595 Trump on national security and foreign policy issues. Dimitri Simes is president and CEO of CNI and the publisher and CEO of 596 the National Interest. Simes was born in the former Soviet Union, emigrated to the United States in the early 1970s, and joined CNI’s predecessor after 597 working at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Simes personally has many contacts with current and former Russian government 598 officials, as does CNI collectively. As CNI stated when seeking a grant from the Carnegie Corporation in 2015, CNI has “unparalleled access to Russian 599 officials and politicians among Washington think tanks,” in part because CNI has arranged for U.S. delegations to visit Russia and for Russian delegations to 600 visit the United States as part of so-called “Track II” diplomatic efforts. On March 14, 2016, CNI board member Richard Plepler organized a luncheon for CNI and its honorary chairman, Henry Kissinger, at the Time 601 Warner Building in New York. The idea behind the event was to generate 602 interest in CNI’s work and recruit new board members for CNI. Along with Simes, attendees at the event included Jared Kushner, son-in-law of candidate 603 Trump. Kushner told the Office that the event came at a time when the Trump Campaign was having trouble securing support from experienced foreign policy professionals and that, as a result, he decided to seek Simes’s assistance 604 during the March 14 event. 605 Simes and Kushner spoke again on a March 24, 2016 telephone call, three days after Trump had publicly named the team of foreign policy advisors 606 that had been put together on short notice. On March 31, 2016, Simes and Kushner had an in-person, one-on-one meeting in Kushner’s New York 607 office. During that meeting, Simes told Kushner that the best way to handle foreign-policy issues for the Trump Campaign would be to organize an advisory group of experts to meet with candidate Trump and develop a foreign policy 608 approach that was consistent with Trump’s voice. Simes believed that 609 Kushner was receptive to that suggestion. Simes also had contact with other individuals associated with the Trump Campaign regarding the Campaign’s foreign policy positions. For example, on