The source behind the explosive — and unverified — allegation that Russian intelligence officials have compromising evidence of Donald Trump hiring prostitutes at a Moscow hotel in 2013 is a Belarusan American businessman who spent time in Atlanta, The Washington Post has reported.
Sergei Millian, according to the newspaper, is identified as “Source D” in the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who was hired by Trump’s political opponents to gather information about the New York real estate mogul’s ties to Russia.
Described in the dossier as a close associate of Trump, Millian is also one of the sources behind the allegation that the Kremlin had been feeding Trump intelligence about his opponents for several years, including information about his Democratic opponent in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton. Millian called the Russian intelligence “very helpful,” according to the dossier.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have denied the allegations in the political memo, calling them fake.
“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” Trump said in January. “It was gotten by opponents of ours. It was a group of opponents that got together. Sick people and they got together and put that crap together.”
Millian arrived in Atlanta in the early 2000s as a young, single professional working in real estate, The Post reported. The Russian American Chamber of Commerce identifies him as its president on its website. A phone number listed for him there is no longer operable. And he did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. But in an email he sent The Post, Millian defended Trump’s election as “God’s will” and complained that inquiries about his role are evidence of a “witch hunt” and “McCarthyism.”
“Any falsifications, deceit and baseless allegations directed against any U.S. president is damaging to the national security interests of the United States,” he wrote in an email to The Post. “Publishing slanderous stories about the president’s decency and offensive material about the first family is malicious propaganda and a threat to the national security in order to destabilize the integrity of the United States of America and stir civil disorder aiming at reducing its political influence in the world.”
His bio on the chamber’s website says he attended the Academy of Business Administration by the President of the Republic of Belarus, graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University and was elected director of the Russian American Federation, a promoter of Russian heritage. A licensed real estate broker who speaks five languages, according to his bio, Millian also owns several companies and distributes a quarterly business magazine called Russian American Business.
First issued in 2003, his real estate broker license is still current in Georgia, state records show. It was granted to him under his original name, Siarhei Kukuts. Acquaintances say he changed his name because he wanted something that sounded more elegant, according to The Post, which reported he has also gone by the name Sergio Millian.
He held addresses in the region — including in Atlanta, Brookhaven and Duluth — between 2001 and 2010, public records show.
The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell area was home to 6,582 people born in Russia and 464 from Belarus in 2015, U.S. Census Bureau figures show.
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