains t me 10 going there like in general , even for Magnitsky 11 Act . And so she was against -- but I said , " you 12 kn ow , I can ' t do much . 13 go , 14 15 Mr . Agal arov t old me to II MR . O' DON NE LL : I don ' t know that h e needs to get too much into his discussions with -· Ill 17 MR . KAVELAD ZE : Yeah . I ' m sorry . 18 MR . O' DONNELL : That ' s typi ca lly privileged . 19 BY MR . PRIVOR : 20 Q . Do you h ave a sense of why she didn ' t 21 want you to go? 22 23 A. I don ' t know . Sh e has strong feelings abo ut Mag n itsky Act . 24 Q . Strong feeli ng s? 25 A. Support . 103 Q. Support for it? 1 2 ne i ghbor , 3 him? 4 You mentioned your What did you discuss with A . Same thing . First , I discussed that I ' m 5 going there , and then I discussed that there ' s 6 some nega ti ve information . Same thing. 7 Q . Al so two convers atio ns? 8 A . Yeah . 9 Q . And with respect t o the negative 10 information , did yo u express to 11 you had some concern about it? 12 A. Well , yes , 13 Q . Did he have any r espo ns e? 14 A. I don ' t I did . recall any response from him . 15 Maybe some kind of response , but I don ' t 16 t ha t recall what he told me . 17 Q . Do you recall elaborating o n your 18 concerns t o any of t he pe o p l e that you spo ke to? 19 A. No . 20 Q . So it was a gene ra l ized concern that you 21 22 23 e xp ressed? A. At that p oint the informa tion about n e gati ve in fo rma t i on was -- as far as I was 2 4 con cerned was gossip , was somet h ing someo ne 25 communicated who overheard i t fr om someone . So I 104 1 was not trusting to that information too much . 2 just was concerned about possibility that that 3 might be true . But at that point o f time , 4 qualified that as a gossip , 5 of it . 6 that aspect , I that part Q . I ' d like for you to take a look at 7 Exhibit 2 , which is still in front of you . 8 i s the email chain from Mr . Goldstone to Donald 9 Trump , Jr ., and their e xchange back and forth . This 10 you go to the third page of that exhibit , 11 initial conversation from Mr . Go l dston e where he 12 describes the meetin g -- and Mr . Davis has gone 13 over some of this . 14 questions . 15 I I If the just had a few follow-up There ' s a discussion of the Crown 16 Prosecutor of Russia . 17 understa ndi ng of who t h at was , who he was 18 referring to? 19 the Crown Prosecutor? Did you ever have any Did you ever hear anyone mention 20 A . No . I never heard that term before . 21 Q . And I know that you wer e n ' t copied o n 22 this , and you testified earlier you hadn ' t 23 t his emai l? seen 24 A . No , I haven ' t . 25 Q . Were you ever consulted o n the content of 105 1 this ema il? 2 A . No , I was not . 3 Q . Mr . Goldstone never picked up the phone 4 and called you and said , 5 an email " ? A . No. 6 We don ' t " Hey , I ' m going to send ha ve that relationship for 7 Mr . Goldstone to call me and say , 8 to send an email ." Q . How about the Agalarovs? 9 " Hi , I ' m going Did anyone , 10 either Emin o r Aras , give you a head s up that this 11 email was g oi ng to be going o ut? 12 A . No. 13 Q . An d so the first you learned of it was 14 on? 15 A . Te lev ision set . 16 Q . Of the actual email . 17 A . Yeah . 18 Q. Okay . Fair enough . 19 understand you haven ' t 20 and sens i ti ve inf o rmation that is part o f Russia 21 and its go vernment ' s support of Mr . Trump ." 22 yo u ever hea rd any one use that ph ras e bef ore? No , seen , This email , which I refers to " high - level Had I have not . 23 A . No. 24 Q . Ha d the Agalarovs ever referred to Russia 25 and its government ' s support for Mr . Trump? 106 1 A . They have not. 2 Q . Do you know whether the Agalarovs were 3 making any effort to promote the candidacy of Mr . 4 5 6 7 Trump? A . I do not know of any efforts to promote the candidacy . Q . And how about the Russian Government? Do 8 you have a sense of was there any effort from the 9 Russian Government -- other than what you ' ve read 10 11 12 13 in the p apers , h ave you -A. I have no knowledge other than what I read in the papers . Q . This email also r efe rs to an effort that 14 was helped along by Aras and Emin . 15 een , " the pronunciation? 16 A . " Em- een ." 17 Q . Thank you . Is it " Em- Mr . Goldstone refers to this 18 part o f Russia ' s support for Mr . Trump as 19 something that is helped along by them . 20 ever heard anybody refer to t h e Agalarovs helping 21 a l ong any effort related to Mr . Trump? Have you 22 A . No , I have not . 23 Q . You will note in this email Mr. Goldstone 24 suggests that Donald Trump , Jr ., speak to Emin . 25 You ' 11 see at the end of his email he says , " Would 107 1 you be able to speak to Emin about it directly? " 2 Do you know whether that conversat i on ever took 3 place between Emin and Donald Trump , Jr . ? 4 A . I do n ot kn ow . 5 Q . Did Emin ever mention to you that h e had 6 a conversation with Donald Trump, Jr . ? 7 A . No . 8 Q. And conversation about t he June 9th 9 meeting . 10 A . With Emin? 11 Q . Yes . 12 A . Between him and Donald Trump , Jr . -- 13 Q . Let me restate it so it's clear for the 14 record . Did - - We r e you aware of any conve r sation 15 between Emin and Donald Trump , J r ., concern ing the 16 June 9th meeting? 17 A . No , as ide of what I read in the papers . 18 Q . And Aras Agalarov , did he ever ment ion a 19 c onversation between Emin a nd Donald Trump, Jr . ? 20 A . No , h e h as not . 21 Q . How about Rob Goldsto n e? 22 Did you ever ta lk to him about any conversations be tween Emin 2 3 a nd Donald Trump , Jr . ? 24 25 A . No , b eca use I ' ve h ea rd abo ut t h e emai l o nly a few months ago , a n d I didn ' t re al i ze t h ere 108 1 was thi s conversati on . MR . BALSER : 2 3 happened . MR . KAVELADZE : 4 5 Yea h . BY MR . PRIVOR : 6 7 And you don ' t know that it Q . If you take a look at Ex h ibit 4 , which is i n front of yo u , Mr. Davis had asked you this 8 morning abou t you had spoken by tel eph on e with the 9 10 lady from Russ ia , which you identified as Natalia Veselni tskaya . I understand you had t h e luncheon 11 meeting with her . Do you r ecall a nything from t h e 12 te leph one c o nversati o n wit h her befo re the 13 lunche o n to o k place ? 14 15 A . It ' s mostly lo gist ics : Can we mee t on 8 th ? No , Wh en can we meet? I'm busy . 16 court . 17 I ' m in t he court . 18 another call , s o rry , 19 c an d o -- I mean , 20 2 : 00 , bu t we have to delay our lunch , so -- 21 because I ' m still in co ur t , 22 23 24 25 Can we meet morning 9th? No , I ' m i n the I ' m busy . We could meet for lun c h . I can ' t do lunch at 1 : 00 . I go t stuck in court . You used the word " mostly " a b out logistics . We I ' m not sure if it ' s 1 : 00 or So it ' s like a lot of l ogistical cal ls . Q. And Was there a ny thing else y o u c an A . A hundred percent . 109 1 Q . A hund red percent? 2 A. A hundred percent lo gistics . 3 Q. Okay . And then just t o follow up on your 4 meeting with Mr . Goldstone just before the June 5 9 th meet ing , yo u said you met him approximately 6 3 : 45 before th e meeting? 7 8 9 10 11 12 A . There was no meeting with Rob Goldstone. We approached as a gro up . Rob Goldstone said hello , and he walked us to th e meet in g . There was no meeting wit h Rob Goldstone . Q . You described it ea rlier as just a we l come and walkin g up . 13 A . Welcome , hello , handshakes , let ' s go . 14 Q . There was no conve rsati o n with him? 15 A . No . 16 Q . Did the topic of negative inf ormation 17 a bout Hil l ary Clinton come up during t hat walk - up 18 to the meeting? 19 A . No . There was no wo rds exchanged . 20 Q . In advance of your meeting , y ou ' ve talked 21 a bout th e people you spoke to , the lunch with Ms . 22 Veselnitskaya , and now walking up to the meeting . 23 Did y o u do anything e l se in advance of the 24 meeting to prepare other than reading the synopsis 25 th at you ' ve descr ib ed bef o r e? 110 1 A . No . 2 Q . Did you strategize with anyone? 3 A . No . 4 Q . Did you consult anyone? 5 A . I mean , bear in mind my initial 6 understanding is that I am going to be translating 7 in the meeting . 8 cons ult . 9 translate. 10 I I don ' t need to strateg ize , just need -- I was supposed to Q . And without discl os ing any substan ce , did 11 you cons ult a lawyer before you we nt to t h is 12 meeting ? 13 A . No . 14 Q . And other tha n the s ynop sis , did you see 15 any other d o cuments in advance o f this meeting? 16 And to be cle ar , 17 I understand you ultimately saw t wo synopses . 18 A . Yes , that ' s all I saw . 19 Q . Did you have any communications with the 20 U . S . pers on s t hat were at the meeting before the 21 meet i ng? 22 23 24 25 So did you spea k in adv a nce with -- A . Yeah , I told Rob I wou ld b e th ere , a nd we ' re al way s c oordinating meeting time and people . Q . And fr om th e Trump s ide , had yo u spo ke n to Donald Trump , Jr ., in advance ? 111 didn ' t have no direct access to -- 1 A . No , 2 Q . How about Mr . Kus hne r? 3 A. No . 4 Q . Did you know him before the meeting? 5 A. No . 6 Q . Ha d you e v er communicated with him 7 I before? 8 A. No . 9 Q . How about Mr . Manaf o rt ? 10 A . No . 11 Q . Had you ever communicated with him before 12 the meeting? 13 A. No . 14 Q . You had described th e introductions to 15 the meeting , and you said that Ms . Veselnitskaya 16 i n troduced herself as a private attorney . 17 make a point of describing herself as a " private " 18 at t orney? 19 Did she use that wo r d? A . S h e eith er said " private atto rne y " or 20 " private citizen ." 21 some th i ng l i ke that . 22 But , yeah , she definite l y said Q. Was your understanding that she was 23 distinguishing herself from , 24 gov e rnme n t 25 Did she by contrast , a t to rne y? A . I c an ' t tell right now, but -- a 112 1 MR. BALSER : 2 MR . KAVELADZE : 3 The n that ' s it . Yeah . BY MR . PR I VO R : 4 Q . That ' s all yo u can recall? 5 A . Yeah . 6 Q . At the meeting -- Mr . Davi s had asked you 7 about hac k ing inf ormation , and you stated the re 8 was no dis cus sion of releas i ng any information . 9 Do I have t hat ri ght? 10 A . No , there was no discussion . 11 Q . Was there any dis cu ssion that preceded -- 12 tha t related to hac ki ng a t all? 13 A . No . 14 Q . So not just releasing information. 15 t here any discussion that ema i ls had been hacked? 16 A . No . 17 Q . Or that da ta h ad been hacked? 18 A . No . 19 Q . Was there ever any discussion about Was 20 t rying to obtain informati o n through presumably 21 unlawful means? 22 A . No . 23 Q . There was no discussion of Preet Bharara , 24 none at a ll ? 25 A . No . Not during the meeting . 113 1 Q . And with regard to the documents , you 2 stated that Ms . Vesel nitskaya brought with her the 3 synopsis . That ' s the 11 - page document in Russian? A . I think it ' s around 11 pages . 4 5 10 , could be 12 . 6 in Russian . It ' s in Russian . Could be Yeah , 7 Q . You said that you weren ' t 8 had accepted her offer of that document . 9 know if she left anything behind? A . I don ' t 10 know . it was sure if anyone Do you I know there was an offer 11 to leave it , but if she actually left it or not , 12 don ' t 13 I don ' t recall . Q . And when you walked out o f the meeting , 14 you stated that you left , wen t 15 the lobby . down to the bar in 16 A . Uh - huh . 17 Q. And you were with Ms . Veselnitskaya and 18 Mr . Samochornov? 19 A . Akhmetshin and Samochornov . 20 Q . So the four of you . 21 A . Yeah . 22 Q . Wh o was still in the office when you 23 left ; do yo u recall? 24 A . I don ' t recall . No , I don ' t recall . 25 Q. You had described Mr . Goldstone having I 114 1 some brief words with Mr . Donald Trump , 2 sort of a p ology . 3 standing nearby that they cou l d hear t hat 4 conversation between Mr . Goldstone and Mr . Trump , 5 Jr . ? 6 A . Could be . I don ' t recall who exactly was , bec aus e it was a group of people . 8 de fi nitel y hea rd that one . 10 11 12 13 14 some Was anyone else around sort of 7 9 Jr . , But I Q . Do you recall if Mr . Manafort was still in the room? A . I could only guess . I can ' t -- I don ' t recall . Q . And ho w about Mr . Kushner? Do you recall if he was still behind? 15 A . Same th i ng . I don ' t recall . 16 Q . Do you recall when you left the meet i ng 17 wi th the other t hree that wen t t o the bar , was 18 an y one s til l be hi nd in the me eti ng o r in the 19 office? 20 A . I don ' t recall those details . I ' m sorry . 21 Q . Okay . 22 MR . BALSER : One more question before you 23 leave this topic . Was there anyb od y you met in 24 the kind of reception area as you were leaving the 25 meeting? I think 115 1 MR . KAVELADZE : 2 Ivanka Trump . 3 BY MR . PRIVOR : Yeah. We were greeted by 4 Q . Was she ever present in the meeting? 5 A. No . She was at the reception. She said 6 hello to us , and we said hello , how are you , and 7 we had , like , polite conversation for maybe 1 8 minute . 9 and we left . And then she told us to have a good day , 10 Q . Did you see her after the meeting? 11 A . That was aft er the meeting . 12 Q . Oh , 13 I ' m sorry . Did you see anybody o n your way in to the meeting? 14 A . No . 15 Q . Other than the participants , obviously . 16 A . No . 17 Q . Did you see if anyone else spoke to 18 Ivanka Trump after the meeting other than your 19 casual exchange? 20 A . It ' s hard to say . I think we had t his 21 casua l e xcha ng e a nd moved on . 22 behind . 23 co uld have b ee n t al k ing to . So we l eft her I ' m not sure who she was talking to or 24 MR . O ' DONNELL : This was upstairs , 25 MR . KAVELADZE : Upstairs . right? 116 1 MR. O' DONNELL : 2 ele vato r t o go d ownsta i r s . 3 MR . KAVELADZE : 4 Before you go t on the Upstai r s . BY MR . PR IVOR : Q . Did you see if she was near enough to 5 6 Donald Trump , Jr ., and Rob Goldstone to be part of 7 that conversation where he gave some sort of 8 apology? A . I did not see that . 9 MR . PRIVOR : 10 11 Okay. Very well . My time is up . MR . KAVELADZ E : 12 Oh , apo l ogy? No , definitely 13 not , because apol ogy happened in the room , and we 14 walked out , and she was outsi de . 15 reception area . She was at the So it definite ly was not there . 16 MR. PRIVOR : 17 MR . DAVIS : 18 [Recess at 11 : 47 a . m . to 11 : 57 a . m. ] 19 MR . DAVIS : 20 21 22 23 Okay. Very good . Thank you . We ' re off the record at 11 : 47 . We ' ll go back on the record at 11 : 57 . FURTHER EXAMI NATI ON BY COUNSEL FOR THE MAJORITY BY MR . DAVIS : Q . Mr . Kaveladze , you had mentioned having 24 email and ph one intera ction wi t h Do nald Tr ump , 25 Jr ., in y ears prior to the June 9 , 2016 , meeting . 117 1 2 3 4 Did he give any indication he recognized you by name at that meeting? A . There was no indi cat ion tha t he recognized me . 5 Q . And in your discussions with Ms . 6 Ve selnits kaya surrounding the meeting , did she 7 give you any indication that she was trying to 8 keep the meeting secret? 9 10 11 12 A . No . Q . Did Mr . Akhmetshin give any similar i ndi cation? A . No . As I said , I did n ot h ave 13 interaction with Mr . Akhmetshi n prior to the 14 meeting . 15 Q . Did you have a n y understanding from Aras 16 Agalarov as to who was to be in charge of the 17 group t hat was meeting with the Trump personnel? 18 19 20 A . I had an understanding that Rob Goldstone was in charge of logistics . Q . You previously des cr ibed your job 21 responsibilities with t h e Crocus Gro up. 22 of project where you understood it to be 23 tra nslation , was that outside of the norm of your 24 u s u al job resp o n s ibilities ? 25 A . Actua lly , it ' s a part. Thi s type Not very typical 118 1 part , but , you know , we had numerous meetings with 2 business leaders , 3 leaders . 4 It ' s usually me translating . like overseas international We don ' t usually have a translator . Q . Did Mr . Agalarov give any e xplanation as 5 6 to why h e needed you to fly out from California to 7 New York to translate rather than having a local 8 translator do the job? A. He didn ' t 9 specify that it was all about 10 translat i on. As I said before , he als o wanted me 11 to meet with Ms . Veselnitskaya prior to the 12 meeting and read that synopsis she has and tell 13 him what I think about it . 14 Q . When did you depart New York? 15 A . I bel i eve next morning . 16 BY MR . FOSTER : Q . Sorry . 17 Before you go on , you said he 18 asked you to read the synopsis and tell him what 19 you thought about it . 20 A . Yeah . 21 Q . Did you do that , and when did you do 22 23 that? A . He told me to do that . 24 read the short synopsis first , 25 Californ ia. Basically he - you know , while in And I read a longer synopsis . I I 119 1 didn ' t 2 see much of a difference . the short synopsis , But when I read I called him , said this 3 meeting should be conduct ed o n the level of 4 attorneys , not with these people . We ' re going to 5 be discussing Magnitsky Act . 6 people have nothing to do with Magnitsky Act . 7 he said , 8 was under assumption that we might be meeting with " Great . Than k you ." You know , these And And at that time I 9 attorneys. 10 Then I mentioned again those attorneys , 11 you know , my suggestion that the meeting should be 12 conducted with attorneys r ep rese nt ing the Trump 13 Organization , and that was abo ut it . 14 being surprised when these three individuals 15 showed up . 16 I ' m meeting with these people , 17 some one would make that correction bas ed on my 18 suggestions and we were going to be meeting with 19 attorneys . 20 I remember Alt h ough I had an email saying that I thought that So I was ki nd of surprised that at this point it didn ' t happen . 21 Q . So wh e n y ou say y o u we r e surprised that 22 t hese th ree people showed up , you mean Mana fort , 23 Kushner , and Don , Jr . ? A . Manafort , Trump , Jr ., y eah -- Ku shn er and 24 25 Trump , Jr . 120 Q. Okay . 