Robert Mueller's team is looking at fishy transactions involving Russian diplomatic personnel

Sergey Kislyak.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The team working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russia's influence over the 2016 election is reportedly inspecting "suspicious" transactions involving Russian diplomatic personnel, BuzzFeed News writes. Among the transactions flagged by the Russian embassy's bank and reported, as is legally required, to the U.S. Treasury's financial crimes unit is a payment of $120,000 to then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak just days after the presidential election and an attempt to withdraw $150,000 from the embassy's account less than a week after President Trump's inauguration.

In particular, Kislyak's payout raised eyebrows because it was marked as "payroll," although it didn't fit into his normal pay routine. Likewise, in the spring of 2014 some 30 checks to embassy employees totaling about $370,000 raised suspicions because "bank officials noted that the employees had not received similar payments in the past, and that the transactions surrounded the date of a critical referendum on whether parts of Crimea should secede from Ukraine and join Russia," BuzzFeed News writes.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.