Who’s Who
NOTE: Names in red are most important to the narratives in this series.
Disclaimer: The information below was compiled from Simpson’s testimonies, the Steele dossier, and William Browder’s opening statement, and may or may not be accurate. Content that includes information that I add will be surrounded by [brackets] and/or will include a link or reference to the source.
Roman Abramovich
A Russian billionaire businessman and politician. Simpson recommended that the House Intelligence Committee look into Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s relationship with him. [He has admitted in court that part of his success was achieved by bribing government officials and paying gangsters. [Wikipedia]
Emin Agalarov
A Russian pop star who knows Donald Trump from the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. In Rob Goldstone’s June 3, 2016 e-mail to Trump Jr., Goldstone said that Emin had “something very interesting” for the Trump campaign. [NPR] The Agalarovs came to the United States around the fall of the Soviet Union, and Simpson says that the Agalarovs were connected to people previously involved in major money laundering activity in New York in the early 1990s.
Aras Agalarov
One of the wealthiest oligarchs in Russia. Father of Emin Agalarov. Aras and Emin met Donald Trump during 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. [NPR] He is believed to have been given Veselnitskaya’s information by Yuri Chaika and then helped arrange the trump Tower meeting for Veselnitskaya.
Rinat Akhmetshin
A former Russian intelligence officer, now a U.S. citizen – a PR consulting lobbyist – enlisted by Natalia Veselnitskaya to help in the campaign by Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation to repeal the Magnitsky Act. Simpson met him while working at the Wall Street Journal covering some stories about Kazakhstan.
Robert Arakelian
A man whom Simpson vaguely recalls from a Prevezon lunch or dinner, introduced as a friend of either Rinat Akhmetshin or Denis Katsyv, owner of Prevezon – Simpson could not recall which. Questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee imply that he was a lobbyist for HRAGI.
Tevfik Arif / Tofik Arifov
A Central Asian man alleged by Simpson to be involved in organized crime, child prostitution, and Donald Trump. Simpson says that he was involved in the development of Trump Soho.
Julian Assange
Founder of WikiLeaks, currently living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. WikiLeaks was the organization that made public incriminating e-mails from the DNC and the Clinton Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
Petr Aven
One of the three leaders of Alfa Bank.
Demetri Baranovsky
A Russian organized crime figure (member of the Solntsevo Brotherhood) who was allegedly blackmailing Prevezon.
Elena Baranoff
An Uzbek immigrant who died of cancer in 2015. Simpson says that she was a suspected organized crime figure who took the Trumps on tours of Russia and brokered some of his deals.
Edward Baumgartner
A Russian-speaking subcontractor hired by Fusion GPS to work on the Prevezon case. He was tasked with helping to locate witnesses, gather Russian language documents and Russian language media reports. After the Prevezon case ended, he also did some work on the Trump case, gathering information from Russian language newspapers about Paul Manafort and Ukraine. Baumgartner has a consulting firm that deals with issues in Ukraine and sometimes Russia.
Paul Behrends
A Congressional aide to U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Simpson says that Behrends met with either lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin or attorney Mark Cymrot or both. [Politico]
William Browder
An American-born hedge fund manager and investment advisor who surrendered his U.S. citizenship in 1998 and has since has lived mainly in Russia and the UK. He is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. He relayed information to the U.S. Department of Justice against Prevezon in a money laundering case. Browder gave an absolutely riveting testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on 7/26/17. [The Atlantic]
Evgeny Buryakov / Eugene Buryakov
A former employee of Russia’s Sberbank arrested as an illegal Russian intelligence agent. Simpson believes that Buryakov tried to recruit Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Lee Casey
An attorney and partner at Baker Hostetler’s Washington DC office. Together with Baker attorney David Rivkin Jr., he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in October 2017 urging Trump to pardon anyone believed to be involved in Russian interference with the U.S. election. [Wall Street Journal]
Yuri Chaika
The Prosecutor General of Russia, one of that country’s most powerful government officials. The New York Times reported that Veselnitskaya discussed allegations against Hillary Clinton with him before trying to pass them on to the Trump team during the Trump Tower meeting. [New York Times]
Michael Cohen
An attorney for Donald Trump described by Simpson as “very intimidating.” One of his tasks was fielding inquiries about Trump and Russia. Simpson said that Cohen was also involved in Trump real estate projects where there were a lot of Russian buyers, and that he had associations with Russian organized crime figures in New York and Florida.