1 And so I apologize if you ' ve 2 answered this bef o re , but I ' m just a little 3 confused . 4 purpose? So why were you there? What was your A . My purpose was to read that longer 5 6 synopsis , whatever she had over there , and my 7 understanding was that longer synopsis contai ned 8 something which I could alarm Mr . Agalarov about - 9 - you know , I would alarm him , and he would call 10 off the meeting . 11 thing , so there was no alarm or nothing . 12 That synopsis was about same Q . But to be clear , Ms . Vese l n i tskaya didn ' t 13 have any business relationship with the Crocus 14 Group ; is that right ? 15 A . At that point I did not know what was the 16 nature of r elat i onship of Ms . Vesel nitska ya with 17 Crocus Group or Mr . Agalarov . 18 Q . But you were going to go read the 19 synopsis and then translate for he r , 20 t hou ght? 21 A. Yes . is what you During the meeting I as s umed I ' m 22 going to be translating , and pri or to the meet ing 23 I was supposed to read the synop sis and make 24 eva lua tion of t h at synop sis . 25 Q . Did you provide any written evaluation of 121 1 the synopsis or -- 2 A . No . 3 We didn ' t basically I read it . ha ve no time . Just We ha d a little 4 co nver sat io n , got up and -- I got up and left. I 5 mean , we go t u p and left for a meeting . 6 7 Q . I didn ' t mean immediately after the eeting . I meant after -- 8 A. I never commented , no , not in -- no . 9 Q . Okay. So you didn ' t do any s o rt of 10 report after the meeting back t o your boss , 11 " Here ' s wha t 12 A . No . 13 Q . Send an email? 14 A. No . 15 I did " ? You didn ' t wr ite a memo? Just a phone co nversation. Two of them , to be specific . 16 Q . An d do you recall whe n those we r e? 17 A . One was within 30 minutes after the 1 8 meeting ende d , and the other one was wi thin 2 t o 3 19 20 21 22 hours afte r the meetin g ended. Q . Can yo u describe them to the best of your reco llect io n? A . As I mentioned bef or e , the first o ne was 23 basically me reporting that t he meeting went wel l , 24 and the reason I said that because Natalia 25 Ve selnitska ya was right next to me. And the next 122 1 2 3 4 one I said it was complete loss of time . MR . FOSTER: BY MR . DAVIS : Q. You mentioned a casual co n versat i on with 5 I vanka T rump . 6 that conversation? 7 8 9 10 Okay . Do you remembe r the specifics of A . " Good afternoon , g entlemen . Welcome to Trump Tower . " t h ink she welcomed us . How are y ou ? I thi n k that ' s -- I And we said , " Thank you ." And then Akhmetshin said s o me p l easantri e s . He 11 speak s e x ce ll e nt English , a nd h e e xcha ng e d some 12 pleasantries with Ivan ka . 13 Q . Did she gi v e any indica t ion that s h e knew 14 what the purpose of your me et i ng was wi th h e r 15 bro t her? 16 A . No . 17 MR . FOSTER: 18 19 20 21 No. Did you e ven introdu ce yours e l f by name to her? MR . KAVELA DZ E : No , we di d n o t . BY MR . DAVI S : Q . So yo u d iscusse d wi t h my co l lea gue y o ur 22 i nteract i o ns with 23 t h e mee ting . , I ' d li ke y ou t o t a ke a l oo k at a n 2 4 e mail c h a in Bates - stamp e d S J C- KAV- 0 0 2 5 1 . 25 re ga rding will b e Exhibit 7 . This 123 1 [Kaveladze Exhibit 7 was marked for 2 identification . ] 3 BY MR . DAVIS : 4 5 Q. This document states that on June 15 , 2 016 , '"'' asked you , 6 Trump people? 7 was , " How was the meeting with What happened? " " Meeting was boring . And your reply The Russians did not 8 have any bad info on Hillary ." 9 10 A . On Hillary , yeah . His mistake. Q . I be lieve you have already dis cussed this 11 e xchange with my col l eag u e , but I did want to 12 enter this document into the record just so we 13 have it . 14 A . Sure . 15 Q . Next I ' d like you to ta ke a look at an 16 email exchange Bates-numbered SJC-KAV- 00248 as 17 well as 0026 and 27 , and I ' ll explain the 18 dif ferent n umbers . 19 [Kaveladze Exhibit 8 was marked for 20 identification . ] 21 MR . O' DONNE LL : 22 MR . DAVIS : 23 MR. KAVELAD ZE : 24 MS . BRENNAN : 25 MR . DAVIS : 2 60 and 2 67? 0026 a nd 0027 . Thank you . Is it 0026 a n d 00 27? Right , al ong with 2 48 . 124 MR . DAVIS : 1 2 We ' re h avi ng technical diffi cu lties . 3 MR . FOSTER : So can you hand me the exhibit 5 MR . BALB ER: Oh , 6 MR . FOSTER : It ' s no t 7 MR . DAVIS : 4 8 back? attached . I ' ll describe it as we ge t it set up . MR . BALBER : 9 10 sure . Yea h . BY MR . DAVIS : Q . So this is an email chain , Bates numbers 11 12 0026 a nd 27 . 13 to Emin Agalarov and you . 14 atta chment , but the text of the me s sage says , 15 story right now seems eerily weird based on ou r 16 T rump meeting last wee k with the Russian lawyers , 17 et cetera ." 18 headline . 19 stole Dems ' Trump files , firm says ." And Bates 20 n umber 0024 8 is an extension of tha t same emai l 21 c hain . 0026 is an email fr om Rob Gol dst one It has an image " Top And the attached image is a CNN The headline reads , " Russ ia n hackers It ' ll be marked Exhibit 9 . 22 MR . FOSTER : 23 MR . DAVIS : 24 248 will be Exhibit 9 . 25 [Kaveladze Exhibit 9 wa s marked for Okay . That ' ll b e Exh ibit 9 . 125 identification . ] 1 MR . PRIVOR : 2 And the ot her two together wi ll 3 be 8 . MR. DAVIS : 4 5 BY MR . DAVIS : 6 Q. This is a response email from you to Rob 7 Goldstone . 8 That ' s correct . response . Emin does not appear to be on this And your reply , according to this 9 email , is , " Very interesting ." 10 What about the CNN hacking story seemed 11 weird in light of the June 9t h meeting? 12 A . I don ' t 13 story . 14 I didn ' t know what was weird about that think that story was weird . had no relationship with June 9 meeting , It I know 15 that . It was weird that he actually sent that 16 And that was not very -- I didn ' t link . 17 understand the meaning of the word " eeril y ." 18 You know , I later asked my attorney what it means . 19 But I think it was weird that he sent something 20 21 22 23 24 like t hat to me . Q. What did you mean by your response , " Very interesting " ? A . " Very interesting " ? response . I mea n , I d idn ' t It ' s a polite want to call him a 25 weird person or something like that , be cause it 126 1 was we ird for him to send somet h ing like that to 2 me . 3 Q. And , again , was any h ack i ng in any 4 conte xt di scu ssed at the June 9th meetin g? 5 A . Nothing was discussed in meeti ng . 6 Q. Was there a reason you responded just to 7 8 9 Ro b Gol dst one and not also to Emin? A. It ' s my inproficiency with -- sometimes I forget . Instead of " Re pl y to All ," I just do 10 " Repl y ," an d that ' s what it is . 11 to hide that response from Emin , " Ve ry 12 interest i ng ." 13 [Kaveladze Exhibit 10 was marked for 14 15 16 I had no reason identificati o n . ] MR . DAVIS : Next I ' d li ke to look at some documents Ba tes - stamped SJC - KAV - 00158 and 159 , 1 7 whi ch wil l be Exhibit 10 . Th i s is an email sent 18 o n July 7 , 2016 , from you to someone named Vadim , 19 attachin g Crocus -re lated expenses . 20 a moment t o look it over . 21 22 23 24 I ' ll give you [ Paus e . ] BY MR . DAVIS : Q. In general , was your pa rt i c ipa tion in the J une 9th meeting and your trip surrounding that 25 meeting conside r ed a business expense to Crocus? 127 1 A. Sure , yes . 2 Q. The attached transaction document shows 3 two tra n sactions on June 9 , 2016 . 4 " Trump ," and it ' s for $57 . 21. 5 what that transaction was? 6 A . Yeah . 7 Rin a t , Natalia One just says , Do you remember I bought a round of drinks for I ' m not sure if Veselnitskaya 8 drank -- myself , and -- because I left that bar 9 yeah , I b ought a round of drin ks . 10 Q. And the other transacti on listed here is 11 Staples for $20 . 68. 12 transact i on A. Yeah . 13 14 Do you recall what that I forgot my business cards in California , so I ran to Staples to print urgently 1 5 b u s i ness cards . 16 Q. And did the business card s you printed , 17 d i d they match the cont e nt of your no r mal bus i ness 18 card? 19 A . Oh , yeah . 20 Q . So I believe you said you left on the 21 morning of the 10th ; is that correct? 22 A . Correct . 23 Q. After leaving the Trump Bar , what did you 2 4 do with the rest of the day? 25 A . I do not recall . I mi ght have some 128 1 meetings with my friends , but n othi ng business 2 related . 3 Q . Did you discuss the Trump Tower meeting 4 with any of those friends , 5 recollection? 6 to the best of your A . I don ' t even remember if I ha d a meeting 7 with friends , so I def ini tely don ' t remember 8 discussing it with them . 9 t ired because o f a jet lag , because i t I t hin k I was kind of was a red - 10 e y e flight I ar r ived on , and I went to bed really 11 early . 12 [ Kaveladze Exhibit 11 was marked fo r 13 14 identification.] MR . DAVIS : Okay . I ' d like you to take a 15 l ook at the document Ba tes- sta mped SJC - KAV - 00316 16 th r ough 329 . 17 18 19 [Pau se . ) BY MR . DAVIS : Q. This i s a document tha t 2 0 p r od u ced to us . your attorney It appears to show the date , 21 time , and participants of text messages as well as 22 th e messages ' content . 23 description of the nature of t h is document? 24 25 MR . BALBER : Is that a correct From counsel ' s perspect ive , yes , that ' s how we prepared i t . 129 1 2 BY MR . DAVIS : Q. Much of the content is in Russian; is 3 that correct? 4 A . Yes . 5 Q . Could you please ta ke a look at the entry 6 for November 18 , 2016 , at 17 : 45 . This appears to 7 be a message from you to Aras Agalarov . 8 Kaveladze , could you please translate the content Mr . 9 of that message? 10 A . " Hello . Rob spoke with Trump people . 11 They asked a short synopsis of what is she going 12 to be discussing . 13 emotions and less facts . 14 took pa rt in that meeting are moving to 15 Washington , D. C . Last time she produced a lot o f Most of the people who Some of them already f ir ed . 16 Wh en they receive synopsis , they will decide who 17 18 to send to that meeting. " Q . To the best of your knowledge , is this a 19 reference to another attempt by Rob Goldstone to 20 arrange a meeting between Natalia Ves el nitskaya 21 and the Tr ump team? 22 A . Correct . 23 Q . Who initiated this request for another 24 25 meeting? A . Aras Agalarov . At least as far as I ' m 130 1 concerned . 2 yeah . 3 4 5 Maybe Nata lia initiated to Aras , but MR . BALBER : Speak up and just answer based upon what you know . MR . KAVELADZE : Aras Agalarov . 6 BY MR . DAVIS : 7 Q . And what is the basis f o r your knowledge 8 t hat he was the person who initiated this request? 9 A. Because he called me . what d id you discuss? 10 Q . When he called you , 11 A . When he called me , he said that Natalia 12 wants to meet with Trump people aga in to discuss 13 Magn i tsky Act . 14 Q . Okay . You had previously mentioned that 15 in the June 9th meeting , Donald Trump , Jr . , gave 16 some sort of statement to the effect of pe r haps 17 once , if Donald Trump , Sr . , 18 be an issue we would return to . is elected , this would 19 A . Yeah . 20 Q . Did you feel that this was an effort to 21 follow up on that? 22 A . Yes . 23 Q . What was your involvement in pursuing 24 25 this second meet ing? A . I contacted Rob Gold st one and requested 131 1 that meeting . 2 Q . So your text message t o Aras Agalarov 3 says that Rob talked with the Trump pe ople . 4 you know which Trump people h e contacted? 5 A . I have no idea who he spoke with . 6 usual ly would not give me details of that . Q . Okay . 7 Do He Did you h ave any sense of his 8 meth od of contacting them , whether it was by 9 phone , email , or text? 10 A . No . 11 Q . All right . Returning t o the document , 12 the message we were discussing was sent at 17 : 45 , 13 according t o the do cument . 14 minut e s la ter , a t It looks like 13 17 : 58 , it says you sent the same 15 message to a r ecip i ent listed h ere as " unknown ." 16 To wh om did you send this message at 17 : 58 ? 17 [Pa us e . ] 18 MR . BALBER : 1 9 don ' t kn o w . 20 MR . KAVELADZE : 21 BY MR . And if you don ' t I don ' t kn ow , -- I don ' t you know . DAVIS : Q . And according to this same do cument , at 22 23 19 : 00 hours t h at same day , November 1 8 , 2 016 , you 24 sen t 25 Natalia , and that message contained what looks to a message to a contact listed her e as 132 1 be your email address . 2 Was that Natalia Ms . Veselni tskaya? 3 A . Yes . 4 Q. And am I correct that that is your email 5 address? 6 A . That is correct . 7 Q. The document shows that the next day , 8 November 19th , you and Natalia exchanged a series 9 of texts . 10 I ' d like to go through all those texts o n that day and ask you to t ranslate each. 11 A . Sure . 12 Q. So starting with the one at 10 : 56 on 13 November 1 9t h . 14 A . Okay . 15 question . " Irakly , good morning . I have a Do we plan " - - " Is there a meeting in 16 t h e pipeline on our issue before November 27? 17 reason I ' m as kin g is for me to understand because 18 I ' m not sure if I want to leave now o r in one 19 week . My son " The " On the 27th of November , my son Therefore , my " -- " I 20 has a s worn - in ceremon y . 21 could do th e following : 22 would depart tomorrow and arrive into Moscow on 23 November 26 , and then on November 28 I would 24 return to U. S . a nd will stay h ere until I resolve 25 all issues ." Yeah . I c ou ld l e ave U. S ." II I 133 Q . And then the next on e is at 14 : 05 -- I ' m 1 2 sorr y , is at 10 : 56 again is a ls o Nat a lia? 3 A . Yeah . 4 Q . Coul d you translate that one as well? 5 A . I think that one word is incorrect . II I 6 only want to understand , if you ' re trying to 7 arrange " -- " trying to res olv e our issues . Can I 8 expect a meeting with someone next week? " 9 10 Q . And then it looks like you responded at 14 : 05 . 11 A . Oh - huh . 12 Q . Could you t ransla te that a s well? 13 A . Sur e . 14 15 " Hello , Natalia . Meeting was n ot " " So far meeting was not con fir med . for s y nopsis . They asked In general , next wee k will be 16 diffi cu lt for an y type of mee ti ngs because of 1 7 Than ksg iving Day . " 18 19 Q . And then i t looks l ike at 14 : 09 Natalia responded . 20 A . " Understood . 21 on Monday i n English . 22 Thanksgiving Day I should arrive n ext Sunday . 23 Ho pef ully by th at time you wo uld be clear what ' s I will send you a syn ops is Maybe considering the 2 4 happen in g with the mee ti ng ." 25 Q . And that l oo ks like she sent an ot h e r text 134 1 2 at 14 : 0 9 to you . A. Right . It says , " Th at was question ." 3 Because she forgot to put que sti on mark . 4 5 6 7 8 Q. All right. And then your response at 14 : 17 , could you translate that for us as well? A. " I think that would be right way to approach ." Q. And , again , it looks like she responded 9 at 14 : 20 . 10 A . Yeah . 11 Q. Could y ou translate that one as well? 12 A . " While you were answering to me , things 13 got much simpler than they were before . The 14 sworn-in ceremony f or my son was postponed to 15 December 4 , so , therefore , I would leave for 16 Moscow tomorrow and will be back in New York " 17 " in Ame rica as soon as the meeting is confirmed , 18 until Dec ember 2nd inclusive. 19 sent to you most likely on Tue sday ." 20 Synopsis will be Q. Now , the document also shows that on 21 November 23 , 20 16 , Natalia te xted you at what ' s 22 labeled as 15 : 54 . Could you translate that 23 message for us as well? 24 25 A . " Irakly , good morning . your email ." The letter is in 135 1 Q . S o keep this exhi bit ha nd y . We ' ll be 2 coming back to i t . 3 you t ake a loo k at the e ma il a n d atta chme n t 4 stamped SJC - KAV - 00040 thr ough 43 , wh i ch would be 5 Exhib it 12 . 6 [ Ka veladze Exhibit 12 was mar ke d for 7 8 9 But r ight n ow I ' d l i ke to have Bates - ide n tification . ] BY MR . DAVIS : Q . This e mail was sent on Nove mber 23 , 2016 , 10 at 7 : 49 a . m., according to the sent li ne . Am I 11 correct that t hi s email is Natalia s e n d ing you the 12 synopsis as an a ttachment in English? 13 A . That is correct . 14 Q . Cou ld you ple ase t ra nslate th e body of 15 16 t h e email? It look like there ' s a line o r two . A . " Good day . I ' m sendi n g synopsis . Also , 17 i n addition , also in English , 18 documents I mentioned , whi ch is dec larati on and 19 request . 20 Veselni ts kaya . 21 22 I am available . I ' m sending the NV . " Natalia Q . The subject of this email is " From RF " . What does " RF " stand for? 23 A . Russian Federation country . 24 Q . Okay . 25 And what did you und erstand t h at subject line to mean ? 136 1 A . It ' s a letter from Russia . 2 Q . Okay . So did you understand that to mean 3 that the le tt er was from the Russian Government or 4 just from a p ers on within Rus sia ? 5 6 7 A . Fr om a person within Russia . RF is certainly not abbreviation for Rus sian Government . Q . Okay . Next I ' d lik e you to take a look 8 at a document Bates-stamped SJC - KAV - 00136 - 137 . 9 This will be Exhibit 13 . 10 [Kaveladze Exhibit 13 was marked for 11 12 13 identification.] BY MR . DAVIS : Q . This appears to be an email chain also on 14 November 23 , 20 1 6 , between you and Rob Goldstone 15 in which you forwarded him Ms . Vesel nitska ya ' s 16 synopsis of the topics she wa nte d t o discuss wi th 17 t he Trump peop le. Is tha t co rr ect? 18 A . Yes. 19 Q. I ' ll give you a moment to look it over . 20 A . Uh - huh . 21 [Pause . ] 22 MR . KAVELADZE : 23 24 25 Yes , I remember this email . BY MR . DAVIS : Q. I f you could please look at the message from Mr . Goldstone to you at 8 : 16 a . m . Mr . 137 1 Goldstone writes , 2 this exactly what she presented at the last 3 meeting? " 4 she talked about at first me eting ." 5 " Having s kirnmed it over , You replied , Is that true? " Yes , isn ' t pretty close to what Was the content of this 6 synopsis similar to the content of the June 9 , 7 2016 , meeting? 8 A . Yes , 9 Q . Were there any material differences? 