Ex-Trump partner says affiliation with failed projects hurt his reputation and cost him millions

By Tom Hamburger and Karoun Demirjian June 26 at 5:49 PM

A businessman working with the Trump organization as it sought to expand into the former Soviet Union told congressional investigators this week that he suffered personal and financial costs as a consequence of his work with the president and his associates.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a native of Georgia who is a U.S. citizen, was quizzed Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee’s staff during a day-long closed-door interview about his role in several Trump projects, including his interest in a short-lived Trump Tower Moscow development in 2015.

Questions about those projects probably will be raised publicly next month when the former special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, appears before the Intelligence Committee. Its chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), has said he sees Trump’s potentially lucrative projects in Russia as “a counterintelligence problem of the first order,” noting that Mueller’s inquiry had a counterintelligence component but that much of the work in that field was not included in his final report.

“What were those findings? What were the risks? Have those risks been addressed? Do those risks involve people that got security clearances by dint of nepotism? Are there still threats or compromises that we should be aware of that we need to take steps to mitigate? Those are some of the more important questions we have,” Schiff said during a recent appearance at the National Press Club, reminding his audience about the potential compromise that could be associated with a presidential candidate who actively seeks to expand his fortune overseas.

In an interview following his appearance on Capitol Hill, Rtskhiladze presented an alternative view, noting that seemingly lucrative Trump projects overseas were problematic, in part, because they mixed business with politics.

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