the role of an “adviser” to one of the nation’s two competing presidential campaigns.76 Indeed, al-Otaiba’s actions during the general election likely involve repeated solicitations for Kushner to violate the Logan Act, 18 U.S.C. § 953, a federal criminal statute that regulates U.S. citizens’ ability to discuss policy issues with foreign diplomats “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.”77
Al-Otaiba becomes much more than simply a protocol-breaching policy adviser to Jared Kushner, however. In the same way Trump aides such as George Papadopoulos work behind the scenes to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin during the campaign—the sort of summit that must be handled delicately because of its potential inappropriateness, per diplomatic norms—by June 2016 al-Otaiba is trying to “arrange meetings between [Saudi deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman] and the Trump campaign” with Barrack’s assistance, which likewise could become inappropriate if they involve any substantive discussion of changes to U.S. foreign policy under a prospective Trump administration.78 Little is known of al-Otaiba’s clandestine machinations in early summer 2016, except that they appear to culminate in an August 3, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between MBZ’s emissary George Nader, MBZ adviser Erik Prince, MBZ consultant Joel Zamel, Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller, and Trump’s son Don Jr. (see chapter 5). A second result is undoubtedly a meeting at Trump Tower in December 2016 between MBZ and Kushner—at which meeting MBZ “recommend[s] Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia as a promising young leader,” according to a person familiar with the meeting who speaks to the New York Times.79 Though present reporting does not indicate that Trump attended Kushner’s meeting with MBZ, this is consistent with a trend observable within both the Trump campaign and Trump transition: not acknowledging any meetings Trump may have attended, even when, as with the December 2016 Kushner-MBZ meeting, Trump was available to meet—was possibly even in the building where the meeting occurred as it happened—and MBZ’s ambassador al-Otaiba had been working for six months to connect MBZ to Trump’s inner circle. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a de facto head of state with such long-standing (if mediated) ties to the Trump campaign breaching international diplomatic protocol to enter the United States secretly, traveling to Trump Tower, and then being denied access to the president-elect.
Just four days before Barrack’s June 1 interview with Bloomberg TV about Trump’s prospective foreign policy with respect to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel, the Trump campaign sends the preeminent Israel expert on its national security advisory committee, George Papadopoulos, to Greece. Papadopoulos’s visit coincides with a visit to the city by Vladimir Putin, and both Papadopoulos and Putin meet with the same government official while in Athens, Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos—in both instances discussing the subject of U.S. sanctions on Russia.80
Between Papadopoulos’s two visits to Greece in May 2016, one in early May and one in late May, one of Papadopoulos’s chief supervisors, Sam Clovis, the man who hired Papadopoulos to the campaign in March, receives a message from a relative of Trump Organization attorney Jason Greenblatt.81 Greenblatt is Trump’s future special envoy to the Middle East; his relative is writing Clovis to try to arrange a Trump-Putin summit through Berel Lazar, a Russian rabbi who is a “very close confidante of Putin.”82 Greenblatt, Greenblatt’s relative, and Lazar ultimately convene at Trump Tower in the summer of 2016 for a meeting—though whom they meet with at Trump Tower is unknown, and their reason for selecting Clovis as their campaign contact for a secret Trump-Putin summit is unclear.83 Lazar will later claim that, despite being put forward as a critical conduit for future Trump-Putin communications and despite having met with one of the Republican presidential candidate’s top attorneys, he subsequently kept from Putin any information about his meeting at Trump Tower.84 It is shortly after this initial outreach by Lazar that the Trump campaign’s chief Israeli expert, Papadopoulos, travels to Athens with Clovis’s permission while Putin is already in the city—the Russian president’s only trip to an EU country during the 2016 presidential campaign, and to precisely the sort of “neutral city” Papadopoulos had previously told his campaign superiors the Kremlin preferred to use for covert meetings.85
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On May 26, 2016, Trump officially clinches the GOP nomination. Two weeks later, he returns to his old line of attack regarding Saudi Arabia: that the Saudis