10 it is true. A . I don ' t 11 campaign , 12 I think think she ' s mentioning Democratic funding of Democratic campaign in this . can I look over? 13 Q . Of course . 14 MR . BALBER : And , obviously , in fairness , 15 he ' s look i ng for anything that really strikes you 16 as being material with the understanding that you 17 haven ' t 18 they ' re , what , 19 that ju st strikes you as being significantly 20 different . rea d the othe r ones in a long time and a 10-page document . Is that fair? That is fair . 21 MR . DAVIS : 22 MR . KAVELADZE : 23 what she sent before . 24 BY MR . DAVIS : 25 So anything Yeah , it ' s ver y close to Q . La ter in the email chain , Goldstone 138 " I have to submit this and then speak to 1 writes , 2 Don and Rhona , and then wait to see if they want 3 to have a meeting ." 4 be in this email a referen c e to? Who did you understand Don to 5 A . My understanding was Don , Jr . 6 Q . I ' d like to look back at the exhibit with 7 8 9 the text messages now . MR. FOSTER : Exhibit 11 . BY MR. DAVIS : 10 Q . Exhibit 11 , at Bates page 317 . 11 A . Uh - huh . 12 Q . There is an entry for a text message on 13 November 27 , 2016 , 14 Could you translate that message for us , please? 15 from Natalia to you at 1 7 : 27 . A . " Irakly , good day . 16 successful holidays . 17 on the meeting? 18 left , Monday and Tuesday ." 19 20 21 I hope you had Is there any understanding I ' d like to plan 2 days I ' ve got Q . And could you please translate the response he sent her 2 minutes later at 17 : 29? A . " Hello , Natalia . I ' m afraid we will have 22 some understanding only tomorrow morning when 23 everybody returns from a long weekend . 24 you kn o w." 25 Q . And I apol o gize f o r I will let jumping around again , 139 1 but I ' d like to have yo u take a look at an email 2 and attachment , Bates -numbered DJT JR- 00245 th r ough 3 2 48 . MR . FOSTER: 4 Wh i c h will be marked Exhibit 5 14 . 6 [Kaveladze Exhibit 14 was marked for 7 8 ide n tific ati on . ) BY MR . DAVIS : 9 Q . The first email c hronolog ically in this 10 c hain is from Mr . Goldstone to Rhona Graff , who is 11 Donald Trump ' s assista nt , Donald Trump , Sr . 12 Go ldstone writes , 11 Aras Agalaro v has a sked me to 13 pass on th is docume nt in the h ope it can be passed 14 on to the appropriate team . 15 re pres enting the case is in New Yor k currently and If needed , a lawyer 16 happy to meet with any member of his transit ion 17 team . 11 18 The document he attached to this email is 19 the same synopsis Ms . Veselnitskaya emailed you 20 and you forwarded to Mr. Goldstone ; is that 21 correct? 22 A . Hold on one second . 23 [Pause . ] 24 MR . KAVELADZE : 2 5 document . Yes , it looks like the same 140 1 BY MR . DAVIS : 2 Q . And I would note the e mail chain shows 3 Ms . Gra f f forwarding the email to S t eve Bannon , 4 wr iting i n pa r t , 5 all . " Not sure how to proceed , i f at II 6 A. Uh - huh . 7 Q . Now , re turnin g again t o Exhibit 11 , the 8 lo g of text messages , could you tra nsla te the 9 series of messages between you and Natalia 10 beginning on November 28th? 11 bottom of page 37 . 12 A . " Hello , Natalia . That ' s towards the Unfortunately , we got 13 no respo n se . 14 kind o f reques t now take much longe r to p r ocess ." 15 Okay . 16 17 18 Secretary of Trump told that this Should I go to the n ext one? Q . Yes , the next one at 21 : 28 , it looks like . A . Okay . Hold o n . 19 with reception " -- yeah , 20 " Ro ber t is on the phone " reception . Hop eful ly we ' 11 hear something until the end of the day ." 21 Q . Okay . And -- 22 MR . BALSER: 23 MR . KAVELADZE : 24 MR . BALBER : 25 MR . KAVE LA DZ E: It looks like you -I corrected myself . Rig h t . Because the fi r st one , it 1 41 1 says l ike it was a mistake , typographical mi stake , 2 and it says " hear from them . " 3 " Understood . 4 BY MR . DAVIS : Wai ting ." Q . Al l 5 And she said , right . If we co uld tu rn the page to 6 Bates number 318 , a message from yo u to Natalia at 7 23 : 06 . Could you translate t h at o ne for us as 8 wel l , pl ea se? A . 23 : 06 : 9 10 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Ro b left a n other message . " Q . And it looks like Natalia res ponded at 11 12 " So far they ' re silent . 23 : 53 . Could you translate that o ne as well? A . " Coul d that mean there ' s lack of interest? " Q . I t looks l ike you respo nd ed a t 11 : 08 . Co uld yo u translate that as well? A . " Most l ikely what it means l ogistically they ' re not ready yet ." Q . At 11 : 15 Natal ia wrote you ba c k wit h a resp onse . Cou ld I ask y ou to tr anslate that 2 1 message for us as well? 22 A . " Understood . I ha v e ti ck ets for tomorrow 23 to Moscow . Can we somehow unders t and should I 24 exchange them an d re quest a mee ting ne xt week s o I 25 cou ld fly back to U. S . ? I need to be in Moscow 142 1 only for this weekend ." Q. Okay . 2 3 And then you rep li ed at 11 : 18 . Could you translate yo ur response , please? 4 A . " Robert says that logistics of 5 organizations of meetings wit h Team Trump now 6 would be difficult and lengthy . 7 Moscow . 8 I will discuss this situation with boss " " with my boss ." Q . Okay . 9 10 I ' ve landed in And when you refer to boss , did you mean Aras Agalarov? 11 A . Mr . Agalaro v . 12 Q . And what did you discuss with him? 13 A . This meeting . 14 I ' m reporting to him that it does not look good , and I was -- yeah . 15 Q . Further down the page , on December 1st -- 1 6 actually , I ' m sorry . Let me back up . On November 17 30 th on this document , it looks like Ms . 18 Veselnitskaya emailed you about President - e l ect 19 Trump meeting with Preet Bharara . 20 please translate the messages tha t begin at 17 : 20 21 o n Novemb er 30t h ? 22 23 A . " Maybe that ' s the reason . Is that a bad sign? " 24 25 Could you Q . And t h e n it loo k s like you r es ponded at 17 : 22? 143 1 A . " I do n ' t thi n k i t ' s a bad s i gn ." 2 po i nt I have no idea who Preet Bharara is . 3 left him " -Q . I ' m sorry . 5 A . " He left him . How is it possible? " Continue? 7 Q . Yes , please . 8 A . " Or maybe just a game . 9 10 11 12 Q . Now , to cla r i f y , have you eve r d i scussed Pr eet Bha r ara with Ms . Veseln it skaya? 14 Q . Okay . Did y o u understand what she meant by this? A . No . I mean , I Googled that name , and I 17 realized she ' s talking about some prosecutor from 18 New Yo rk . 19 MR . BALBER : 20 name before that . 21 22 23 24 25 o Ma ybe ." A . No . 16 Maybe he wants control h im that way , who to c r ush or who not . 13 15 " He That ' s Natalia ' s response . 4 6 At that But you ha d never heard the MR . KAVELADZE : No , no . BY MR . DAVIS : Q . But after Googling it , did you learn that he was overseeing the Prevezon Holdings case? A . I did not -- I don ' t believe at that 144 1 point I -- late r I read it in the media , in the 2 press . 3 Q. And at that point did you understand Ms . 4 Veselnitskaya ' s rela tionship with Prevezon 5 Holdings? A . Yeah , wel l , I ' m not su re at wha t p oint , 6 7 b ut I th ink by the end of 2016 or ea rly 2017 I 8 understood that she ' d been re pres enting Prevezon 9 Holdings . 10 Q . Okay . So as of November 30 th , there had 11 been no connection with the Trump team to agree on 12 a sec ond meeting ; is that correct? 13 A . No connection to Trump team? 14 Q. You hadn ' t arranged for a second meeting 15 as of No vember 30th ; is that correct? 16 A . There was no sec o nd meeting arranged , no . 17 Q . Okay . 18 Dec ember 1 , 2016 , at 11 : 4 9 , you sent a message to 19 Natalia . 20 21 22 23 24 25 Looking down a t the entry for Could y ou translate that one for us as well? A . At 11 : 49 , " Unfortunate l y , we don ' t have communica ti on . My boss planned to meet with him . We will send a f o rmal request . Hopefully after the meeting we will keep communication ." Q . When you wrote that your boss planned to 145 1 meet with him , did you mean that Aras Agalarov 2 intended to meet with Do nald Trump , Sr . ? 3 A . Correct . 4 Q . Okay . 5 Q. 6 Q . And did you se n d a formal request for the 7 Did such a meeting occur? No . second meeting? 8 A . For a se cond meeting? 9 Q . A request fr om Aras Agalarov to Donald 10 Trump , Sr . 11 him 12 13 14 15 16 With whom? Was there ever a written request from MR . BALBER : For a second meeting meaning what was the fi r st meeti n g? MR . DAVIS : For a meeting between Veselni t s ka ya and anyone on the Trump team. MR . BALBER : Okay . I ' m sorry . Would you 1 7 mind starting over? 18 19 20 21 22 MR . DAVIS : No problem . BY MR . DAVI S : Q . So could you translate the message at 11 : 49 again? A . " Unfortunately , at th is point we don ' t 23 have cornrnunica tion . Boss was planning to meet 24 with him . 25 mee t ing hopefully we ' 11 have communication ." We will send request . After the 146 Q . Okay . 1 When you said , " We ' ll send a 2 request ," were you referring to a request to have 3 Mr . Agalarov meet with Mr . Trump? Is that what -- 4 A . Yeah . 5 Q . Okay . 6 A . The request was never sent . 7 Q . All right. I understand now . So in the message following 8 that on December 1 , 2016 , at 12 : 07 , Natalia 9 responds to you . 10 we ll ? A . " Can I meet with your boss? 11 12 Can you translate that one as We could meet at the same place we met with him ." Q . Okay. 13 So in that message , she asks 14 Ms . Veselnitskaya asks for a meeting with you r 15 boss . 16 email and attachments Bates-numbered SJC-KAV-00255 17 to 258 . 18 [Kaveladze Exhibit 15 was marked for I ' d like to have you take a look at the Thi s will be Exhibit 15 . 19 20 21 22 identification . ] MR . BALBER : Thank you . BY MR . DAVIS : Q. Th is i s an email sent from you to Aras 23 Agalarov on December 2 , 2016 , which attached the 24 text message exchange between you and Natalia in 25 which she asked to meet your boss . Is that 147 1 correct? 2 A . Amo ng o ther messa g es . 3 Q. Among other messa g es . Did Aras Agalar o v 4 meet with Ms . Veselnitskaya after you sent him 5 this email? 6 A . I believe he did . 7 Q . Do you know what they discussed? 8 A. 9 Q . Turning back to Exhibit 11 , the text No . 10 messages on Bates - numbered pages 3 19 and we ' ll 11 move o n to 320 . 12 these messages between you and Ms. Veselnitskaya , 13 but look ing over them , would it be generally 14 co rre ct to say that in December o f 2 016 , as well 15 as January of 2 01 7 , you and Ms . Veselnitskaya were 16 discussing American attitudes towards Russia and 17 investiga ti ons of Russian interference in the 2016 18 e le ction? 19 I won ' t ask you to translate all Is that an accurate general summary? A . It wo uld be accurate to suggest that she 20 periodically wou l d send me some links or ask me 21 questions , and sometimes I would answer to those 22 questions . 23 Can I take a pause , please? 24 MR . DAVIS : Of course . 25 [Witness confers with counsel . ] 148 MR . BALBER : 1 2 Let me sugges t , if I can , that you ask the witne s s about why he sent Ex hi b i t 15 3 a nd maybe a li ttl e more g ra nu lari ty o n wh a t th e 4 te x ts t h at are a screens h ot actually say . 5 that might add some -MR . KAVELADZE : 6 I think Th at wou l d be connected to - 7 MR . BALBER : 8 -- shed some light on th e 9 q ues t i o n y ou j u s t a s ked . 10 11 MR . DAVIS : Okay . Certainly , yeah , if you could go through those attachments a n d explai~ 12 MR . BALBER : Why d o n ' t y o u t r a ns late the 13 text messages t h at are attached to Ex h ibit 11 , and 14 then maybe you can exp l ain why you se n t them to 15 Mr . Agalarov . 16 MR . FOSTER : You mean attached to Exhibit 18 MR . BALBER : 15 . 19 MR . KAVELADZE : 17 15 . " Unfortu n ately , there ' s no 20 commun ica tion . Boss was planning to meet wi th 21 him . 22 have communication . 23 the same pla ce we met? 24 b e t omorrow. We ' ll ma ke a request and h opeful l y we ' ll Can we meet with your boss He ' s tra veli ng . I ' ll relate that to him. 25 maybe it ' s just a game . He will Okay . Or May b e th at way he wants 149 1 to control him , who to destroy and who not . 2 Maybe . Is t here any understandi ng o f what ' s " 3 " Is the r e any " -- okay -- " any feedback from th ei r 4 side to understand what ' s happening there? " And 5 then he sends me that Donald Trump 6 MR . BALBER : 7 MR . KAVELADZE : 8 sends me . 9 know . 10 11 12 him . She sends you . She sends me , yeah . " That ' s a bad sign ." I said , I don ' t think it ' s a bad sign . She " I don ' t He left How is it p ossible? " The reason I ' ve s ent this whol e chain of tex t messages to Mr . Agalarov , be ca use at that 13 point I was very frustrated because she was 14 bombardi n g me with this thing . I did not 15 unders tand the nature of relationship between her 1 6 and Mr. Agalarov , and I didn ' t want to compla i n to 17 he r , so I kin d o f complained to him, saying t hat 18 this must stop . I mean , I don ' t l ike that . And 19 he told me to give example of wha t she d o es , and 20 I ' ve sent thi s whole t hing to him. 21 BY MR . DAVIS : 22 Q. And how did he respond after you sen t 2 3 t his exampl e? 24 A . He told me t h a t h e h a d conversation with 2 5 Natalia and she ' s not going to b ot her me anymo r e . 150 1 Q . Turning back to Exhibit 11 on Bates pages 2 320 and 32 1 , I won ' t ask you to translate all of 3 these again , but it appears that you exchanged 4 some messages with Ms . Veselnitskaya about her 5 traveling to New York . 6 towards the bot tom of 32 0 . 7 A . Okay . 8 Q . That ' s right . 9 A . Okay . Is th a t One second . correct? Oh, It ' s bottom of 320? I believe so . I ' m sending the message to Natalia 10 saying , " Are you going to be in New York this 11 week? " And she says , 12 right now , 4 hours left , and I will be in New 13 York ." 14 15 Q . Okay . " Irakly , I ' m in the air Could you please -- on page 321 , could you please translate the message excuse 16 me , the messages -- the message beg i nning on 17 18 19 20 21 January 1 7 , 2017 , at 17 : 26 f r om you t o Natalia? · A . " Hello , welcome . Would you like to meet with attorney 11 : 00 a . m . on Friday? " Q . Who is the attorney you were offering t o have her meet with at 11 : 00 a . m . ? 22 A . Scott Balber . 23 Q . And in what capacity was she to be 2 4 meeting with him? 25 A . She would be meeting with him? 151 1 MR . BALSER : 2 her meet with me? MR . KAV ELA DZE : 3 4 Why were you arranging to have Act - related . She did -- it ' s Magnitsky At that point I tried to distance 5 myself out of the situation , and being a good man , 6 I decided to involve Scott in th is situation . MR . BALBER : 7 8 Or maybe not a good man . Depends h ow you look at it . MR . DAVIS : 9 10 Best of intentions , perhaps . MR . KAVELADZE : Yeah , but -- yeah . And so I 11 tried - - yeah , she had some issues , you know , let 12 professionals deal with it . 13 with tha t. 14 BYMR . ' DAVIS : 15 I don ' t want to deal Q . To the best of your knowledge , did that 16 meeting occur? 17 A . I be lieve so . 18 Q . Could you also translate Natalia ' s two 19 responses to you , both at 17 : 33? 20 A . Okay . She ' s asking if we could hope for 21 the meeting with someone from a team of number 22 one . 23 24 25 I assume she ' s talking about Trump. Q . So you understood that to be a reference to -A . Yeah . 152 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Q . -- trying to have a meeting with the Trump team. A . Yeah , And I say , she was obsessed with this meeting . " I don ' t think so . Let ' s discuss on Friday ." Q . Okay . What did you discuss with her on that Friday? A . We -- I didn ' t discuss -- well , we 9 discussed this meeting situation . 10 told her th at it ' s not happening . 11 happening . 12 attorney . 13 Basically I It ' s not And then I did an introduction to Q . So , Mr . Kaveladze , to the best o f your 14 knowledge , did Ms . Veselnitskaya ever have a 15 second meeting with anyone on the Trump team? 16 17 18 A . To the best of my kn owle dge , she did not have a meeting with anyone from Trump team . MR . DAVIS : I think we ' re at a good stopping 19 point for our side right now. 20 record a t? We ' ll go off the 21 MR . FOST ER : 22 MR . DAVIS : 23 [Recess at 12:4 8 p . m . to 1 : 26 p . m . ] 24 12 : 48 . 12 : 48 . 153 AFTERNOON SESSION 1 2 3 4 5 [1 : 26 p . m . J MR . PRIVOR : We will go back on the record . It is 1 : 26 . FURTHER EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE MINORITY 6 BY MR . PR IVOR : 7 Q . Okay. Mr . Kaveladze , before the break , 8 our colleagues had discussed a number of different 9 topics , so as with the morning , 10 I ' m going to probably bounce around a little bit . 11 A . Sure . 12 Q . So my apologies in advance , but we ' ll try 13 to keep the chronology roughly in order . 14 So after the June 9 th meet i ng , you talked 15 about how you went downstairs to the bar on the 16 lobby level of the Trump Towe r , and you were there 17 with three othe r people - - Ms . Ves elnitskaya , 18 Rinat Akhmetshin , and Mr . Samochornov . 19 A . Yeah , uh-huh . 20 Q. 21 A . I think Samochornov left slightly Do I have that right? 22 earlier , like - - but I ' m not sure about 23 Samochornov because -- or maybe he stayed , but , 24 yeah , those - - we walked all together and then 25 some of them -- and I left in 15 minutes . 154 Q . And you had a round o f drinks with them , 1 2 we saw . Do you recall what conversa ti on you had 3 du rin g that round of drinks? A . Mostly about meeting , and out of that 15 4 5 min ute s , probably 5 minu tes I spoke with Mr . 6 Agalarov , and for 1 0 minutes it was I think 7 t he y were satisfied with the fact that Mr . Junior 8 has suggested that it might be a second meeting if 9 they win . 10 And so they were talking about that , you kn ow , t o prepare for that second meeting . 11 Q . You ' re saying that the othe r people who 12 were present with you were satisfied with that. 13 Do I unde r stand y ou correctly ? 