Republican notorious for Russia ties dead with 'severe head trauma': report

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Paul Behrends, a notorious former staffer for ex-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), died after being found near his home with "severe head trauma."

"Rohrabacher's former congressional spokesman Ken Grubbs told The Daily Beast that Behrends died at the hospital. 'I did actually call Dana and he confirmed it,' he said. 'What I've heard is that he slipped… hit his head, and died in surgery,'" reported Nico Hines. "Grubbs said there was no reason to think anything suspicious had happened to Behrends or that there was any link to his associations with Russia. 'No, no, not at all,' he said."

Behrends, much like his former boss, was notorious for ties to Russia, which led to him being removed from his position as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. He had ties to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower.

"Behrends made headlines for the first time in July 2017, after Veselnitskaya's explosive June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was exposed. The meeting subsequently shone a light on Behrends' own Russian entanglements," said the report. "Behrends had traveled to Moscow with Rohrabacher in April 2016, a few months before that meeting. In Russia, they were given a document from the Prosecutor General's Office marked 'confidential,' which included details of the Kremlin's battle against U.S. sanctions and a pro-Kremlin propaganda movie."

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