Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, the head of a division of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, met with President Donald Trump’s transition team in 2016, according to a statement his spokesperson gave to CNN.
This confirms a report from Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, who asserted that Al-Rumaihi has attended such a meeting. However, the spokesperson denied that Al-Rumaihi met with Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, as Avenatti had claimed. A source told CNN that Al-Rumaihi did briefly meet Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, one of the people sued in the case Avenatti represents.
“Mr. Al-Rumaihi was at Trump Tower on December 12, 2016,” the spokesperson told CNN. “He was there in his then role as head of Qatar Investments, an internal division of QIA, to accompany the Qatari delegation that was meeting with Trump transition officials on that date.”
Al-Rumaihi’s participation in the meetings that day was “limited,” according to the spokesperson.
Cody Fenwick is a reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter @codytfenwick.