14 A . Yeah , people -- yeah . 15 They were pretty happy , actually . 16 Q . Di d you als o convey t hat to Mr . Agalarov 17 on the telephone that there was an offer of a 18 potential -- another meeting? A . No , I didn ' t discuss it with Mr . 19 20 Agalarov . 21 Q . What did you discuss with Mr . Agalarov? 22 A . In general , the meeting went well . Oh , 23 good . Then Natalia asked for the phone , and I 24 passed the phone to her , and she kind of thanked 25 him f or helping to organize that mee ti ng . 155 1 Q . Did you say anything to Mr . Agalarov 2 abou t the matt e r that had given yo u some concern 3 ea r lier , the potent ial information about Hill a ry 4 Clinton? 5 A . No , 6 Q. In your conversat io ns wit h the people who I didn ' t discuss it over the ph on e. 7 were present , did they ha ve any reaction to the 8 meeting tha t has just occurred , the June 9th 9 meeting , other than you expressed they seemed 10 11 happy about a potent ial second oppo rt unity? A . They were hap py. Look , the y went to the 12 bar , an d Rinat start ed this con vers ati on ab out the 13 theater play they were attending th at night . 14 so we mos t ly spoke ab o ut the thea t er and 15 because I saw that play a few months ago , and I 16 l iked it very much , and I said it ' s amazing . 17 author is amazing . 18 people are amazing , and it ' s just you can enjoy . 19 And s o we mostly talked ab out theater . And -- The There are -- you know , the 20 Q . What theater play wa s it ? 21 A . Okay . I could tell ~- okay . 22 c alled " St orie s " by Vasily Shukshin . 23 th ea trical troupe on the tour . 24 Va sil y Shukshin . 25 pretty famo u s Russian actress . The play is It ' s a " Sto ries " by And lead ing r ole was played by Her name is 156 1 Chulpan Khamatova . 2 see her . 3 And they were all excited to Q. So other than the excitement for the 4 upcoming play , some happiness about a potential 5 sec ond opportunity -6 A . Not much -- yeah 7 MR . BALBER : 8 BY MR . 9 10 Let him finish t he question . PR IVOR : Q. Was there any other rea ct ion to the -following the June 9th meeting? 11 A . Not really . 12 Q . It sounds like the other participants 13 were expressi ng that they were happy . 14 Was there any expression of regret or d i ssatisfaction? 15 A. No . 16 Q. Did anybody say anything about , 17 i n stance , you know , 18 cover some other topic , but we didn ' t for " We expected to be able to have that 19 opportunity " ? 20 A . No , they did not . 21 Q . Is there anything else you can remember 22 from the conversation other than the two topics 23 t ha t 24 some happi n ess about a p otential second 25 you note d -- the t hea ter coming up as well as A . I stayed there for , like I said , 15 157 1 minutes . 2 No , I don ' t think we discussed anything else . 3 Q. Did you all le ave simultaneously? 4 A. No . 5 Q . So the other three - - Rinat , Ms . I left first . 6 Veselnitskaya , and Mr . Samochornov -- stayed 7 behind? 8 9 10 11 A . Yeah . I ' m a l ittle bit unsure about Samochornov , but the key playe r s we re there . Q . Did anyone else join your group while you were there? 12 A . No . 13 Q . Was there anyone that you recognized wh o 14 was n earby , n ea r enough that they might h ave heard 15 you r conversation? 16 A . No . 17 18 19 20 21 Mostly people over 60 , Trump supporter s , mostly males . MR . BALBER : You had a conversation with them about who they supported politically? So then let ' s try to pay atte nti on to what we ' re saying and what you sa w. 22 MR . KAVELADZE: 23 MR . BALBER : 24 25 Okay . All right . Tha nk you . BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . What gave you the impression that these 158 1 2 3 4 5 were Trump supporters? A . Well , we ' re in Trump Tower . assumption . MR . BALBER : That was not a good assumption to make then and not a good thing to testify about 6 now , so let ' s refocus . 7 8 9 10 I made MR . KAVELADZE : Okay? Yeah. BY MR. PRIVOR : Q . Was there any activity on their part that gave yo u that impression? 11 A . Nothing. 12 Q . So it was just people in the Trump Tower? 13 A . Yeah . 14 Q . Were you seated when you were with the 15 Trump Bar of Trump Tower . other th re e participants? 16 A. We were seated , yeah . 17 Q . Were you at a table or 18 A . Table . 19 Q . Was it a private table? 20 21 22 23 Was anyone nearby? A . There were people near . It ' s a bar , so yeah , the r e ' s people nearby . Q . What time did the meeting break up? You 24 said earlier , you testified that it was about 35 25 minutes . 159 A . Yeah , 1 2 35 to 40 minutes , time we got there , Q . Okay . 3 yeah . By the it probab l y was like 4 : 45 . After you l e ft this group , where 4 d id you go next? 5 A . I don ' t 6 Q . And then you went back t o your hotel that 7 remember . I don ' t recall . evening? 8 A . Yeah . 9 Q . You said you turn ed in a little e arly? 10 A . Yeah . 11 Q . An d when you woke up , where did you go 12 after t hat? 13 14 A. I know it was not business -r elated . maybe ate s omething and went to the airport . 15 Q . Di d yo u leave t h at evening? 16 A. I 17 Q . Yes . 18 A . No . 19 Q . You slept over night . 20 A . Yeah . 21 Q . An d so y ou left the nex t day on June 22 I left -- that eveni n g mean in g J une 9? I slept at the hotel . 10th? 23 A . Ye ah , June 10 . 24 Q . Where did you fly to? 25 A . Los Angeles . 160 1 2 Q . So on June 10th you flew to Los Angeles , and di d you stay in Los Angeles? 3 A . Yeah . 4 Q . And do you recall how long you were in 5 Los Ange l es after that? 6 A . No , 7 Q. 8 New Yor k, I d on ' t. Do you re c all if yo u had tra ve led back to say , at any other time in June? 9 A . I don ' t believe I trave l ed to New York . 10 Q . Do yo u recall whether you had any other 11 travel f or the rest of June? 12 13 A . No , Q . What would you look to to figure out where you were? 16 17 I would need to see my rec ords . 14 15 I don ' t . A . No . Do you keep a cal endar? I would l ook for some k ind o f airline reservati o ns . Q. If I can have you take a look at Exhibit 18 19 7 , whic h you have in front of y ou . You ' ll recall 20 this is th e exchange you had with 21 where you had responded to ou r query about the 22 meeting and saying that it was boring , Russians 23 di d n ' t have any bad information on Hillary . 24 If you go to the beginning of that email 25 c hain , the first - in - time ema il , which is on Bat es 161 1 page 252 , you were describing there how you had 2 left your iPad on the plane to New York and you 3 must have left your suit in the hotel . This is on 4 June 14th that you ' re writing to her . 5 recall where you were in between June 10th and 6 June 14th? 7 A . No , I don ' t . 8 Q. And you ' ll see that you ' re corresponding 9 wi th her . I don ' t Do you reca l l that . The most - recent - in - time conversation is 10 the one at the top of the page , on Ba tes page 251 , 11 where you descr i be the meeting as boring . 12 still communicating with 13 which suggests you ' re not in the same place . 14 you recall if you were , in fact , back in Los 15 Angeles communicating with 16 17 via email , ? me. Q. 19 A . So we communicate via ema i l 21 Do She lives separately from A. 18 20 You ' re I see . sometimes when I ' m n ot with her . Q. Does seeing this exchange w i t h . does that refresh your recollection in 23 terms of where you were physically at the time? 24 A . It ' s probably about that my stage is 4 25 days later . You know , I ' m communicating to her 162 I mean , it ' s probably - - I ' d 1 ab out that trip . 2 want to see my tra v el record s to be sure . 3 sure do n ' t 4 14th . 5 10 that I forgot my suit and I forgot my iPad on 6 the pla ne . 8 remember returning back to New York on I think I ' m referring to tha t trip on June Q . Okay . 7 But I So you think that ' s referencing the return from Ne w York to Los Angeles? 9 A . I think s o , yeah . 10 Q . And setting aside whether you might have 11 traveled t o New Yo rk , d o yo u re cal l traveling 12 anywhere else after June 10th in the month o f 13 June? 14 15 16 A . I don ' t recall anything . I could have , though . MR . PRIVOR : We ' re going to ma rk ou r next 17 e xhib it , which I think we ' re on 16 . 18 [Kaveladze Exh i bit 16 was marked f o r 19 20 21 identifi c ation . ] BY MR . PRI VOR : Q . So , for the rec ord , whi le you look that 2 2 over , t his is Exhibit 16 . It ' s Bates page SKC - 23 KAV - 002 70 a n d it sh ould go through 291 , and this 24 appears to be a telephone bil l 25 addressed t o yo u , Mr . Kaveladze . from ~ Do y ou rec og niz e 163 1 the document? 2 A . 291? 3 Q . Just the whole d ocument. It starts on 4 page 270 . 5 A . Ye ah , I do . 6 Q . Is that your telephone bill? 7 A . I believe so . 8 Q . Let ' s turn to the third page , which has 9 272 at the bottom . 10 It ' s - bill . Do you see the Bates number in the bottom right - hand corner , 272? 11 A . Oh , yeah . 12 Q . Okay . You ' ll see this lists fi ve 13 different p hone n umbers that appear to be part of 14 this account . 15 telephone number , whose number is tha t? The one at the top, the 9- 1 - 7 16 A . Th at ' s mine . 17 Q . That ' s your personal line? 18 A . Yes . 19 Q . And the next one down , I ' ll just refer to 20 them by the last two digits for sake of privacy . 21 The II number? II is my 22 A. 23 Q . Okay . 24 25 th e II A. number? And how about the next one down , 164 1 Q . That ' s ? 2 A . Uh - huh . 3 Q . And the 4 A. 5 Q . And how about the last one , 6 A. 7 Q . That ' s also 8 A. 9 Q . So let ' s take a look now at Bates page -· - ? is 1, the I ? yes . 10 282 , and you ' ll see that this is sho wing call 11 details for your telephone number . 12 that? Do you see 13 A . Yes . 14 Q . At the top of the page , it indicates it ' s So I want to point you to 15 your telephone number . 16 June 10th , and you can see the first call on J une 17 10th is at 10 : 34 in th e morning . 18 A . Uh - huh . 19 Q . 10 : 34 . Yes . Two numbers down below that , 20 12 : 36 and 12 : 48 , do yo u recognize either of those 21 telephone n umbers? 22 A . No , I do not . 23 Q . You can see t h at the d estination for t h e 24 first one , the one that ends i n 25 MOB . II 11, says Do you know what that mean s? " Russia 165 1 A. Mobile number . 2 Q . Mobile . 3 it , the Ill And the number immediately below number , do you recognize that number? 4 A . I do not . 5 Q . So this is on June 10th , the day after 6 the June 9th meeting . 7 anybody on a Russian mobile phone on June the 8 10th? 9 Do you recall calling A . I call Russia a lot , so I don ' t 10 specifically those two calls . 11 you know , when you look at yo ur phone , 12 names , you don ' t 13 14 MR . BALBER : see numbers . Okay . And the problem is , you see So if -- The only question is : Do you know the numbers? 15 MR . KAVELADZE : 16 MR . BALBER : 17 MR . KAVELADZ E : 18 numb ers . 19 BY MR . PRIVOR : 20 recall No . Okay . Then that ' s it. I don ' t re cogn ize the Q . Would you be able to match the numbers to 21 names in your phone book or your electronic 22 directory? 23 A . I could try . 24 MR . PRIVOR : 25 request . It ' s in my phone book . We ' ll just make that as a 166 1 MR . BALBER : Sure . 2 MR . PRIVOR : That we ' ll try to i dentify 3 numbers that we ' re interested in , if we can ma tch 4 them up . 5 MR . KAVELADZE : Sure . 6 BY MR . PRIVOR : 7 8 Q . Considering that this is on June 10th , so this is just the day after the June 9th meeting , 9 and that ' s the only -- those two are the only 10 numbers that were called that are Russian numbers 11 following the Jun e 9th meet i ng the next day , does 12 that help refres h your recollection as to who you 13 might have spoken to o n that day? 14 A. No . 15 Q . Let ' s look at th e day before , which is on 16 Ju n e 9th . You can see it carries ove r from the 17 p re vious pag e . 18 call at 6 : 51 p . m. t o a number that ends in That ' s June 9th , and there is a 19 A . Okay . 20 Q . Do you see t hat? 21 Ill · Do you kn o w whos e number t hat is? 22 A . That ' s incoming call . 23 Q . Yes . 24 A . I h ave n o i d ea . 25 Q . Do you kn o w if that ' s Rob Goldstone? 167 1 Wou l d y ou re cogn i ze hi s n umber ? 2 3 A . I know his n umbe r sta r ts from 9 - 1 - 7 , s o there ' s a pr o babilit y that it mig ht be Ro b 4 Goldstone . I d o n ' t MR . BALS ER : 5 kno w. Okay . We ll , my number a l s o 6 starts with 9 - 1 - 7 . 7 MR . KAVELADZE : 8 MR . BALSE R : 9 10 And Mr . O ' Donnell ' s number s tar ts wi th 9 - 1 - 7 . So y ou don ' t kn o w wh o s e number it is , r ight? 11 MR . KAVELADZE : 12 MR . BALSER : 13 MR. KAV ELADZE : 14 I don ' t No . Okay . No . Coul d be Rob Goldstone . know . 15 MR . BALBER : 16 MR . KAVELADZE : 17 Yeah , well -- Or it cou ld b e anyb o d y e l se . Yea h. BY MR . PRIVOR : 18 Q. Let ' s take a look at the call that ' s at 19 3 : 36 p . m . 20 call at 6 : 51? 21 A . Yes . 22 Q . 3 : 36 is around t h e time 23 You see that ' s the same number as the you said you were going to meet Rob Goldstone at 3 : 30 be fore 2 4 that J une 9th mee ting , and h e wa s a littl e bit 25 late . 168 1 A . We were a little bit late . 2 Q. You were a little bit late . 3 A . Yeah . 4 Q . Do you recall whether you called Mr . He was there . 5 Goldstone to let him know you were running late? 6 A . I probably wou ld , yeah . 7 Q . Do you think t h at that number then is Mr . 8 Goldstone ' s or -9 10 A . Probably . Q . Okay . Probably it is . Do you recall whe ther you did 11 speak to Mr . Goldstone after the Ju ne 9th meeting 12 by telephone? 13 A . I don ' t 14 MR . BALSER : 15 16 ha ve a recollection , but recollection -MR . KAVELADZE : 17 of that phone call . 18 BY MR. PRIVOR : 19 If you don ' t have a I don ' t ha ve a recollection Q. Loo king at the same list , we were looking 20 at the J une 10th that has the two Russian mobile 21 numbers . 22 until June 20t h , so there ' s a gap of 10 days in 23 your phone usage on this line . 24 that is? 25 10 days? Th e n ext entr y afte r June 10th is not Do you know why Do you recall n ot us ing your phone fo r 169 1 A . No . 2 Q . Do you have any idea why there ' s a gap? 3 MR . FOS TER : Brian , what page are you on? 4 MR . PRIVOR : Oh , 5 I ' m sorry . We ' re still on 2 82 . MR . KAVELADZE : 6 Was there a date -- I mean , 7 I have no idea why there ' s a gap . My only guess 8 is maybe I was tra veling . know . 9 to check my travel records . 10 11 MR . BALBER: time on the record . They don ' t MR . KAVELADZE : 13 MR . BALBER : know , you don ' t know . MR . KAVELADZE: 16 MR . BALBER : 17 MR . KAVELADZE : 19 want you to guess . I have no idea . If you don ' t 15 18 I need I ' m going to say it one more 12 14 I don ' t I have no idea -- Okay . Then that ' s the answer . why there ' s a gap . BY MR . PR I VOR : Q . You stated that when you went to the bar 20 after the June 9th meet in g and you were 21 downstairs , that you called Mr . Agalarov . 22 A . No . He called me . 23 Q . He called you? Okay . I ' m sorry . 24 called you . 25 knew to call you after the meeting? He How did he know -- do you know how he How would he 170 1 have known the meeting ended? 2 A . He gave it a try . 3 Q . Had he 4 A . I don ' t -- I ' m sorry . know . The time , 5 : 14 , I don ' t s know . 6 can ' t evaluate his judgment why he called me at 7 5 : 14 . 8 I don ' t know whether he ' s -- I mean , I Q . Do you know when Mr . Agalarov calls you , 9 do you know -- would you recognize his phone 10 number? 11 A . Yes. 12 Q . And is it a Russian phone number? 13 A . Yes. 14 Q . Like a Russian 15 A . Yes. 16 Q . I see on this bill for June 9th , -- is it a mobile number? if you 17 look at the whole list of calls on June 9th , 18 th ere' s no call here on June 9th that appears to 19 be from Russia . 20 would be? Do you have any idea why that 21 A . No , there is a call from Russia. 22 Q . On June 9th? 23 A . Yeah , 24 Q . Oh , the incoming , the area code 903? 25 A . Yeah , that ' s Mr . Agalarov ' s phone number . 5 : 14 p . m 171 Q. Okay . 1 2 Ve r y good . And you said that you thought you we re back in Los Angeles after this 3 meeting -- is that right -- starting on June 1 0th? A . Yeah . 4 5 records , I said . 6 Q. Understood . 7 page 290 . 8 But I need to check my travel Let ' s ta ke a look at Bates We ' re still on the same e xh ibit . You ca n see on sort of the midp oi nt of the page it has 9 c all deta il s f o r your telepho ne number , and it 10 says , " Roaming ." Do you se e -- 11 A . Yeah , so I was in Russia . 12 Q. Oka y . 13 So on June 15t h and June 16th , it shows t hat your telephone is roaming i n Russia? 14 A . Uh-huh . 15 Q. Does that refresh you r recollection that 1 6 you were in Russ ia at that time? 17 A . I guess s o , yes . 18 Q . So do y ou think that you went back to Los 19 Angeles first and then traveled to Russia , or do 20 you think -- 21 22 A . My phone -- my tra vel re cor ds will tell you ex act ly . 23 MR . PRIVOR : Okay . Fair en o ugh . We would 24 ask the same request , Scott , if we could look into 25 that . 172 1 MR . BALBER : 2 MR . KAVELADZE : 3 Sure . I produced the travel records . 4 BY MR . PRIVOR : 5 Q . Do you recal l that yo u we re in Russ i a 6 setting aside whether you remember the precise 7 dates , but do you recall that you did go to Russia 8 sometime around this time? 9 10 11 12 A . Well , yes . Q. Do yo u kn ow what the purpose of your trip to Russia was at that time? A . I travel to Russia every 2 months for 13 business . 14 15 The re ' s no other purpose . Q. Do you re call whether this parti c ular t rip to Russia on or about J u n e 15th or 1 6t h had 16 anything to do with the June 9th meet ing? 17 A. No . 18 Q . You don ' t 19 A . June 9th meeting , for me it was over on 20 June 9th , and continuat ion happened in November . 21 But between June 9 and November , no body bothered recall or -- 22 me with anything -- I mean , as far as a meeting is 23 24 25 concerned . Q. Okay . Let ' s have you take a look at Exh ibit No . 