A Belarusian escort with close ties to a powerful Russian oligarch said from behind bars in Bangkok on Monday that she had more than 16 hours of audio recordings that could help shed light on Russian meddling in United States elections.
The escort, Anastasia Vashukevich, said she would hand over the recordings if the United States granted her asylum. She faces criminal charges and deportation to Belarus after coming under suspicion of working in Thailand without a visa at a sex-training seminar in the city of Pattaya.
Ms. Vashukevich, who described herself as close to the Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg V. Deripaska, said that audio recordings she made in August 2016 included discussions he had about the United States presidential election with people she declined to identify.
Mr. Deripaska, a billionaire with close ties to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, also has business ties to Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman. Mr. Manafort is under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel looking into the campaign’s connections to Russia.
“If America gives me protection, I will tell everything I know,” Ms. Vashukevich said on Monday. “I am afraid to go back to Russia. Some strange things can happen.”
Now you may want to discount such an outlandish claim out of hand, but then you have to keep this in mind:
Her assertion could be easy to disregard were it not for a 25-minute video investigation posted last month on YouTube by the Russian opposition figure Aleksei A. Navalny, which relies heavily on videos and photographs from Ms. Vashukevich.
That was the YouTube video that you may have heard about which the Russian government kept trying to get taken down, and has now received more than 6 million views.
Now that does not automatically mean that Vashukevich should be taken at her word about all of this, but it also means she cannot be discounted entirely.
Of course the problem is that Vashukevich is seeking asylum in America. And since Donald Trump is currently in charge of our government there is no way that he wants this kind of proof made available to the press.
I would think it might be smarter for Vashikevish to reach out to some of our allies, like Canada, Britain, or Germany and ask them for asylum.
Once she arrives in one of those places, she can tell her story without fear she will wind up suffering the same fate as former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
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