Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report sketches out yet another effort to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin – this time from a man touting a connection to the Chief Rabbi of Russia.
The Trump-Putin meeting never occurred, but Rabbi Berel Lazar, known as 'Putin's Rabbi,' did attend a Trump Tower meeting in 2016 with the man who pitched it.
The outreach is described in a footnote to Mueller's report, which details among other things a successful effort involving Russians to meet top Trump officials with a promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton, the cultivation of foreign policy advisor George Papadapoulos by a Maltese professor and his associate, parallel efforts to arrange Trump-Putin meeting, and a Russian 'active measures' social media campaign that won retweets from Trump aides.
The report says the contact involved Sam Clovis, the Iowa political figure who co-chaired Trump's campaign. In addition to fielding Russia pitches from Papadopoulos, Clovis got one from a David Klein, described as a 'distant relative' of then-Trump Organization lawyer Jason Greenblatt.
Russia's Chief Rabbi Berel Laza attended a Trump Tower meeting in 2016. According to the Mueller report, the rabbi, who is close to Russian President Putin, received an email from a relative of Trump Organization lawyer Jason Greenblatt about a possible Trump-Putin meeting
Trump later named Greenblatt his Middle East negotiator.
Klein emailed Clovis 'about a potential Campaign meeting with Berel Lazar, the Chief Rabbi of Russia,' according to the report. Before contacting Clovis, Lazar had gone to the rabbi – and according to Mueller discussed the Trump-Putin meeting.
'The email stated that Klein had contacted Lazar in February about a possible Trump-Putin meeting and that Lazar was 'a very close confidante of Putin,' according to the report, which cites an interview with Klein as well as the email as sources of information.
Lazar is indeed considered close to the Russian president, and as the Times of Israel recently noted, he is sometimes referred to as 'Putin's Rabbi.' He is a member of the Chabad Hassidic sect.
However as with the entreaties by Papadopoulos, who met in London during the campaign with a Maltese professor who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton and who according to the Mueller report was connected to a former member of a Russian troll farm, nothing appears to have come of the offer.
Rabbi Berel Lazar is known as 'Putin's rabbi,' because he is a close confidant of the Russian president