12 t h at we h ad ear li er . Exhibit 12 is 173 1 an email tha t has a tra nsl ated vers i on , an English 2 t ranslation o f s ome sort of syn ops is , some vers i on 3 o f the synop sis. Mr . Dav is had ear lier asked you 4 about the subject line whe re it says " From RF ", 5 and you sta ted that you th ough t that was just an 6 indication of somebody sending you something fr om 7 Russia as a general matter . 8 A . Uh - huh . 9 Q. I wa nt to jus t turn y our a tt ention to 10 Bates page 42 o f this same exhibit , and you ' ll see 11 it ' s about a third of the way down , a paragraph 12 that starts , " The U. S . Department o f Just i ce . . . " 13 I think you ' re one too far . 14 A . Yeah , 15 Q . There you go . 16 A . Okay . 17 Q . So you see the p aragraph that starts , I ' m sorry. 18 " The U. S . Department o f Justice was informed of 19 t his " ? 20 Ge n eral of the Ru ssian Federation and by the RF 21 Ministry of Interior under U. S . -Russ ian MLAT . And it refers to the Office o f Prosecutor 22 A . Yeah . 23 Q . Do you see t hat? Do you thi n k -- looking 2 4 ba c k agai n at t h e first p age of this exhibit wh ere 25 it mentions " From RF ", do you thin k that ' s a 174 1 r eference t o what ' s referred to in this paragraph , 2 the RF Min istry? 3 A. No , I do n ot . Anything related to 4 Russia , you know , any organization wha t 5 with RF , Russian Federation Ministry of Fore ign 6 Relations , Ru ssi an Federati o n -- meanwhile , the 7 name of the countr y is RF , Ru ssi an Federation . 8 You coul d say from Russ ia . 9 10 So , no , starts You co uld say from RF . I do n ot. Q . And d o o ther pe ople , othe r than this 11 e xh ibit , Exhibit 1 2 , ot h er than this one , d o you 12 have other people with whom you co rrespond that 13 use that same style of putting in a subje ct li n e , 14 " Fr om Russia ," " From RF " ? 15 Have you s een that -- A . Pe op le I correspond from Russia , the y 16 speak Russian to me . So they don ' t 17 English language messages . 18 before ; yeah , send me So I have seen RF I have seen people writ ing it . But 1 9 as f ar as cor respondence with me f rom Russi a , it ' s 20 21 22 in Russian pretty much exclusively . Q . This pa rticula r do c ume n t -- whi c h is fro m Natalia Veselnitskaya ; is that right? 23 A . Yes . 24 Q . Wh y do y o u t h i nk she h as t he subject l ine 25 in Eng l ish? 1 75 1 A . Be cau se the document is in English . 2 Q . When she sent this document to yo u , had 3 you been ex p ectin g that s he was going to send it 4 5 6 to you? A . Yeah , I think I requested synopsis , so I wa s expecting the synopsis . 7 Q . So this is simply a r espo nse to -- 8 A . Yeah . 9 Q . To the prior ask? 10 A . Co rrec t . 11 Q . We saw t hi s document went to Rob 12 Goldstone , who ultimately forwarded it o n , 13 looks li ke , to someone at the Tr ump Organization . 14 Do you know whether -- or do you recall whether 15 this doc umen t 16 ot her than Rob Goldstone? 17 fo rw ard this message to anyone else? has been shared wi th anyone else I n other words , did you 18 A . No . 19 Q . How about in paper form? 20 it Had you printed t his out a n d given it to a ny o n e? 21 A . No , I didn ' t print it out . 22 Q . Did you discuss this do cume nt with anyone 23 24 25 ot h er tha n fo rwarding on to Mr . Goldstone? A. No . No . Since it was old news for me , the document was the same document I read on June 176 1 9th , almost the same . Q. Let ' s go to the next exhibit . 2 3 4 Exhibit 13 . That ' s You ha ve that in fr ont of you still . This is the email exchange with Mr . Goldstone . 5 You ' ll see at the top of the page Mr . 6 Goldstone is writing to you saying that he 7 understands , " I first have to submit this to Don 8 a nd Rhona ." We ' ve disc ussed that part of the 9 email already . And he notes at the bo ttom , " Also , 10 FYI , not sure if Emin mentioned that I will be 11 le av ing as of January 1st , so can ' t 12 T rump wo rld after December ." 13 14 h elp in the Do you kn ow what he meant by he ' s leaving after December 1st? 15 A . He ' s quitting on December 1st . 16 Q . What was he quitting? 17 A . Working as Emin ' s agent , musical agent . 18 Q . And so as o f January 1st, presuming he 19 means January 1 , 20 2017 , he ' s no longer Emin ' s age nt ? 21 A . Correct . 22 Q. Does he do any work , t o your knowledge , 23 for the Agalarov family? 24 A . I have n o knowledg e of that . 25 Q . And how about for the Crocus Group more 177 1 generally? 2 A . I haven ' t heard anything he ' s done for 3 Crocus Group since that time . Q . And when he says , 4 " So can ' t help in the 5 Trump world after December ," do you kn ow what he 6 was referencing in terms of helping in the Trump 7 world? 8 A . Organizing meetings . 9 Q . Organizing meetings like the one that y o u 10 were spea k ing about just befo r e lunch , the effor t s 11 to set up a meeting wi th Ms . Veseln its kaya and the 12 Trump people? 13 A . Correct . 14 Q . Weri there any other meetings that you ' re 15 aware o f that he was trying to arrange with the 16 Trumps? 17 A . No , I was not aware. 18 Q. Al l 19 right . No w let ' s t u rn to Exhibit 11 . This is the long series of texts . If you can 20 take a look at that o ne again , 21 follow - up questions on that document as well . 22 So if you look a t I j ust have a few the first page , which 23 is Bates pa ge 316 , Mr . Davis had asked you about a 24 conversation on November 18th at 17 : 5 8 from 25 yo urs el f t o unknown , and you stated you didn ' t 178 1 kn ow who that was . This is a statement you had 2 translated for us before that talks about Rob 3 having talked to the T rump people . 4 A . Correct . 5 Q . And said that some peop l e are moving to 6 Washington , some have been dismissed or fired from 7 their jobs . 8 s u bje ct matter of that text message , can you 9 recall who you were talking to about that subject 10 Can you recall -- thinking about the o ther tha n Ms . Veselnitskaya around that time? MR . BALBER : 11 I ' m sor ry . " That subje ct " 12 meaning? 13 MR . PRIVOR : 14 messa ge . 15 again. 16 17 The subject of the text I ' m h appy to h ave you t ranslat e it MR . BALBER : I understand the ques tion now . Thank you . 18 MR . KAVELADZE : Let me ask you a question . 19 This te xt message, is it in comin g or outgoing? 20 se n t it , MR . BALBER : 21 22 He ca n ' t help you . BY MR . PRIVOR : 23 24 ri ght? Q . I can only tell you what the document sho ws . It ' s your documen t . It appears to b e a 25 messag e from you going out to an unk n own pers o n . I 179 A . Recipient , got it. 1 2 3 My guess in regards to that is that I sent this thing also t o Natalia . Why is it showing as an unknown , I have no idea , 4 because I ' v e ... Q . And so if we ' re reading t his , since the 5 6 same text message is duplicated , it looks like 7 1 7 : 45 you sent it to Aras Agalarov , and then at 8 17 : 58 t he unknown sender , or you ' re speculating 9 it ' s Ms . Veselnitskaya -- 10 A . I ' m speculating it ' s Ms . Veselnitskaya . 11 Q . Is there anyone else 12 MR . O ' DONNELL : 13 recipient . 14 MR . KAVELADZE : 15 MR . BALSER : 16 Unkn own sender or unknown Unkn own re cip ient. Yeah . BY MR . PRIVOR : 17 Q . Is there anyone else you can think of 18 during this time period and recognizing the 19 subject of this text message , any o ne else you can 20 think of that you would ha ve been communicating 21 with about that? 22 A . No , no . 23 Can I correct myself about one thing? 24 Q . Please . 25 A. I think we discussed at some point of 180 1 time with Rob Goldstone the possibility of setting 2 the meeting between Aras Agalarov and President- 3 elect . 4 time , and I relayed it to Mr . Agalarov that it ' s 5 not a good time . 6 record . 7 8 9 10 And I think he told me it ' s not a good Q . Okay . So I just want this to be on the Very good . Let ' s go to page 318 of that same exhibit . A . Uh - huh . Q . Roughly the middle of the page , on 11 November 30th at 1 7 : 19 , Ms . Veselnitskaya sent you 12 a message about Preet Bharara . 13 you testified earlier , 14 correctly , that you didn ' t 15 who he was at the time ; is that right? And you stated , if I understood you know him , didn ' t know 16 A . That ' s correct . 17 Q . And Ms . Veselnitskaya at 17 : 20 had asked , 18 " Is this a bad sign? " 19 translat ion ? Is that the correct 20 A . Yes . 21 Q . And you respond , " I don ' t think it ' s a 22 bad sign ." 23 know who he was , how were you able to evaluate 24 whether or not it was a bad sign? 25 Given that you stated that you didn ' t A . Well , it ' s - - first of all , she sent me 181 1 an article , and I read an article , 2 the guy . 3 talking about. 4 analytical mind , and I ' m not rea l 5 so that is more show-off on my side than an actual 6 evaluation of that situation , because I had no 7 idea if it ' s a bad sign or good sign . 8 " I don ' t 9 me , 10 11 and I Googled So by that time I already know what I ' m Obvio usl y , I don ' t think it ' s a bad sign ." possess an into politics , And I said , And if she asked " Is that a good sign? " I would probably say , " I don ' t think it ' s a good sign ." Q . So she sent you the article at 17 : 20 and 12 you responded 2 minutes later that you didn ' t 13 th ink it was a bad sign. 14 A . Yeah. 15 Q . So in that 2 -minute peri od , 16 A . Without rea d ing 17 Q . -- quickly read the article? 18 A . Yes . 19 Q . And gave her your sort of cursory 20 opinion? 21 A . Uneducated opinion . 22 Q . Okay . 23 you - - Let ' s go down to December 1st where the time stamp is , it looks like , 22 . 24 A . Uh - hu h . 25 Q . And Ms . Vesel nitskay a has written to you . 182 1 2 Would you mind translating for us the last - - the second line of that after her quest i on . 3 A . " Who to crush and who not to crush . 4 Q . Is that the literal translation? 5 A. 6 Q . What ' s the literal wording of that? 7 A . " Wet and not to wet . 8 Q . And your understanding of the slang is it 9 It ' s a slang . II means to crush somebody? A. To crush , to where , 10 you know , create some You know , 11 damage for someone . 12 universal term , but some kind of a -- yeah . 13 14 II it ' s such a Q . But you view it as a slang term , shouldn ' t it be taken literally? 15 A . It should not be taken literally , yes . 16 Q . Let ' s go down to the communication from 17 Ms . Vese ln itskaya at 11 : 45 . 18 down . 19 you translate that for us again? 20 A . " What stays behind it . " The last four words of that exchange , could 21 " sha " 22 " za " 23 phrase) 24 25 Th at ' s t wo more lines (phonetic) ( phonetic) . And the word is not really " sha , " but the word It ' s misspelled . [Russian i s " What stays behind it . " Q . An d what do you understand -- what is yo ur take on the meaning of that , " what stays 183 1 behind it " ? 2 3 How do you interpret that? A. What stays behind his decision to keep tha t gentleman . Q . And the last word , that doesn ' t 4 translate 5 as " worth 11 ? 6 A. 7 Q . Yeah . 8 A . If it ' s " stoy-it " 9 " wor th . 11 11 Sty- eet 11 (phonetic)? (phonetic) , it ' s If i t ' s " sty - eet ," i t ' s " stays ." So 10 that ' s two different meanings . 11 " worth. " 12 Q. 13 A . In that connotat i on , it ' s " sty-eet. " 14 Q. Okay . 15 page 319 . But it ' s not But it ' s n ot " worth ." Let ' s go to t he next page , Bates In roughly the middle of the page , 16 December 9th at 17 : 49 , the second 17 : 49 , it looks 17 like you writing to Ms . Veselnitskaya. 18 the translation for that? Wha t is 19 A . " It started ." 20 Q . What did you mean by that? 21 A . I want to know what s h e wrote to me , a nd 22 from there I guess I will figure out what I meant 23 by , 24 something started . 25 " It start e d ." Some process , I mean , like Q . Do you think it ' s a reference to the 184 1 articles that precede it? 2 A . I guess so . 3 Q . And those articles , it looks like , 4 reading from the URLs , it looks like , 5 Graham calls for investigation ." just " Lindsey 6 A . Yeah , 7 Q . So do you think the " It has started " is a 8 9 10 11 yeah. reference to investigations? A. Maybe , yeah . Maybe investigation started , yeah. Q . Do you recall? I mean , is that your 12 memory of what you had in mind here? 13 ju st speculating about that? 14 understand you r best recollection of what you 15 intended when you wrote that. 16 A . Yeah , 17 started , yeah . Or are you I ' m trying to that ' s -- that ' s what I meant , it 18 Q . A reference to the investigation -- 19 A . In vest igation . 20 Q . -- referenced in that article? 21 A . Uh - huh . 22 Q . How about the next line down , 23 24 25 9th at 17 : 50? December How does that translate? A . " Report should be presented to Congress by January 20th . " 185 1 Q . Do you know what report that was that you 2 were referencing? A . I don ' t 3 4 kn ow . Maybe related to the inves tigati o ns . 5 Q . But you d on ' t re call -- 6 A. 7 Q . -- that ' s just your best guess? No . All 8 ri gh t . 9 a nd you ' ll see there ' s a series o f text messages Let ' s jump ahead then to Bat es page 322 , 10 o n June the 2 nd . 11 from Rob Goldstone , and y ou ' l l 12 from Rob Go ldstone to you , and he states -- well , 13 actually , preceding that , at 22 : 07 , 1 minute 14 earlier , he says , 15 pl ease call me? " It l ooks like the first four are see o n e at 22 : 08 " Whe n y ou get a minut e , can you And then his n ex t text is , "I 16 just had an interesting call re : t hat meeting we 17 attended at Trump Tower last year . " 18 Do you re call recei v ing t hat message? 19 A . Yes . 20 Q. What do you remember about it? 21 A . That h e g ot a call from 22 the meeting . 23 me . 24 25 So , yeah , I don ' t r e member . MR . O' DONNELL : in regards to I cal led him , o r he called And -- Look at t h e te xt me ssage . Just foc u s o n whether t h at helps yo u remember . 186 MR . KAVELADZE : 1 2 Is that a message , o r this t hing? MR . BALBER : 3 Would you mind redirecting the 4 question again? 5 MR . PRIVOR : Yes , sure . 6 MR . BALBER : I think he completely lost 7 track . 8 BY MR . PR IVOR : 9 10 Q . So it ' s two text messages in succession , J une 2nd , the first o ne at 22 : 07 . 11 A . " When you get a minute " -- 12 Q . Yeah , 13 Actually " When you get a minute , can you ple as e call me? " 14 A . Yes. 15 Q . Do you reca l l whether or not you called 16 Mr . Goldstone in resp onse to that text messa ge? 17 A . I thin k I did . 18 Q . And you can see his very next text 19 messag e a minute later , at 22 : 08 , sai d , " I just 20 had an interesting call re : t hat meeting we 21 attended at Trump Tower last ye ar ." 22 A . Uh-huh . 23 Q . Your understanding is the meeting at 24 25 Trump To wer last year is the June 9t h meeting? A . Correc t . 187 Q . And you re call that you did have a 1 2 telephone conve r sation with Mr . Goldstone in 3 resp on se to th is text? 4 A . Yes . 5 Q . What do you remember ab out that teleph one 6 7 8 9 10 call? A . It either could be -- it could be two things . I h a v e to speculate . MR . BALBER : Then don ' t speculate . BY MR . PR I VOR : 11 Q . Give me your best recollection . 12 A . My best recollection , it would be in 13 regards to the call he re ceived from either 14 journalist abo ut tha t meeting or Do nald Trump , 15 J r . ' s attorney . 16 One of th os e tw o . Q . An d bearing in mind the da te of June 2nd , 17 do you reca ll when the press first rep o rted about 18 the June 9th meetin g? 19 A . I don ' t . 20 Q . Ok ay . 21 Do you r ecall ho w lo ng you r conversation with Mr . Goldstone laste d? 22 A . I don ' t 23 Q . Do you recall was th ere anyone else on 24 25 recall . the te l ephone with you at the ti me? A . No . No b o dy wa s on the phone . Just me . 188 1 Q . Just the two of you? 2 A . Correct . 3 Q. And certainly it appears it would have 4 been about the subject of the text , but you can ' t 5 recall any further details about it? A. Let me see . 6 Well , it ' s - - like I said , 7 it ' s one or two , because it ' s either attorney ' s 8 call or journalist calls . 9 Q . Do you r ecall how Mr. Goldstone sounded 10 on the phone? 11 happy? 12 all? Did he sound wo r ried? Did he sound alarmed? Did he sound Do you recall at 13 A . I think he sounded worried . 14 Q . And do you have any sense of why he 15 sounded worried? 16 A . I don ' t know . 17 he ' s like that . 18 worr i ed about something . 19 But he always sounds -- He ' s hyper pe r son . Q . All r ight . He ' s always Le t me go ahead and show you 20 ou r next exhibit , which we ' ll mark as Exhibit 17 . 21 [Kaveladze Exhibit 17 was marked for 22 23 24 25 identification . ] BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . This is a multi - page document , three - page document , SJC - KAV - 00090 through 92 . This appears 189 1 to be an email from 2 to you on June 20 , 2017 , so just this past June . Take a 3 moment to look that over . 4 [Pause . ] 5 BY MR . PR IVOR : 6 7 Q. Do you recognize that exchange with Roman -- it appears to be Roman Beniaminov . 8 A . Yes . 9 Q. What do you recall about this exchange 10 with him? Do you recall anything independent o f 11 what the document says? 12 exchange with him? 13 A . Okay . 14 [Pause . ] 15 BY MR . PRIVOR : 16 Do you remember this Q . Let me try to fo cus you o n part o f the 17 document. So if you turn t o Bates page 91 , the 18 second page of the exhibit , you ' ll see there ' s a 19 me ssage that you ' re forwarding fr om Mr . Balber , 20 your cou nse l , and you ' re forwarding it on to 21 Roman. 22 Mr . Balber about a reporter wh o has gone to a home 23 that is evidently owned by Mr . Agalarov . It looks like you ' ve had an exchange with 24 A . Uh - huh . 25 Q . And then you forwarded it on to Roman . 190 1 Do you reca l l wh y you forwarded this t o Roman? 2 A . Because Roman was concer n ed about this 3 situation , journalist going to t h e house . 