James Comey
Former FBI Director. He has served high level government roles under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. Controversially, less than two weeks before the 2016 election, he notified Congress that the FBI was re-opening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server, yet did not disclose that the FBI was also investigating the Trump Campaign’s connections with Russia. Some credit that unorthodox disclosure with undermining Clinton at the last minute and throwing the election to Trump. On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired Comey, prompting the appointment of a special prosecutor to determine is Trump’s act was an obstruction of justice. [Wikipedia]
Chris Cooper
A former Wall Street Journal reporter, now a public relations person working for the Potomac Group/Potomac Square Group, who was hired by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to create what Browder calls a “fake documentary” about Browder and Sergei Magnitsky. Simpson has been friends with Cooper for years and occasionally refers PR work to him.
Mark Cymrot
A former Justice Department Prosecutor who now works at Baker Hostetler. He was the partner in charge of the Prevezon case, and the person to whom Fusion GPS reported for their work on that case.
Oleg Daripaska
A Russian oligarch who met with Presidential candidate John McCain before the 2008 Presidential election. Daripaska is banned from the U.S. due to suspected ties to organized crime.
Ronald Dellums
A former U.S. Congressman hired by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to lobby Congress to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
Igor Divyekin
A Russian spy who Steele says met with Carter Page in Russia to suggest that Russia’s extensive dossier of kompromat on Hillary Clinton could be made available to the Trump team.
Alexander Downer
Australian diplomat to the United Kingdom. In May of 2016, George Papadopoulos allegedly told him in a London bar that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Downer informed the Australian government of the conversation, and when the Russian hacking began during the 2016 election, the Australian government informed the U.S. intelligence community of the conversation.
Marc Elias
An attorney at Perkins Coie who was involved in hiring Fusion GPS. Elias is an attorney for the DNC and Clinton Campaign.
Nigel Farage
A broadcaster, politician, and leader of the nationalist UK Independence Party from 2006-2009 and from 2010-2016. [Wikipedia]
Michael Flynn
A retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General who worked on the Trump Campaign and served as National Security Adviser in the early days of the Trump Administration. Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI, and is currently a cooperating witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation. [Wikipedia]
Mikhail Fridman
One of the three leaders of Alfa Bank.
Peter Fritsch
Simpson’s business partner at Fusion GPS. Fritsch had the conversations with Perkins Cole about possibly doing Trump research for them.
Boris Goldstein
A west coast man who Simpson says is known to have ties to Russian intelligence.
Rob Goldstone
A former British tabloid journalist who became a marketer/promoter. Goldstone has known Trump for years, and worked on the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. One of Goldstone’s clients is Emin Agalarov. At Emin’s suggestion, Goldstone contacted Trump Jr. about meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya, and attended the Trump Tower meeting. [Washington Post]
Nikolai Gorokhov
A Russian attorney who has been supportive of the Magnitsky Act. In early 2017, he survived being thrown from the fourth floor of his apartment building [NBC News]
Oleg Govorun
Russian official currently responsible for relations between Russia and other former Soviet countries. In the 1990s, he worked for Alfa Bank, and was responsible for transporting large amounts of illicit cash to Putin when Putin was Mayor of St. Petersburg.
French Hill
A U.S. Representative (R-AR) who has taken pro-Russia positions and who was given the same information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya brought to Trump Tower.
Sergei Ivanov
A Russian Deputy Prime Minister and former KGB agent with whom Putin has been friends with since the 1990s, when Putin appointed him deputy head of the FSB. [Wikipedia] Simpson discovered that Ivanov heads an internal intelligence agency for the Kremlin which “sits atop” several other intelligence agencies including the FSB, GRU and SVR. Ivanov was fired by Putin as Chief of Staff on August 12, 2016 for giving incorrect/overly optimistic advice about the potential blowback from Russia’s interference in the U.S. election, according to the Steele dossier.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
A pro-democracy politician in Russia. He has been supportive of the Magnitsky Act. In December 2016, be barely survived being poisoned. [Wikipedia]
Denis Katsyv
Russian owner of Cyprus-based Prevezon Holdings.
Pyotr Katsyv
The transportation minister for Moscow at the time of the Prevezon case. Now deputy head of the state railroad company. Pyotr is father of Denis Katsyv.
Irakle Kaveladze
A man with ties to the Russian government who Simpson says was has been involved in money laundering and was in the meeting at Trump Tower representing the Agalarovs. [Business Insider]
German Khan
One of the three leaders of Alfa Bank.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
A Russian oligarch, Russia’s richest man in 2003, at which time Putin arrested him and staged a dramatic televised trial to make an example of him.
