WASHINGTON — With Congress away for the summer, jet-setting Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks is off on another junket, this time to Russia.
Meeks also plans to visit Northern Iraq, Kazakhstan, and “elsewhere” to participate in “bilateral discussion on nuclear non-proliferation and national security issues,” according to a statement put out by his office.
Aides wouldn’t specify where in war-torn Iraq Meeks would be going, citing security concerns.
All the trips are supposedly funded by nonprofit sponsors or, in some cases, foreign governments.
But, as The Post disclosed Sunday, Meeks visited Azerbaijan in 2013 to attend an energy conference. The sponsor was the Council of Turkic-American Associations, but the trip was actually paid for by energy companies.
Meeks’ trip comes as US-Russian relations have reached one of the lowest points in decades over the crisis in Ukraine.
The US has leveled multiple rounds of sanctions against Moscow to protest Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military meddling in Ukraine — including support for separatists believed to have shot down a Malaysian passenger jet.
Along with indicted Rep. Michael Grimm (R-SI), Meeks chairs the House caucus on US-Russia Trade and Economic Relations, an informal group that rarely meets.
Meeks was one of multiple lawmakers to fly to Azerbaijan for the 2013 energy conference.
He didn’t file a disclosure report until a year after the trip occurred — although he was supposed to file it within 15 days.
But as the Houston Chronicle and The Post reported, corporations like British Petroleum and ConocoPhillips were actually footing the bill.
Two weeks after returning home, Meeks and other attendees pushed to exempt an Iranian-backed natural-gas project from US sanctions.
Meeks hasn’t been shy in the past about getting face time with regimes at odds with US policy goals. In May, he visited Havana on a trip funded by the Center for Democracy in the Americas.
Meeks also made the pilgrimage to Caracas under Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, and officially represented the United States Chavez’s funeral last year.
According to his most recent disclosure report, Meeks also traveled to Beijing and Shanghai, cities outside the main jurisdiction of the International Relations Committee’s Western Hemisphere subcommittee, where Meeks has a senior slot.
Meeks listed the trip as paid for by the “government of China.” Such government-funded trips are allowable under the Mutual Education and Cultural Exchange Act, which Meeks cited on his disclosure form.