4 Q. Had that been a problem be for e? 5 A. No . 6 Q . Was it an issue that Roman had dealt with It was a recent development . 7 before y ou forwarded t h is message? A . Yeah , well , he ' s c l os e to the family , so 8 9 maybe Mrs . Agala r ov ca ll ed him and sai d , " We got a 10 problem ." Q . Now , let ' s tur n to t h e fi rst page of that 11 You ' ll se e on June 20th -- I ' m sorry . 12 e xhib it . 13 Leading up to it 14 page before , so rr y , page 91 . 15 t he message , Roman responded to you , 16 Ike . 17 cal l , I guess . " 18 re p orte r . 19 City tomorrow " -- " NYC " - - " in case you want to 20 discuss t hings face to face ." 21 22 23 Wel l note d . l et ' s actually flip to the After y ou forwarded " Thank you , In t hat ca se I wo n ' t r eturn t h e Presumably a call to the You said , " No need . I am at New York Do you recall whether y o u a c tually met with Mr . Beniaminov? A. I did meet wi t h Mr . Beniaminov and Mr . 24 Jason Tropea , a nd later we were join ed by Mr . 25 Go ldst one . 191 1 Q . Wh o ' s Jason Tropea? 2 A . That ' s another childhood friend of Emin 3 Agalarov , works with him . 4 Q . And what did you discu ss in t hat meeting? 5 A . I ' m sure we discussed that journalist ' s 6 int erest or an article . We also discussed 7 financial matters. 8 payment , and Jason was concerned . 9 Rob joined us and , again , we discussed that Crocus was slow on the Then e ventu al ly 10 jour nalist ' s interest . And I don ' t recall 11 anything else , any other deta ils of that meeting . 12 Q . Looking at the first page of that 13 exhibit , Bates page 90 , ab out a third of the way 14 from the bottom , when you ' re discussing setting up 15 th is meeting with Roman , you suggested on June 16 20th at 11 : 31 , 17 with lawyers. " 18 remember? 19 " I guess coffee . What lawyers were those? Do you Is that Mr . Balber? A . Scott Balber , 20 associates , yea h . 21 MR . FOSTER : 22 MR . KAVELADZE : 23 Balber that day . 24 BY MR . PRIVOR : 25 I will have lunch Maybe one of his yeah. Can you speak up? Yeah , I had lunch with Scott Q . With any one e ls e , o r just Mr . Balber? 192 1 A. I thin k it wa s just Mr . Balber . 2 Q . Let ' s go back to Exh ibi t 3 i s the set o f tex ts . 11 again . This We were dis cu ss i ng texts on 4 Jun e the 2nd , page 322 , Bates pa ge 322 . You will 5 see - - so we just discussed a few minutes ago the 6 Ro b Gold sto ne text to you about an interesting 7 c all he had received . 8 A . Oh - huh . 9 Q . Then on June 27th , which is the last text 10 o n this page , you ' ll see there ' s a tex t 11 to you at 2 0 : 03 . fr om Emin Do you see that? 12 A . Ye s . 13 Q . And he attaches an image , and take a 14 moment to look that ove r . 15 [P ause . ] 16 BY MR . PRIVOR : 17 18 Q . Do you re call receiving that message fr om Emin? 19 A. 20 Q . You do? I do . Okay . So th i s appears t o be 21 Emin forwarding to you his exc h ange with Rob 22 Goldstone ; is that right? 23 A. Yeah . 24 Q . And you can see on the very next page , 25 Bates page 323 , same time st amp , 20 : 03 , he says , 193 1 " Got this from Rob n ow ." And that Rob is Rob 2 Goldston e? 3 A. Correct . 4 Q. Okay . So he ' s pasting in th i s image of 5 hi s conversation with Rob Gold s tone . Do you 6 understand thi s to be Rob Go ldst on e that i s 7 spea king i n t his message that has been pasted 8 here? 9 10 A . Yes. Q. And Mr . Goldstone refers to " that meeting 11 I set up in October with Tr ump campaign for you r 12 father , for that Russian attorney and her 13 colleagu es ." 14 p r oblems ." And he says , " It ' s c ausing massive First of all , he refe r s to a meeting in 15 1 6 October . Do yo u kn ow what he has in mind there? 17 A . There was no me et ing in Oct ober . 18 Q . Yo u ' re certain there was no meeting? 19 A . I ' m ce rtain there was no meeting in 20 21 22 23 Oc tober . Q . So do you understand tha t to be just a mistake? A . Yeah . He was -- yeah , he set up the 24 meeting in June and then attempted to set up 25 meeting in November . There was no meeting in 194 1 October . Rob does it all the time . His messages 2 are sometimes a little bit clueless . 3 Q. He refers t o 4 MR . O ' DON NELL : No need f o r edit o rials . 5 MR . KAVELADZE : Ok a y . 6 7 8 9 10 11 BY MR . PR IVOR : Q. He refers to " caus i ng massive prob l ems ." Do you kno w what he ' s refe r ring to? A . I hav e no idea what massive problems he ' s referring t o . Q . Further on down in the message , ab o ut the 12 middle of his message , Mr . Goldstone writes , 13 did sa y at the time that this was an awful idea 14 and a terrible meeting ." 15 referring t o by " an awful i d ea " ? 16 17 "I Do you know what he was A . I gue ss the meeting its el f , he thought it was awful idea . 18 Q . Do you kn ow why? 19 A . No . 20 Q. Di d you ever have any conversations with 21 Mr . Goldstone where he expressed that he though t 22 it was an awful idea? 23 A . We had -- I think we had a call same day 24 of the meeting where he kind of expressed his 25 frustration ove r t hese people and the fact that he 195 1 organized that meeting for a topic which was no 2 interest to - - no interest for anybody . 3 Q . And he describes it as " terrible. " Is 4 that something that you had discussed with him , 5 his describing it as " terrible " ? 6 A . No . 7 Q . Had you heard from anyone else other than 8 I don ' t recall discussing it . Mr . Go ldstone that they th o ught setting up th i s 9 meeting was an awful idea? 10 A . No . 11 Q . Did anyone else express that they thought 12 Just him . t he meeting was terrible that you ' re aware of? 13 A . It would be myself. 14 Q . You thought i t 15 A . I thought it was bad idea . 16 Q. Ea rlie r in the message , Mr . Goldstone was terrible? 17 wrote , " I have today been interviewed by attorneys 18 for the sec o nd time about it ." 19 he ' s referring to? Do you know what 20 A . That meeting. 21 Q . Having been interviewed for the second 22 23 time? A . I don ' t know what he means , but he ' s I mean , from what I understood , he ' s 24 referring 25 referring to the meeting . 196 1 Q . The subject matter is the meeting , but he 2 says " today " -- meaning the date that he sent this 3 messa ge -- he had been interviewed by attorneys Do you know what he ' s 4 for the se co nd time . 5 referring to when he says he was interviewed by 6 attorneys? 7 8 9 A . I think he tol d me that h e had a c onversation with Donald Trump , Jr . ' s attorney . Q . Do you know who that is? 10 A . Alan Futerfas . 11 Q . Do you kn ow Mr . Fu te rfas ? 12 A . I spoke with him on the phone . 13 Q . Is he your lawyer? 14 A . No . 15 Q . Was he ever your lawyer? 16 A . No . 17 Q . When d i d you speak to him? 18 A . Ar ou nd the same time . Rob gave him my 19 number , and he called me and asked me t o -- what 20 was my recollection o f meeting . 21 Q . We ' re going to come ba ck to th at , that 22 conversation , but I want to fi nis h with this text 23 message bec ause our time is ne ar ing up . 24 A . Su re . 25 Q . Toward the bottom of that message , the 197 1 v ery end of the message , Mr . Goldstone wri tes , 2 " I ' m really not happy being put in this situati o n 3 with federal attorneys in vest iga t ing , et cetera ." 4 5 Do you know what that ' s a re ference to , attorneys investigati n g " ? A . I neve r -- n o . 6 know , 8 I ' m paying attention to that phrase . 9 federal attorneys? 10 fe deral attorneys . I n ever r eali zed , you 7 11 " federal Q . Well , That is the first time But what is I mean -- I ' m aski ng what your under standing is . 12 MR . O ' DON NELL : If you don ' t 13 MR . KAVELADZE : I have no idea wh at he ' s 14 kn o w -- talking to . Q . Did Mr . Goldstone ever talk to you about 15 16 being intervie wed or as ked questi o ns b y the FB I , 17 Federal Bureau of Investigation? 18 A . No . No , never did . 19 Q . Did anyone spea k to you abo ut -- ever 20 mention being int e rviewe d by the FBI? 21 A . Was I ever interviewed by FBI? 22 Q . We ll , my first question is : Did anyone 23 else talk to you about being interviewed by th e 24 FBI? 25 MR . BALSE R: I ' m sorry . I just want to -- 198 1 look , I know wh at you ' r e gett i ng at . Anything 2 that yo u and I may have discussed or other counsel 3 discussed with you , representing you , that ' s not If you h ave s ome other means of 4 to be discl ose d. 5 knowing tha t somebody else may have been 6 interviewed by the FBI , then , of course , yo u 7 should an swer the question. 8 MR . PRI VOR : Thank you . 9 MR . BALBER : Sure . 10 11 12 13 MR . KAVELADZE : No . Then i t ' s n o . BY MR . PRIVOR : Q. Had you ever been interviewed by the FBI in connecti on with -- 14 A . No . 15 Q. 16 A . No . 17 Q. An ytime , say , from 2016 to the pr ese nt? 18 A . No . 19 Q . Ha ve you been contac ted by the FBI and 20 21 - - the J une 9th meeti n g? as ked to meet with them? A . I ' ve b ee n contacted by FBI , b ut what I was traveli n g , and they s ho wed 22 happened i s t ha t 23 up at my h ouse in 24 of t h e agents l eft her card , and I called her , a nd 25 she said they want ed to speak wi th me about that an d left -- one 199 1 meeting . And I suggested tha t I ' d like to involve 2 my att o rney and gave my att o rney ' s details . 3 that was the last time I , you kn ow , had any 4 intera c tion with these people . 5 6 And Q . And when you say you gave your attor n ey ' s de ta ils , you ' re talking about Mr . Balber -- 7 A . S cott . 8 Q . -- or Mr . O ' Do nnell? 9 A . Yeah , I gave Mr. Balber ' s details . Q . Just bef ore that , toward the end of t h e 10 11 text message , Rob Goldsto n e writes , 12 know for sure who these Russia n peo ple were , but 13 hopefu lly Ike ca n answer f or them ." 14 wh at h e ' s r efer ring to t h ere? 15 " I don ' t Do yo u know A . Well , he refers to the fact t hat whatever 16 he th oug ht these people were , they wer e not . 17 were not r epresenting Russian Government , 18 he They and so I S 19 MR . BALBER : 20 at the wrong text . 21 question agai n ? 22 MR . PRIVOR : 23 it . 24 BY MR . PRIVOR : 25 even I ' m sorry . I ' m sorry . Sure . I must be looking Can you ask the I ' ll try to replicate Q . So yo u can see toward the bottom of t he 200 1 text , Mr . Goldstone writes , " I don ' t even know for 2 sure who these Russian pe opl e were , but hopefully 3 I ke can answer for them. " 4 know what he meant by that? My question is : Do you 5 A . Hopefu l ly Ike knows who these people are. 6 Q . Wh o these Russian people are? 7 A . Yea h . 8 Q . And do you know what Russian people he 9 10 11 12 was referri ng to? A . Natalia Ve selnitskaya , Rinat Akhrnetshin , and translator . Q . So th e parti c ipa nts in the June 9t h 13 meeting? 14 A . Correct. 15 MR . PRIVOR: Okay . Our t ime is just about 16 up , so I think we ' ll use this as a stopping point , 17 and we ' ll g o of f the record at 2:25. 18 [Recess at 2 : 24 p . rn . to 2 : 36 p . m.] 19 MR . PRIVOR : 20 record . It ' s 2 : 35 Okay . We ' re back on the 2 : 36 , so rr y . 21 FURTHER EXAMI NATI ON BY 22 COU NS EL FOR THE MINORITY (Co nt ' d ) 23 24 25 BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . Mr. Kaveladze , so we were discussing this text message that had been pasted in by Ernin to 201 1 you from -- it ' s Rob Goldstone ' s communication , 2 and Rob had described the meeting as a terrible 3 meeting . 4 5 And you seemed t o second that v ie w, that it was a terrible meeting. Is that right? A . To my understanding , it was useless 6 meeting . 7 Q . And you also thought that having the 8 meeting was a bad idea? 9 A . I thought that having the meeting with 10 these three individuals was a ba d idea . 11 pushed for the meeting with attorneys and not with 12 anybody else . 13 14 15 Q . Wh at was the basis for your be l ievin g that it was a bad idea? A . Be cau se n obody in the electoral campaign 16 was inter es ted in Magnitsky Act . 17 to do with this electoral campaign. 18 19 I always It had nothing Q . An d so you were drawing that belief what the meeting would be about , the Magnitsky Act? 20 A . Correct. 21 Q . Was that based on the synopsis from Ms . 22 Ve se lni ts kaya? 23 A . An d numerous calls from Mr . Agalaro v . 24 Q . Before the June 9th meeting? 25 A . Yes . 202 1 Q . So those are the calls that took place 2 between June 6th , when you first le arn ed of the 3 meeting , and June 9th , when the meeting occu rred? 4 A . Correct 5 Q . And Mr . Agalarov in those calls described 6 t he meeting as re lated to th e Magnits k y Act? 7 A . Yes. 8 Q . Did he also send you any documents? 9 A. He did s e nd me a synopsis . 10 Q . And t hat ' s the shorter vers ion of - - 11 A . Yeah . 12 Q . Which roughly corres p onds to the 11 - page 13 v ersi o n fr om Ms . Vese l nitskaya? 14 A . Co rr ec t . 15 Q . Is tha t the documen t that yo u haven ' t 16 been able t o find? 17 A . Yes . 18 Q. Did you ever express your op ini on that 19 Th at ' s t h e document . having a meeting migh t be a bad idea to Mr . 2 0 Agalaro v? · 21 22 A . I d i dn ' t sa y it was bad i d ea , bu t I ke p t s aying the attor n eys . 23 Q. And d id he -- 24 A . Th e meeti n g s h o ul d be wit h attorne y s . 25 Q . Di d h e ha ve a ny r e s pon se to t ha t othe r 203 1 than - - I think this morning you testified -- 2 A . He said , " Thank you . 3 Q . " Thank you " ? 4 A . Yeah , he said , 5 there was no ot he r response . II " Th ank you , II and , no , 6 Q. Okay . We ' re still on Exhibit 11 with the 7 te xt messages . Bates page 323 is the next page in 8 the exhibit . You can see on June 30th at 2100 9 hou r s , Emin sends you -- it looks like an ima ge of 10 President Trump and Vl adimir Putin. 11 undern eat h it , there ' s some Rus sian . 12 translate that for us? And t h en Can you It looks li ke it ref ers to 13 a miss ed call . 14 A . This is , I mea n " uvazhayemyy " is " Until no w we wait " -- " we ' re 15 " respe cte d ." 16 wa i ting for draft from y our " -- and then it ' s a 17 bracket . 18 Q. " We need to speed up ." " We need to speed up ," i s that the 19 message that very faintly looks like it says 10 : 23 20 n e xt to it? 21 A . Wha t ? 22 Q . No , I ' m just trying to tell which part 23 24 25 Is that related to t hat ? you just translated . MR . BALSER : 10 : 23 eit h er . I ' m sorry . I don ' t see the 204 2 10 : 23 -- MR . KAVELADZE : 1 BY MR . PR I VOR : Q. Oh , no. 3 4 ima ge i tself. 5 you r copy of i t. I ' m sorr y . I t ' s act u all y in t he Maybe it does n ' t come th r ough on 6 A. Okay . 7 MR . BALSER : 10 : 33? 8 MR . PRIVOR : No , it ' s actua ll y in the image 9 it s elf . 10 : 29 I ' m n ot sure 10 MR . BALSER : I ' m not seeing it . 11 MR . PRIVOR : It ' s so faint in mine . 12 go ahead . 13 BY MR . PRIVOR : 14 15 Q . " We may need to speed this u p ," is that t he 16 17 We ' ll A . Speed up . " We already in Edinburgh and the person from PM is flying there as well ." 18 Q . Do you know what this is talking about? 19 A . I have no idea what he ' s tal k ing about . 20 Q . Do you kn ow what the reference to -- I 21 think you said Edinburgh? 22 A . Edinburgh . 23 We never dealt with Edinburgh . Q . And how about " p erson from " - - h e said 24 25 I have no idea . " PM" ? Is that t h e initials , PM? 205 1 A . PM , yeah . 2 Q . Do you have any idea what that refers t o? 3 A . I have no idea who Mr . PM is . Let me see . 4 Is this -- I thought it was 5 some kind of a joke because they have pictures of 6 Trump and Putin . Is that a part of that message? MR . BALSER : 7 And I think you characterized 8 it as t he " message ." 9 screenshot that ' s be en impos e d on there , so MR . PRIVOR : 10 11 So the whole thing is a s creenshot? MR . KAVELADZE : 12 13 I think th a t ' s like a I have no idea what this is about. 14 MR . BALSER : That ' s my recollection , having 15 seen a different format , but go ahead . 16 stating that for purposes -- 17 18 I ' m no t MR . PRIVOR : I cou ldn ' t make heads or tails MR . BALSER : That ' s what I t hink it is , of it . 19 20 but . .. 21 BY MR . PRIVOR : 22 Q . Okay . So let ' s go to the next page , 23 which is Bates page 32 3 , Emin to you at -- I ' m 24 s o rr y , 25 " Is this Don Jr . ' s lawyer? " 32 4 . Emi n t o y o u on J un e 3 0 t h , h e a sk s , And y o u respond , same 206 1 2 3 time , 2100 hours , " I ' m on the p hone with him ow ." And then you corr e ct your s el f . is , The next message " With him now ." 4 A . Oka y . 5 Q . Do you re call what th is is about? 6 A . Well , 7 it ' s not me saying I ' m on the phone . I ' m sorry . 8 Q . Oh , 9 A. Yeah . It ' s Emin to you . Yeah , because Alan Futerfas called 10 me , and the n he called Emin to discuss that 11 meeting . 12 13 Q . Alan Futerfas called Emin . Did he call Emin first o r you firs t? 14 A . I believe he c all ed me fi rst . 15 Q. Okay . 16 co nversat i on. 17 18 A . No , Do you recall when he called you? I cannot give yo u a date . Q . And do you reca l l wha t promp t ed his call to y ou? A . I have n o idea what promp ted his call to 21 22 me . 23 what you ' re asking? 24 25 I would say s omet i me in June . 19 20 So let ' s s tart with your You mean the reason for his call ? Is that Q . Wh y did -- did he reach out to you , or d id you rea ch o ut to him first? 207 1 A. He reached out to me . 2 Q . Okay . 3 And do you know why he reached out to you? 4 A . He wanted to interview me in regards to 5 the June 9 meeting and understand what was my 6 recollecti on of that meeting . MR . PRIVOR : 7 I ' m going to show you our next 8 exhibit , whi ch is 18 . 9 [Kaveladze Exhibit 18 was marked for 10 11 identification . ) BY MR . PRIVOR : 12 Q . This is a single page , Bates number SJC - 13 KAV- 0004 7 . 14 you . 15 th is refresh your reco ll ection as to the timi ng of 16 Subject is " Forwarding introduction ." I ' m sorry . Does This is Emin ' s call . A . He reached out earlier tha n that . 17 18 It ' s a June 30th email from Emin to That ' s Emin ' s -- 19 Q. Okay . 