Sergei Kislyak
A Russian ambassador to the U.S. who has figured prominently in the Trump-Russia scandal. He was alleged on CNN to be a Russian spy and spy recruiter. had meetings with Trump advisor/then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner – meetings which Sessions, Flynn and Kushner all initially denied or claimed not to recall. In May, 2017, Kislyak and Russian diplomat Sergei Lavrov met privately in the Oval Office with Trump. U.S. officials were alarmed when Trump disclosed classified information to them in the meeting. Kislyak returned to Moscow in July 2017. [Wikipedia]
Konstantin Kosachev
Head of Russian Foreign Relations Committee. Steele believes that he was important in communications between the Trump Campaign and Kremlin, and arranged a meeting in Prague between Kremlin representatives and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
David Kramer
Long-time adviser to U.S. Senator John McCain. Simpson has known him for years, and they share a concern about Russian kleptocracy and police state.
Mikhail Kulagin
A Russian diplomat to the U.S. who Steele alleges was heavily involved in the Russian veterans’ pensions money laundering scheme.
Sergei Lavrov
A Russian diplomat. On May 10, 2017 – the day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey – Lavrov and Russian diplomat Sergei Kislyak met privately in the Oval Office with President Trump. No American journalists were allowed into the room, but a Russia journalist was. [NPR]
Bennett LeBow
Head of Liggett-Ducat, a Moscow-based tobacco manufacturing and distribution company. [Bloomberg] A friend of Howard Lorber and Donald Trump. Simpson credits Lorber and LeBow with introducing Trump to Russia.
Ed Lieberman
A Washington DC lawyer who specializes in international tax issues. He helped Baker Hostetler on the Prevezon case to determine possible tax evasion by William Browder and Hermitage Capital. He had known Rinat Akhmetshin for many years, and now worked with him to lobby Congress to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
Howard Lorber
A real estate investor who did a lot of deals in Russia when things were fairly wild after the fall of the Soviet Union. Trump considers him a good friend.
Sergei Magnitsky
An attorney that William Browder hired to investigate corruption in the Russian government and Russian business community. One of the companies that he exposed for money laundering was Prevezon Holdings. [Law.com] Magnitsky died in a Russian prison in 2009. To avenge his death, Browder lobbied Congress to successfully pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012.
Paul Manafort
Trump’s Presidential Campaign Chairman from June-August of 2016. Manafort is a lobbyist, lawyer, and political consultant and has helped on numerous other Republican Presidential campaigns. He has also done work for the pro-Russian Party of Regions in the Ukraine, and with ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (currently in exile if Russia and wanted by the Ukrainian government for high treason). Manafort is currently under indictment by federal grand jury for conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, and failure to file financial information.
Viktor Markelov
A convicted murderer in whose name William Browder alleges that the Russian Interior Ministry had fraudulently re-registered Browder’s holding companies.
Alexander Mashkevich
Central Asian organized crime figure who has been involved in money laundering, the mining industry, and Kazakhstan. He is a financial backer of Felix Sater’s Bayrock. [Wikipedia]
Sergei Millian / Siarhei Kukuts
A Trump-linked Russian linguist who ran the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. He claimed to be an exclusive agent for Trump in Russia who had sold hundreds of million of dollars in Trump properties to Russians. Simpson believed that Millian helped Trump get funding for Trump Hollywood be assuring investors that there were already a number of pre-sales to Russians. Millian was also linked to Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Seymon Mogilevich
The head of the Solntsevo Brotherhood. According to Simpson, he is known for running very elaborate schemes, including a major stock fraud scheme in the U.S. for which he is currently a fugitive from the United States.
John Moscow
An attorney at Baker Hostetler’s New York office. He is an expert in tax evasion and money laundering, and Simpson knows him from his days at the Wall Street Journal. He helped Simpson review information in the Prevezon case.
Boris Nemtsov
Nemtsov was a partner of William Browder in advocating for the Magnitsky Act. He was murdered in 2015 on a bridge in front of the Kremlin.
Devin Nunes
A U.S. Representative (R-CA) who serves as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He was also on the Trump transition team, and has taken numerous actions during Trump’s Presidency opposing investigation efforts into Trump-Russia, as well as releasing information that he claims makes the investigation efforts unnecessary or tainted. On February 3, 2017, Nunes released a memo, authored by his staff, that presented evidence which Nunes said would prove a plot within the FBI against President Trump. [Wikipedia]
Bruce Ohr
Prosecutor who contacted Fusion after the election to get information for the Department of Justice. Ohr is a friend of Steele. According to Fox News, Ohr’s wife Nellie worked on Trump-related research at Fusion during the summer of 2016. [Fox News]
Nellie Ohr
Wife of DOJ Prosecutor Bruce Ohr. According to Fox News, Ohr’s wife Nellie worked on Trump-related research at Fusion during the summer of 2016. [Fox News]
Carter Page
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who regularly did business in Russia and had lost a lot of money in Russian investments. He owned stock in Gazprom. Simpson believed that the Russians were trying to compromise him. [Page first came to the attention of the FBI after meeting with a Russian spy who was under surveillance.] [Washington Post]
George Papadopoulos
A foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential campaign. In May of 2016, Papadopoulos was allegedly in a London bar and told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. On October 5, 2017 Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. [Wikipedia]
Dmitry Peskov
Chief spokesman for the Kremlin, believed by Steele to be in control of a dossier of kompromat on Hillary Clinton, and also to have been the coordinator of the DNC hacking.
