How Sovereign Wealth Funds Grease Trump’s Kleptocracy

Neither Dmitriev nor the RDIF has much of a reputation in the United States. As recently as October Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed Dmitriev as “a Russian propagandist.” A 2022 Treasury Department press release prohibiting Americans from engaging in financial transactions with RDIF said the fund, which was created in 2011, is “widely considered a slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and is emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy.”

Now we’re supposed to take Dmitriev seriously as a diplomat and RDIF seriously as the instrument of a just peace? That will take some effort. The Journal story described an October negotiation at Witkoff’s waterfront estate in Miami Beach attended by Dmitriev and Kushner. The topic was supposed to be Ukraine, but the conversation drifted to a plan Dmitriev proposed for U.S. companies to use $300 billion in Russian funds currently frozen in Europe to engage in joint investment projects, and for the United States to lead reconstruction of Ukraine. The strategy, the Journal said, was to “convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity.”

Call me a cynic, but I believe at least some of that bounty will finds its way to the Witkoff or Trump families. A Trump donor and close friend of Donald Trump, Jr. called Gentry Beach— with whom Don, Jr. previously invested hundreds of thousands of dollars—is angling for a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project contingent on current sanctions against Russia being lifted. Another Trump donor, Stephen Lynch, paid a lobbyist close to Don, Jr. $600,000 to help secure a Treasury Department license to negotiate with Russian companies that are currently under United States sanction toward purchase of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that runs between Russia and Germany. The Journal said there was no evidence Witkoff or Kushner knew about Beach’s and Lynch’s aspirations, but they certainly know now.