20 MR . BALBER : 21 MR . KAVELADZE: 22 BY MR . PRIVOR : 23 Q . Okay . 24 30th . 25 that . To you . To me . So he had a call with Emin on June He h ad a call with you sometime b e fore 208 1 A . Sometime i n J une . 2 Q . Was i t , d o y o u recall , a matter of days ? 3 Was it a week or two ? 4 5 A . I ' m n o t very g ood wit h da tes , s o , no , I. .. Q . Okay . 6 It sound s li ke based on the text 7 mes s ages we were just l ooking at that Emin said he 8 was on th e phone with Mr . Fute r fas . 9 te ll yo u -- di d h e tell y ou a n ythin g a bout that 10 conversation he h ad wit h Mr. What did he Fute rf a s ? 11 A . Yes , h e did . 12 Q . What did he t ell y o u? 13 A . He asked me -- h e to ld me t hat Mr . 14 Futerfas was as k ing questions about t h at meeti n g , 15 a nd h e to ld h im t hin g s he knew . That ' s i t. 16 Q. Did he specify what i t was he knew? 17 A . No , he didn ' t . 18 Q. And you had a telephone call -- wa s i t by 19 telephone , your conversation with Mr . Futerfas? 20 A . Correct . 21 Q . Okay . And your call wi th Mr . Futerfas , 22 tell us what yo u remember from that call . 23 cal l 24 25 Did he you or did you call him? A . I mea n , he calle d me first . Maybe I call h i m back a t some p oint beca use he was n ot able to 209 1 reach me and left a message . That call was about 2 my recollect i o n of what happe n ed du ri ng the 3 meeting , and I filled him in . 4 5 6 7 I told him what I remembered . Q . And do you recall spe cifica l ly what you had told him? A . A shorter version , much shorter version 8 of whatever I told to you : 9 meeting was about Magnitsky Act , yes , basically that the they did 10 mention adoptions , and they als o were dis c ussing 11 t he e lectora l 12 but that funding thing , 13 c ampaign -- n o t ele c tora l c ampaign Democratic Par ty thing . Q. You ' ll reca ll from this morning both Mr . had asked you a number of qu e st i ons 14 Davis and I 15 about othe r thi n gs . 16 about a list of other things . 17 instanc e , did th e y talk abo ut hacking? 18 any discussi o ns about emails? We asked did they also talk I asked you , for Was there 19 A . No , n o , n o . 20 Q . Did yo u te ll Mr . Fut er f a s anyt hi ng a b o u t 21 t h e meeti ng t h at is diffe r ent f r o m wha t 22 described t o us already? 23 A . No . 24 Q . So yo u d i d n ' t 25 c onversati o ns about ha c king? y o u have te l l Mr . Fute r fas about any 210 A . Why would I? 1 2 hacking . Q . Was there an y discussi on about accessing 3 4 I knew n othi ng about emails? 5 A . No . 6 Q . Or vo t er record s ? 7 A. No . 8 Q . Or targeting voters? 9 A . No . 10 11 Q . How about the use of Russian Fa ceboo k , VK? 12 A . No . 13 Q . If you look back at the te xt messag e s 14 t ha t are still in front of yo u , Exh ibit 11 at pag e 15 3 2 4 , yo u can s ee on Ju n e 30th , 21 : 04 , you are 16 replying to Emin , and you say , 11 17 h im 3 da ys ago , 18 lawyer . 11 I have spoken with seeming to refer to Don , Jr . ' s 19 A . Uh - huh. 20 Q . Does t hat refresh yo u r reco ll ection as to 21 t h e timing of wh e n you s p oke to Mr . Fu terfas? 22 23 A . My last conve rsati on with Mr . Futerfas , yeah . 24 Q . Was 3 days ago , meani ng 25 A . Well -- 211 Q . - - June 27th. 1 2 Had you had a conversation with Mr . Futerfas before then? 3 A . Ye ah , I had two conversations . 4 my re coll ection. The second one , he called me and 5 he read to me what he wrote based on my 6 recollection , and I 7 8 conversation took place? A. I don ' t , but judging from that email , happened 3 days prior to 6/30 , 11 Q. 12 A . No . 13 MR . BALBER : 14 kind of confirmed . Q . Do you reca ll when that second 9 10 so 6/27 . I think you ' ve got it backwards . MR . PRI VOR : 16 MR . KAVELADZE : I ' m sorry . End of June . BY MR . PRIVOR: 18 19 it Sometime in early July? 15 17 One was Q . Sometime in the end of June you spoke to him about his statement? 20 A . Well , the conversat i on took place about 3 21 days ago at 6/30 , so if it was 3 days ago , 22 6/27 . that ' s 23 Q . Oka y . 24 A . June 27 . 25 Q . Was that the first conversat ion or the So 212 1 second? 2 A . It was the last conversation . 3 Q. That was the second . 4 A . Yeah . 5 Q. So you had a conversation before June 6 27th? 7 A . Yes . 8 Q. And I ' m sorry for my confusion. 9 10 11 12 Tell me So that ' s sometime before the first conversation. June 27th by a few days . A . Yeah . Yes , first conversation was my recollection of the event . 13 Q . Okay . 14 A . Second conversation , he read to me what 15 he wrote down based on my recollection , and I had 16 to kind of approve it , 17 understanding of my recolle c tion was correct , and 18 I okayed it . 19 20 if that ' s what I -- if his Q . And that was a description of the June 9th meeting? 21 A . That is correct . 22 Q. Did he ever send you a document with that 23 statement , or did he only read it to you over the 24 telephone? 25 A . He read it ove r the phone . I mean , I 213 1 don ' t remember . Maybe he sent a letter , but I 2 don ' t think so . If it ' s not pr oduced , 3 don ' t think so , because -- he read it to me over 4 the phone . 5 6 7 I mean , I remember this part . Q . Did you make any changes to what he read to you , or did you suggest any changes? A . A name , because I went there by Irakly , 8 and my name since year 2001 is Ike Thomas , so I 9 c hanged that part . 10 11 12 13 I Q. And ot h er than that change , were there any other changes that you had suggested to him? A . I th ink I suggested tha t citizen , I was American that I t old him . 14 Q . Anything else that you can recall? 15 A . No . 16 Q. Did you have any other conversations with 17 18 19 Mr . Futerfas? MR . BALBER : Besides those two . BY MR . PRIVOR : 20 Q . Besides those two . 21 A . I don ' t recall . I know t here were a 22 couple of requests for conversation , and I was 23 at that point I didn ' t 24 conve rse wi th him , and I kind of for warded that 25 I kn ow I forwarded one message to -- I mean , think it was a good ide a to I 214 1 2 suggested him to call my attorney and not call me . I said , " I ' m in the air and I can ' t 3 contact my atto rne y . " 4 [Kaveladze Exhibit 19 was marked f o r 5 talk . Please identification . ] 6 BY MR . PRI VOR : 7 Q. I ' m going to hand yo u Exhibit No . 19 . 8 Th is is SJC- KAV - 0093 . 9 A . Yeah , what 10 me a cal l? " 11 yes , that ' s , " Can you give Yeah . Q. Th is is an email from Alan Fu terfas to 2017 , re : " Ca n you give me a 12 you dated July 7 ' 13 c all? " with a telephone number . 14 that he aske d to speak with you and you replied 15 A . " Just saw you r message . 16 Q . Yeah , and he said , And i t appears Tried to call . " " I will call you back So do you recall a conversation taking 17 shortly . " 18 place on Ju ly 7t h? 19 A . I do not. 20 Q . Okay . That ' s the problem . I do not . So do you thin k that the two 21 conversations that you ' ve already described , is it 22 pretty firm in your mind that those two 23 conversat i ons with Mr . Fu terfa s took pla ce June 24 27th and earlier? 25 A . Yes. 215 1 2 Q . And so this July 7th call that ' s referenced here is something else? 3 A . Yeah. 4 MR . BALSER : Or it didn ' t happen. Is that 5 possible as wel l? MR . KAVELADZE : 6 I was not too ex cited to 7 ta lk to him , and at some point I ju st referred him 8 to you . Did it happen? I don' t r emembe r . 9 BY MR . PR I VOR : 10 11 Q . Did Mr . Fu te rfas ever discuss with you t he possibility that the fact of the June 9th 12 meeting would be reporte d publicl y , like in the 13 media? 14 A . Yes , h e did . 15 Q . Wh at d id he say about that? 16 A . He said , " We ' re not releasing it , but 17 18 t here might be leak s , " Q . And did he refer to any p arti cular media , 19 any newspaper , any television? 20 A. I don ' t reca ll it . I d on ' t remember . 21 Q . You stated that in your con versation with 22 him June 27th t hat he read a stateme n t 23 you know what the purpose of that statement was? 24 A. I have no idea . 25 Q . Did you ever ask him? to you . Do 216 A . Well , 1 2 I didn ' t because he kind of was sent to me by Rob Goldstone , and Rob Goldstone 3 went through the same pr ocedu re , and s o I thought 4 it was a pr ocedure . 5 Q. A procedure for what? 6 A. Trump Jr . ' s attorneys trying to get my 7 recollection of events of the meeting 8 the meeting , and so - - event of Q . But did you have any understanding of 9 10 what he was goi n g to do with this statement? 11 he going to d i sseminate it in some way? A. Well , he claimed he wouldn ' t disseminate 12 13 it . He claimed it for internal use . Q . Was it set up as like a declaration of 14 15 Was some sort? 16 A . Yeah , qui ck -- it was very -- 17 Q . I use " declaration " as a technical term . 18 Was it like a witness statement? 19 you to sign something , 20 words " ? 21 22 23 A . I don ' t " Yes , t h ese a r e my think I ever signed anything , no . Just said okay over the phone . [Kaveladze Exhibit 20 was marked for 24 25 like , Did he ever ask identification . ) BY MR . PRIVOR : 217 Q . I ' m going to show you our next exhibit , 1 2 No . 2 0 . This is SJ C- KA V- 0 0 1 5 7 . 3 document. It ' s an ema il from Rob Goldstone to and Ike. 4 Subject is " Washington Post 11 A . Was I copied on this document? 6 I Oh , yeah , did . 8 [Pause . J 9 MR . KAVELADZE : 10 BY MR . PRIVOR : 11 Q . Okay . I remember that email . So I want to take you through some 12 of the th ings that Mr . Goldstone notes in his 13 ema i l . 14 report. 15 York Times . 16 and keen to hang this on y o u , Emin . He ' s talking about a Washington Post He said the Was h ingto n Post and the New " Washington Post was the most pushy 17 A . Emin? 18 Q . Do you see that? 19 A . Yes , 20 • Do you recognize this docu ent? 5 7 It ' s a one -page 11 " are keen to hang on you , Emin. " Okay . 21 Q . Do you know what was meant by that? 22 A . No . 23 Q . Do you take that to mean that the 24 reporter was mak i ng a story to blame Emin in some 25 way for the June 9th meeting? 218 1 2 3 4 5 6 A . I ' d like to see that article to make that statement . MR . O ' DONNELL : interpretati on bas ed on the ema i l you received . MR. BALBER : Do you know what Rob Goldstone meant when he said it? 7 MR . KAVELADZE : 8 MR . BALBER : 9 r ead the article . 10 J ust give yo ur No . Okay . At the time I didn ' t BY MR . PRIVOR : 11 Q . Mr . Goldstone then says , " I tried to 12 assu r e her " - - presumably that ' s the reporter 13 " that I had been the one requesting Don meet with 14 h er and wou ld not comme n t on who originated the 15 r e quest in Moscow ." So it sounds like Mr . 16 Goldstone told the reporter that he was the one 17 who origi nat ed the meeting . 18 understa ndi ng of how the meeting orig inated? Is that your 19 A . No . 20 Q. What is your understand ing of how it 21 originate d? 22 A . Mr . Aras Agalarov originated the meeting . 23 Q . And h e said he would no t comment on who 24 originated the requ est i n Moscow , so it sounds 25 like Mr . Goldstone didn ' t want to reveal that 219 1 there was a Russian source behind it? 2 A . Ye ah , I guess so. 3 Q . Do yo u kn ow why? Was there an effort to 4 hide the fact that somebody from Russ i a had 5 originated the request? 6 7 8 9 10 11 A . Certainly not my effort , so I don ' t what he meant . I was not hiding it . Q . Di d the Agalarovs make any effort , to your knowledge , to hide their connection to the June 9th meeting? A . Actually , it was opposite . They told me 12 that they ' re not hiding the fact that they 13 o rgani ze d the meeting . 14 know Q. He says , " Should we prepare a statement? " 15 Do you know if a statement was eve r prepared? 16 A . I don ' t believe we p rep ared any joint 17 18 statement , or any statement to th at matter . Q . The next paragraph , "Tr ump l awyers are 19 also i n a statement apparently saying the reason 20 for the meeting was ' misrepresented ' by us and 21 that her agenda was Magni ts ky Act and adoption ." 22 Do you agree with that statement , that 23 the Tr ump lawyers apparently saying the reason was 24 misrepresented? 25 A . I ' m not one of the Tr ump lawyers , so I 220 1 2 ca nn ot ma ke assessments like t h at . Q . Do you believe that the Trump lawyers had 3 misrepresented the meeting in any way? 4 A . No , I don ' t know. 5 answer this question . 6 share my bel ief s and my vision , so 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 MR . BALBER : It ' s I don ' t know how to just -- I can only Just answer the questions . sharing beliefs or visions . MR . KAVELADZE : No . BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . Had you seen any statements by the Trump l awyers about the meeting? A . I haven ' t seen but I he ard my statement , and statement was about the meeting . 15 Q . Okay . 16 A . It was very accurately descr i bing what 17 18 No happened during t he meeting . Q . Mr . Futerfas , you said , on or about June 19 27 th had read a statement to you over the 20 telephone . 21 accurate? Do you believe tha t that statement was 22 A. Yes . 23 Q . Was there anything about it that was 24 inaccurate other than you asked for a correction 25 of the name , your name? 221 1 A . It was maybe not as detailed as the full 2 statement because it was like two paragraphs as 3 opposed to four pages . So -- 4 Q . Do you feel that -- I ' m sorry . 5 A. So some information was missing , but 6 7 8 9 whatever was there was accurate . Q . What did you feel was missing from that original statemen t? A. History of Bill Browder , financial 10 machinations of Bill Browder , 11 Brothers funding Democratic Party . 12 things were missing from that thing . 13 two-paragraph thing . 14 15 the story about Ziff A lot of It was a Q . Were there any topics that were not covered in the statement that -- 16 A . We - - 17 MR . BALBER : 18 Q . -- took place at the mee ting that we 19 20 haven ' t Let him finish. discussed already? MR . BALBER: Sorry . Were there any topics 21 in the th ing that was read to him by Futer fas that 22 was not disc ussed in the meeting? 23 BY MR . PRIVOR : 24 25 Q . We re there any topics excluded from Futerfas ' statement that are topics that we have 222 1 already d i scussed as hav i ng been excluded? 2 So , fo r examp l e , ema i l hack i ng? 3 A . No . 4 Q . Tamper i ng with voter r olls and the like? 5 A . No , nothing like that . 6 Q . Nothing like that? 7 A . No . 8 Q . The last line of Mr . Goldstone ' s email on 9 Exhibit 2 0 says , " The FBI may be investigating 10 th i s meet i ng further . Thoughts? " 11 July 9th , had you been contacted by t h e FBI? 12 A . No , I was not . 13 Q . Di d you as k h im a bou t 14 At this time , the FB I ? Di d you as k Mr . Goldstone about the FBI investigat i ng? 15 A . No . 16 Q . Had Mr . Futerfas ment i oned to you 17 anything about the FBI possibly investigating? 18 A . No . 19 Q . At any time in any conversation with Mr . 20 Futerfas , had you discussed with him the 21 possibility of the FBI investi g ating the June 9th 22 meeting? 23 A . I don ' t believe so . 24 [Kaveladz e Exhibit 21 marked for identification . ] 25 Q . I ' ll s h ow you o u r next exhib i t , 21 . This 223 1 is a single-page document , SJC - KAV- 00127 , Rob 2 Goldstone t o Emi n , cc ' d to Ike , subject , 3 statement ." 4 response to the one we were just looking at , 5 Exhibit 20 . 6 " Re : And this document appe a rs to be a You can se e in the first pa r agraph Rob 7 Go l dstone as ks , 8 Suggesting it should come from e ither Aras , you , 9 o r me , or maybe fr om the Crocus Gro up as a wh o le . " 10 " Wha t about this as a statement? Do y ou recall him sending t hat statement to you? 11 A . Yes . 12 Q . And did you ever comment o n t hat 13 statement? 14 A . I don ' t 15 Q . When yo u saw this , did you believe it t o 16 be an acc urate statement wit h respect to the Ju ne 17 9th meet ing? believe so . 18 A . Ye ah . It was accurate statement . 19 Q . So he states here tha t , 20 pe rs onal request by us ." 21 was that h e was referring to? " This was a Do you kno w who the " us " 22 A . Aras , Emi n . 23 Q . And he says , 24 with the Russian Governme n t 25 of ficials ." " It ' s in no way connected or any of its That was your und erstanding , that i t 224 1 had no connection to the Russian Gove rnmen t? 2 3 A . That was my understanding . [Kaveladze Exhibit 22 was marked for 4 identification . ] 5 BY MR . PR IVOR : Q . We ' ll hand you Exhibit No . 22 . 6 This is a 7 multi-page document , SJC-KAV-00053 through 54 . 8 It ' s an email from Rob Goldstone to 9 Ike . and Subject here is the " Statement drafted by 10 Trump ' s lawyers whi ch they ' ve asked me to 11 release " . 12 one - page attachment . It ' s dated July 1 0 , 20 1 7 , and it has a Do you recognize that 13 document? 14 A. Yes . 15 Q. And so it looks like Rob Goldstone has 16 appended to this email a screenshot from his 1 7 phone , which is entitled " Statement ", and it looks 18 like Alan Futerfas has asked Rob to consider a 19 statement that h e ' s typed in there . 20 a t that statement . 21 s t at e me nt? 22 Do you agree wi t h the I s it tru t hful , in y our view? MR . BALBER : 2 3 b eca u se I d on ' t 24 Take a look I me an , i t ' s a li ttle unf ai r kn o w h o w t h e witn ess can kno w what s t atemen t s Goldston e su pposedl y rea d by Donal d 2 5 Trump , Jr ., and whether they ' re 1 0 0 percent 225 1 accurate. 2 MR . PRI VO R: Fair enough. 3 BY MR . PRIVOR : 4 5 Q . This statement , d o es t his accurately reflect your unders tanding of the June 9th 6 meeting? 7 A . Pre tty clo se . 8 Q. And i n wha t way does it devi a te from your 9 unders ta ndi ng , when you sa id " pre t ty close " ? 10 A . They did mention th is situation with 11 funding Democratic campaign , and I don ' t 12 here . see it And there was also r esponse from Donald 1 3 T rump , J r ., that Ziff Br othe rs fund ever ybody , 14 Democrats and Republicans. 