John Podesta
Campaign Manager for 2016 Clinton Presidential Campaign. Simpson had known Podesta for decades, but states that he did not communicate with him in 2015 or 2016. WikiLeaks released a number of Podesta’s hacked e-mails during the 2016 campaign. Those e-mails eventually became part of a right wing conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate.” [Snopes]
David Rivkin Jr.
An attorney and partner at Baker Hostetler’s Washington DC office. Together with BH attorney Lee Casey, he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in October 2017 urging Trump to pardon anyone believed to be involved in Russian interference with the U.S. election. [Wall Street Journal]
Dana Rohrabacher
A strongly pro-Russia and pro-Putin U.S. Representative (R-CA). On April 2, 2016, during a Congressional trip to Moscow, Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya gave him a document with talking points similar to those that she brought to Trump Tower two months later. [Wikipedia]
Sergei Roldugin
Vladimir Putin’s closest childhood friend, according to William Browder. Roldugin is a famous cellist who Browder alleges received a large sum of money as an agent for Putin, including $230 million that Browder was accused of not paying in taxes.
Rod Rosenstein
Deputy Attorney General appointed by Trump. Rosenstein serves as acting Attorney General on the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all matters related to that issue. Rosenstein appointed and oversees Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Wilbur Ross
Former Vice Chariman of the Bank of Cyprus, named in 2017 Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. Cyprus has been known as a country whose banking system is used by wealthy Russians for laundering of illicit money. Ross connected Trump with Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev to buy a Palm Beach mansion at over twice what Trump had paid for it two years earlier. [A New York Times article from March of 2017 portrays Ross as a “savior” who helped purge the Bank of Cyprus of Russian influence.] [New York Times]
Dmitry Rybolovlev
A wealthy Russian oligarch who purchased a south Florida mansion from Trump in 2008 for around $95 million at a time when the U.S. real estate market was in decline. Trump had purchased it two years earlier for around $40 million. Rybolovlev, who was at one time the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, was introduced to Trump by billionaire Wilbur Ross, who eventually became Vice Chair of Bank of Cyprus – a position that he held until Trump appointed. [MSNBC] Rybolovlev’s plane or yacht showed up near locations where Trump was several times during the 2016 campaign. According to the New York Times, Rybolovlev has had an adversarial relationship with the Kremlin. [New York Times] However, Simpson states that many Russian oligarchs who have a presence in the U.S. still appear to be working to benefit the Kremlin, and “they like to have an image as someone who is on the outs with the Kremlin, but when you look closely, they’re not.”
Anatoli Samochornov
A Russian translator from New York who was qualified to do legal translation and worked for Baker Hostetler on the Prevezon case. Simpson did not believe that Samochornov knew Natalia Veselnitskaya prior to the Prevezon case. Samochornov was at the Trump Tower meeting.
Felix Sater
A U.S. man with connections to the Solntsevo Brotherhood, the largest organized crime family in Russia. Sater was convicted in 1998 of a $40 million federal racketeering charge [Miami Herald]. Sater has worked with Donald Trump on various real estate projects over the years, but Trump claims to know Sater only peripherally and would not even recognize him. Sater’s company, Bayrock, was located in Trump Tower, was the developer of Trump Soho, and tried in 2016 to make a Trump Tower Moscow happen. [Raw Story]
Howard Schweitzer
An employee of lobbying firm Cozzen O’Connor Public Strategies, hired to lobby Congress to repeal the Magnitsky Act. Schweitzer arranged and funded a June 13, 2016 screening at the Newseum, a Washington DC museum dedicated to the First Amendment, to present what Browder alleges is a fake documentary about Browder and Sergei Magnitsky. Simpson states that he does not know him.
Igor Sechin
A high-ranking Russian government official as well as Executive Chairman of Russian state oil company Rosneft. [Wikipedia] Simpson describes him as “Putin’s No. 1 compadre in the kleptocracy.”
