ambassador to the u.k. alexander yakko vengeo. just days after the trump tower meeting, banks and wigmore had lunch again with the ambassador. nigel feradge asked him about it on the the british radio sw just this week. three days after we met or president-elect trump as it was, you met the russian ambassador and people would say, were you reporting back? not really. we d had a very pleasant lunch with him the last that lasted six hours and he saw a picture of us on the golden the doors of trump s apartment and of course he got in touch because he s seen us. the first trump event attended by b was august 24th, 2016. just five days after a lunch was scheduled at russian embassy according to an e-mail viewed by cnn and wig more denied the lunch but one of dozens of coions, invitations and discussions between brigmore banks and russian officials.
i would be guilty of being provocative and slight exaggerating in the message quite often and i m guilty ofin. absolutely. according to the pair, mails showing aaron banks in morveg ow were a lie and a meeting with a sa russian bank was not true. and he said he was offered involvement in a $3 billion to consolidate six russian goldmines and cnn learned the company was par lal shal partially owned by vladimir putin deputy chief of staff and banks said that deal never went through. did ever accept money from the russian government? no he was combative during his testimony and after lengthy questioning stood up and abruptly left the hearing. banks and wig more it should be no surprise to u.s. authoritie they had ties to russia, claiming they
familiar face on the trump campaign. he cheered on donald trump m mississippi and attending a campaign event and in las vegas and went to ump s inauguratio and since spent time at his mar-a-largo resort. he bragged in an e-mail viewed by cnn that we ve been working all summer helping the campaign. and just four days after donald trump was elected, banks along with fellow brexit supporters niger ferage and andy mig mor met with a the new president-elect, even before he met the britain prime minister. they say that meeting was unplanned and when someone asked why the leader of brexit was getting more facetime than theresa may, banks tweets, why struggle to understand. we are close to the campaign. what hasn t been known until now is aaron banks was at the same time regularly meeting and communicating with russia
it is not illegal meeting with russian diplomats and as long as we are not breaking any of the sanctions against russia. there is nothing illegal in that. but i think we want to understand more about the nature of the meetings and the contact and what was being discussed and to what extent aaron banks profited from his relation from the russia embassy. in testimony before a committee in parliament, banks denied giving the russians anythi sensitive. but did admit to handing over one piece of information after that trump tower meeting. how to get in touch with the president-elect. the only thing we gave in the second meeting was the telephone number of the transition team. reporter: banks who also has a russian wife has been trying to deny reports and innuendo from british press and politicians that he is acting as a potential russian agent and his story i confusing because he admitted sometimes he lies or allows his side kick to lion his behalf.