15 Q. So would you cha ra ct eriz e t his statement 16 as being a complete description , o r is it missing 17 18 A . It ' s a pre tty accurate s ta teme nt . I 19 mean , l ike I sa id , you cannot fit a 45 - or 40 20 minute meeting into one paragraph , so that ' s 21 o bviously missing something . 22 accurate sta tement . 23 MR . BALSER : But , overall , that ' s I just want to c auti o n you . 24 You obvio us ly don ' t know what Don was or was not 25 told about Ms . Veselnitskaya ' s na me , ri ght? You 226 1 have no way of knowing that . 2 MR . KAVELADZE : 3 MR . BALBER : No. And you also , I think it ' s fair 4 to say , have no way of kn owing what Trump , 5 statements Goldstone is referring to such that he 6 can say they ' re 100 percent accurate or you can 7 endorse that one way or the other? 8 MR . KAVELADZE : 9 MR . BALBER : 10 11 MR . KAVELADZE : 13 MR . KAVELADZE : 16 17 18 19 I mean , the gentleman asked about the actual meeting , content of the meeting . MR . BALBER : 15 No . Okay . 12 14 Jr . ' s I just wanted to make sure . I would characterize it pretty accurate . MR . O ' DONNELL: begins with , And that ' s the sentence that " Ms . Veselnitskaya " MR . KAVELADZE: " Ves e lnitskaya mostly talk e d about Magnitsky Act ," yeah . MR . O ' DONNELL : Yeah , that ' s it . And then with respect t o 20 follow-up , you can only talk about any follow -u p 21 that you wou l d have be e n i n vol ved wi th . 22 MR . KAVELADZE : Exactly . 23 MR . O ' DONNELL : And as far as you ' re 24 c once rned , the r e was never a ny fo l low-up that you 25 were involved with other than the November -- 227 1 MR . KAVELADZE : 2 MR . O ' DONNELL : 3 4 5 6 November meeting . issues we ' ve discussed , and nothing ever came o f it. MR . KAVELADZE : Correct . BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . Ca n I point you to Exhibit 11 aga i n , 7 which is the long series of text messages , and 8 particularly Bates page 325 . 9 English on July 10 , 2017 , at 15 : 23 , an unknown And you ' ll see in 10 sender sent you texts concerni ng what appears to 11 be a desc ri ption of the June 9 t h meeting . 12 know who the sender is of that message? 13 A . Let me see the message . 14 [Pa us e . ] 15 MR . KAVELADZE : 16 knowl e dg e , no . 17 BY MR . PR I VOR : 18 I can only guess . Do you As fa r as Q . You ' ll see six lines d own , at the meeting 19 the Russian I ' m sorry , 20 reached o u t to Donald Trump , 21 squeeze us into a very tight meeting sc hedule ." 22 Do you know if anybody reached out to Donald 23 Trump , Jr . , other than Rob Goldstone? 24 A . No . 25 Q . Oka y . five lines down , "I J r ., and he agreed to That ' s Ro b Goldstone ' s statement . 228 1 A . Definitely . 2 Q . " ... and he agreed to squeeze us into a 3 very tight meeting schedule ." 4 that comes from? Do you know where 5 A . I have no idea . 6 Q . Did Rob Goldstone ever suggest there was 7 an effort to squeeze somebody into a very tight 8 meeting schedule? 9 10 11 A . No . Q . Do you kn o w if there was a time constraint o n the meeting? 12 A . I have n o idea . 13 Q . In your conversations with Mr . Futerfas , 14 did h e e ver ask y ou to conta c t 15 be contac te d by the press? h im if y o u were to 16 A. I d o n ' t 17 Q . Did you ever reach o ut to him to let him 18 19 believe so . know that you had been contacted by the press? A . No . I had my own attorney . I think from 20 t he very beg inni ng , my attorney has been handling 21 all contacts wit h press . 22 Q . Did you have a ny response to that 23 sta t e ment that a ppe ars to be Mr . Goldsto n e ' s 24 stateme nt sent to you from an unknown sender? 25 you recall discussing that statement wi t h anybody Do 229 1 else? 2 A . I remember discussing with Goldst one . 3 That ' s the only one . 4 5 Q . What do you remember abo u t that conversation? 6 A . I believe he asked me if the statement 7 was accurate , and I thought it was pretty 8 accurate . Q . The next entry at July 11 , 2017 , at 9 10 14 : 32 , you sent a message to Emin , and you asked , 11 11 12 And y ou have a stateme n t aft e r that , 13 address Mr . Trump-r ela t e d events , we ' ve reta ined 14 an outside co unse l , Mr . Scott Balber ," et cete ra . 15 Ar e you okay with this dra ft Cro cu s st atement? 11 " In o rd e r to Was your message to Emin concerning just what y o u 16 said in that text message , that the Crocus 17 s t a temen t would be in o rd er to address Trump - 18 related events , please contact our attorney? 19 A . Yeah . 20 Q . Or were y o u forwarding or sharing wit h 21 Emin Rob Goldsto n e ' s statement? 22 A . No . 23 Q. Do you know whether you ever dis c ussed 24 25 I ' m discussing that st atemen t . Rob Goldsto n e ' s sta tement wi t h Emin? A. I don ' t remember dis c u ssing st atement 230 1 with Emin. I was in u . s ., and he was in Russia . 2 Q. Okay. 3 A . No . 4 Q . Do you r ecall dis cuss ing that statement 5 with anyone ot her than your lawyers sitting he re? 6 A . No . 7 Q. Okay. 8 And how about with Ar as Agalarov? I think we will go off the record . It ' s 3 : 11. 9 [Recess at 3:11 p .m. to 3 : 12 . ] MR . FOS TER : 10 Okay . We ' ll go back on the 11 record at 3 : 12 . I just have a very few follow-up 12 questions , just a couple minutes . 13 FURTHER EXAMINAT ION BY 14 COU NSEL FOR THE MAJORITY 15 BY MR . FOSTER : 16 Q . First of all , other than your attorneys , 17 have you spoken with anyone else about your 18 appearance here today? 19 A . I spoke with 11111111111 , •iifli I mea n , that there 20 is an appearance . 21 don ' t 22 ago I mentioned to Mr . Agalarov I will be 23 traveling to D. C . 24 25 know I ' m in D. C . know where exactl y am I . They And I think a week Q . And did you h ave any substantive conversation with him about what you wou ld be 231 1 saying to us here today? 2 A . No . 3 Q . So anyon e else , did you h ave any He would never ask tho se questions . 4 substantive -- any convers ation with anyone else 5 about th e substance of what you wou ld be 6 testifying to today? 7 A . No . No , substance , no . There was also a 8 call from Mr . Agalarov , but we had to hang up 9 because we were walking in to a meeting , and so , 10 11 no , no substance conve rsati on . Q . Okay . So I believe in response to a 12 question from Mr . Privo r , you said that it was not 13 your understanding at the time of the meeting that 14 the purpose was for the benefit of t h e Russian 15 Governmen t , or something to that effect . 16 A . No , I didn ' t have that understanding . 17 Q . Is it currently y our understanding that 18 the purpose of the meeting was for the Russian 19 Government? 20 A . No . 21 Q . Could y o u take a look at Ex hib it 21? So 22 the statement that ' s suggested there , " The meeting 23 that took place in June 2016 between Ms . XXX and 24 the representatives of t h e T r ump campaign was the 25 result of a personal request by us and was in n o 232 1 way connected to the Russian Government or any of 2 its officials ." 3 A. Uh - huh . 4 Q . And that ' s currently your understanding? 5 Based on everything you know , you believe that ' s 6 a true statement today? 7 A . Yes . 8 Q . Earlie r in the interview wh en I was 9 questioning you and you were talking about the 1 0 meeting in Trump Towe r , you described Mr . 11 Akhme tshin and his statement during that meeting 12 that the Russian Government would change its 13 adoption policy if the Magnitsky Act were 14 repealed . Do you recall tha t description o f -- 15 A . Yes. 16 Q . And when you first described that to us , 17 you said something to t he ef f ect of -- you used 18 the word " we ." You said , 19 adoption ban ." Do y o u recal l 20 A . Yeah . " We would repeal the that? " We " was in cor re ct choi ce of wo rd s 21 because Mr . Akhme t s h in i s certai n l y n ot a p art of 22 Russian Government . 23 Q . Oka y . And I r e me mbe r f ol l o wing up a nd I 2 4 as ke d y o u at t h e time 25 A . Ye ah , and I co rrect e d mys e lf. 233 1 2 Q. -- did he say the word " we ," and you said no . 3 A . No . 4 Q. 5 So why did you use the word " we " at that point? A . I have no idea . 6 What -- it ' s basically - that adoption ban was brought into the picture 7 - 8 right after the Magnitsky law , and Russian public 9 bel ie ved th at it was in response to Magnitsky law. 10 And there ' s a belief that if Congress repeals 11 Magnitsky law , then adoption law would be repeale d 12 -- I mean , 13 the restriction would be repealed , to o . As far as " we ," it is the wrong choice of 14 words . 15 Russians , ma ybe that ' s what I mean t . 16 just ... 17 18 I didn ' t mean me , we , or something . Q . Be cau se you ' re a dua l We I mean , citizen o f both co un tries ? 19 A . Yeah -- well -- 20 MR . BALBER : I think what he said was that 21 Rina t use d the word " we " in the first instance , 22 and he corrected that . 23 himself in the " we " cat egory. 24 MR . KAVELADZE : 25 MR . BALBER : I don ' t think he ever pu t Yeah . I think he was quoting , now he 234 1 2 says incorrec t ly , what Rinat had sa i d . MR . O ' DONNELL : But you never meant to 3 convey that you thought Rinat spoke for the 4 Russian Government - KAVELADZE : No . 5 MR . 6 MR . O ' DONNELL : -- in making that statement . 7 MR . KAVELADZE : No , 8 9 I never - - BY MR . FOSTER : Q . And i s it true that you didn ' t mean to 10 include yourself in sha r ing t h e inte r ests of the 11 Rus s ian Government i n repealing the Magnitsky Act 12 in exchange for removing the adoption ban? 13 14 A . I certainly did not include myself into that group . 15 MR . FOSTER : 16 MR . KAVELADZE : 17 I don ' t Can I make a statement with regards to dual citiz e nship? 18 MR . BALBER : 19 MR . KAVELADZE : It No , doesn ' t 20 statement . 21 info r mative stat e ment . 22 have anything else . MR . O ' DONN ELL : you can n ot . It ' s an informative concern me . Wh y don ' t Just you talk to us 23 about it , and then we ' ll see whether it makes 24 sense for you to -- we ' ll get a chance at the end 25 of your testimony to clarify the record . 235 MR . FOSTER: 1 Well , I don ' t have any further 2 questions , so we can -- do you want some time to 3 confer? 4 MR . KAVELADZE : We ll , just qu ickly . 5 MR . FOST ER : 6 [ Recess at 3 : 18 p . m . to 3 : 24 p . m . J 7 MR . PRIVOR : We ' ll go of f the record. We ' re back on . It ' s 3 : 24 p . m . 8 FURTHER EXAMINATION BY 9 COUNSEL FOR THE MINORITY 10 BY MR . PRIVOR : Q . Mr . Kaveladze , thank you for your time 11 12 this afterno o n . We just have a coup le finishing 13 questions . 14 Mr . Foste r had asked you if you b eli eved there was 15 a ny connection to the Rus sian Government for this 16 Ju ne 9th meeting , and you said you didn ' t 17 so? Ju st before the b reak , my colleague believe 18 A . I didn ' t 19 Q . Do you kn ow wh ether Ms . Ves elnitskaya has 20 believe so . any connection to the Russian Go ve rnment? 21 A . I think she ' s private at to rney. 22 Q . You ' ve stated that yo u d on ' t 23 know her very wel l . 24 A . Yea h . 25 Q . And you didn't kn ow her befo re you heard 236 1 her name 2 A . Correct . 3 Q. -- o n June 6th . And d o you n ow kn ow her 4 very wel l 5 any , to the Russ i an Government? 6 to know what h er conne ct i o ns are , if A . I ' ve read articles in the media . That ' s 7 my only sour ce of information . 8 9 10 Q . You don ' t have any personal knowledge about her connections? A . Well , there were some text messages from 11 Natalia and , aga in , after the meeting , where she 12 would use the abbre viat ion " GP ", wh i c h made me 13 think it ' s the Prose cuto r General 's office . 14 Q . Do you know if she has any conne ctions t o 15 Mr . Chaika , the 16 A . I have n o idea . 17 Q . He ' s the equiva l ent of the At torney 18 General in Russia . 19 A . Yes. I have no idea if she h as 20 conn ections with Chai ka . 21 [Kaveladze Exhib i t 22 23 24 25 23 was mar k e d for identification . ] Q . I wa nted to show y ou one additional document wh ich h as been marked as Ex hib it No . 23 . This is a two -pag e docume nt , SJC - KAV -0 003 2 2 37 It ' s an email from 1 th r ough 33 . 2 to you , subject " DTJR ", dated July 1 1 , 2017 . 3 it is a one - page email with a one - page attachment . 4 And Have you seen this email before? 5 A . Yes. 6 Q . Do you recognize it? 7 A . Yes. 8 Q . Okay . It ' s an email from 9 email , he says , And he asks , 11111· on e sentence in the " Why did he re l ease this email 10 adm i tting to collusion? " 11 appears to be an email from Donald - - that Donald 12 Trump , Jr . , exchanged with Rob Goldstone . 13 this is the email that we had shown you earlier in 14 the day , or at least an excerpt from it -- 15 A . Yes . 16 Q . -- as an exhib it. And then the attachment Do you know what ~ 17 II had 18 this email admitting to collusion? " 19 A. in mind when he said , - And " Why did he release was watching television , and when 20 the email was released , there were discussions 21 about collusion . 22 23 I guess that ' s what he meant . Q . Had you had any conversations with II about collusion? 24 A . No . 25 Q . Is that a word that you had used? Ill 238 1 A . I have ne ver used that wo r d . 2 Q . In any context? 3 A. Honestly , no. I mea n , I used it n ow , but 4 that ' s not something I ' m using . 5 Q . If you look at the second page of this 6 ex h ibit , it appears -- hopefully i t came thr ough 7 o n your copy . 8 highlighting on the line a l ittle more than 9 ha lfway down . It appears that ther e ' s " Th i s i s o b viousl y very high level 10 and s ens it i ve inf o rmat i on , but it i s part of 11 Russia a nd its governme n t ' s su pport .. . " 12 see that? Do you 13 A. I do . 14 Q . Does the highl i gh t i n g sh o w t hr o ugh to y o u 15 as well ? 16 [Witness noddi ng head . ] 17 Q . Do you know who put 18 the re ? 19 A . I have n o idea . 20 Q . Wa s t h at 21 A . I ha ve n o idea . lllllfal, do you kn o w? Ho n e st l y , I di dn ' t e v en I saw it was about that thing . 22 pa y attention . 23 d idn ' t pa y atte n t i o n . 24 sa w th e e ma i l . 25 the h ighlighting I d idn ' t re ad it . I j ust Q . Did you put the highlighting there? I 239 1 A. No . 2 Q . Do you kn ow who Michael Cohen is? 3 A. I do not know. 4 Q . Do you know who Felix Sater is? 5 A. From papers . 6 Q . Do you kn ow him personally? 7 A. No . 8 Q . Do you have any business relationship 9 No , I didn ' t . with him? 10 A . No. 11 Q . Do you know if the Crocus Group has a 12 13 14 15 business relationship with him? A . I do not believe we have any relati onship with Felix Sater . Q . One last question for you . It ' s sort of 16 a general observation about a number of the email 17 exhibits in part icu lar . 18 time stamps on the exhibits seem to shift around 19 quite a bit , like emails that are responses have 20 dates or times that are bef ore the message 21 inquiring . 22 this production? Do you know why that occu rred with 23 A . I have no idea . 24 Q . Do you know , 25 We ' ve n oticed that the j ust as a general matter -- I hate to make an accusation , but I have to ask 240 1 it: 2 produce d to us as they ' re kept in their o rdinary 3 course of business with you ? 4 Do you know whe t her the doc uments were MR . BALSER : 5 they were . 6 BY MR. PR IVOR: 7 I can attest t o the fa c t Q . And ca n you con firm that the documents 8 haven ' t been a l tered i n any way fro m their 9 original state? 10 A . Ye s , I can confirm t hat . 11 MR . PRIVOR : 12 13 14 15 that Okay . Ver y well . We appreciate your time and counsel ' s time MS . SAWYER : One qui c k ques tio n . BY MS . SAWYER : Q . Just on the document that my colleague 16 was just showing you , did you ever then talk about 17 that wit h - after he sent you that email? 18 A . I did . 19 Q . And what did you discuss with him? 20 A . I told h im that at this stage 21 transparency is importa nt step for that. 22 imp ortant t o be transparent . It ' s 23 Q . An d wh at did you mean by that? 24 A . I k ind of like the i dea that Mr . Trump , 25 J r ., has released the emai l and that it ' s 241 1 2 3 important f o r Mr . Trump to be transparent . Q . And had any one discussed that with you before it happened , the release of the email? 4 A . No . 5 MR . O ' DONNELL : 6 7 8 9 Before those emails -- was going to be released before it was released? MR . KAVELADZE : MR . PRIVOR : questions . 11 counsel ' s time . 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 No. I never knew about existence of that email . 10 12 Did you know i f the email Okay . I have no further Thank you for your time today and It ' s 3 : 30 . We ' ll go off the rec ord . [Whereupon the proceedings we re adjourned at 3 : 30 p . m. J 1 ERRATA SHEET 2 SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE 3 INTERVIEW OF : IRAKLY "IKE" KAVELADZE 4 - PAGE LINE 5 ~ l f /l. A 1'. L 'f CHANGE: '' i K~ '" i<-A-J~'-Ao 2 E. 6 \#-,1~ REASON: ~ ~ W '~~"'> 7 ' 8 CHANGE : ~ l'lo ~ (, 1\ 9 ~ \ ,., '- C.') e."+1~ 11 "'l.e- CHANGE: ., ~ r r \--,a REASON : C. \.. A fl.. I f CHANGE: •' I ,, hi.-., ~ REASON: q4 ,. ,C'"t' 21 CHANGE: 10 ,Z '3 CHANGE: •1 ('pl\ve.J':.~"'- St~c..c.... ~~~ft,~6 ''>" i 1._ _ tc n '\<..u ·1 '9 >S ,, 1 '-.. j ""-& r- 1 m'", vl~l c..1-u- ~ ~AS fU cU.c..~ c.,_ 12 13 ...,,,\.- REASON: .4:J t I & C,I 10 11 ct ~ '(II'('. "' .. w'(..\ "1~ f1,..\o\-"'1' .("l:J\~_.-e ~ ~c>J"v'- ~ ''L:,~lr~ ?,'"~e.. '' Pt.~'"2--" 14 15 16 17 18 REASON: CoJ"'r4 19 I \t CHANGE: " - REASON , t'c?r CHANGE: \c'Cc,,P,-~ t-'l>~€. '1l.,(}<'f 22 /_'J "'.t--, - ~ I(:, \ 71 - '1 "2...- - (t,l)'" ><¥- \\~ "~ 2S 20 21 ~ L. <> S. ,A I' ':)12. \~ ~' 1 ""l...._s.\- J E=.- .- ~~ ~1)~s.+-, 23 24 \,o tv\o S (.o <-> \,{.:,,,,l ... )2, t,\r. tt"-'•...._,.,:,,. ~~ 0 t.i\.~. \.,4.,.J-c.\c.)""2.e \0 f 7oC. \N':;r. ~ ~ 1f" \.,(..~t-~'2.~ ~\~~ \- cµ...~<;:-c...._ ~ y,,cwo1<.'yo,,...,\.c.-C, r~i \'-\ t...~<-UL. ~ ~ < . ,re.~r-•<;., Submitted by : (Signed 25 1 ' PRINT NAME : Date: rr _., (Lf Alderson Court Reporting 1-800-FOR-DEPO c) (7 l"J.t>f ~ I 2.,( t.,