issue?
MR. SIMPSON: That it seemed like there was an orchestrated effort by someone to help Trump out with -- to help him market, you know, these branded products in Russia, and that it was -- it was just very mysterious. And then we later found some of the people who came up after the first Steele memo were involved in some of those efforts.
And so it seemed to be -- it seemed like it was part of the origin or the middle point of this relationship. It was a little further back, where it was a little less heavy.
MR. SCHIFF: And what was the period of -- did Trump go to Russia on this vodka promotion or his family members?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't think he was there. I think his representatives were there. I don't believe there's a record of him being there himself.
MR. SCHIFF: And what were the contacts that later emerged in the Steele work?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, one of the guys who organized this trip was a guy who's currently known as Sergi Millian. And he's been in the press a good bit, I think, although not recently. And, you know, he came up in connection with that, and then he came up in connection with Chris' work as one of the people around Trump who had a Russian background, and unexplained, you know, a lot of unexplained things.
So when we looked at him, we found that he ran a sort of shadowy kind of trade group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which is -- Russians are known to use chambers of commerce and trade groups as fronts for intelligence operations.
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