Alex Shnaider
A Russian-born Canadian national who was a partner of Trump in developing Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto. Simpson says that Shnaider’s father-in-law, Boris Birshtein, was important in the history of the alliance between the KGB and the Russian mafia, and managed the KGB’s offshore funds after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Dimitri Simes
A Moscow-born man who emigrated to the U.S. in 1973. He was an informal foreign policy adviser on the Soviet Union to President Nixon, and has worked on numerous projects on U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and Russia. In 1994, Nixon appointed him President and CEO of Center for the National Interest, a think tank dedicated to encouraging “strategic realism” in U.S. foreign policy. [Center for the National Interest] Simpson says that Simes is believed to be a Russian agent, and encouraged the House Intelligence Committee to look into him and his think tank.
Glenn Simpson
Glenn Simpson is the founder of Fusion GPS, a research firm. He also has several other LLCs and holding companies. For much of his life prior to starting Fusion, Simpson was an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. His primary interests as a reporter were “political corruption, financial crime, terrorism, tax evasion, stock fraud, financial scandals, congressional investigations, government prosecutions, money laundering, organized crime. During his time as a journalist, he exposed Chinese interference in the 1996 Presidential election of Bill Clinton. In his role at Fusion, Simpson headed the research project that led to his subcontractor, Christopher Steele, producing what has come to be known as the “Trump dossier.”
Paul Singer
A “benefactor” of the Washington Free Beacon, the conservative web site that initially hired Fusion to research Donald Trump. [Politico] Singer supported Marco Rubio in the Republican Presidential Primary. [New York Times]
Christopher Steele
Christopher Steele is a British citizen and was a subcontractor for Fusion GPS in their investigation of Donald Trump. His background was as a former member of MI6, the British equivalent of our CIA. In that role, he was the “lead Russianist” specialized in identifying Russian disinformation.
Roger Stone
A political consultant and lobbyist who is a friend of Donald Trump. He formed a lobbying firm – Black, Manafort, Stone – in 1980 with Paul Manafort. Later bringing on Peter Kelly, the firm became known as a powerful lobbying firm for U.S. companies and foreign organizations. Stone is known as a hardball political player and a promoter of conspiracy theories. [Wikipedia]
Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov
A man who Simpson says is a Russian gangster who was having his associates running a high stakes gambling ring out of Trump Tower. He was in the VIP section with Trump and other powerful Russians at the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow.
Natalia Veselnitskaya
The Russian lawyer who met with Kushner, Trump Jr. and Manafort at Trump Tower. She is an attorney for Prevezon Holdings, lives in Moscow, and has been part of a campaign to repeal the Magnitsky Act. She is also the founder of an NGO called Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, whose purpose is to restore the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans (see info for Magnitsky Act).
Veselnitskaya interacted with Simpson on the Prevezon project, mainly during encounters in the courtroom and group dinners put together by Baker Hostetler, including a dinner the night before the meeting at Trump Tower. Simpson stated that they didn’t communicate much beyond cordial hellos, because he does not understand Russian, which according to him is all that she speaks. At the dinner before Trump Tower, Simpson said that he was sitting at the opposite end of the table from her.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
A U.S. Representative (D-FL) who also served as Chair of the DNC until the day before the Democratic National Convention, when she resigned in disgrace over Wikipedia’s release of hacked e-mails indicating that she was involved in efforts to undermine the Presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton. [Wikipedia]
Lanny Wiles
A well-connected Republican consultant and lobbyist.
Sir Andrew Wood
Simpson does not know him. A former British ambassador to Russia(1995-2000) who informed Senator John McCain of the Steele dossier a few weeks after the 2016 Presidential election.
Viktor Yanukovych
The President of Ukraine from 2010-2014. He was pro-Russian, was ousted from power during the Ukrainian revolution, and is now in exile in Russia. He is wanted by the Ukrainian government for high treason.
Ziff Brothers
Major donors to the Democratic Party. Veselnitskaya’s “dirt on Hillary Clinton” was that the Ziff brothers had illegally invested with William Browder without paying taxes in Russia, which therefore made any possible donations from them to Clinton tainted.
Read more of this special series:
The Trump-Russia Web
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: What’s What (Glossary)
- Part 3: Who’s Who (Glossary)
- Part 4: Timeline, Key Relationships, Key Places
- Part 5: High-Level Summaries
- Part 6: William Browder
- Part 7: Natalia Veselnitskaya
- Part 8: The Steele Dossier
- Part 9: Fusion GPS
- Part 10: Glenn Simpson and the Prevezon Case
- Part 11: Glenn Simpson and the Trump Investigation
The Week In Trump 