Donald Trump Jr. has a previously undisclosed business partnership with a Texas hedge-fund manager who helped raise millions of dollars for his father’s presidential election campaign and received special access to top government officials, the AP reports. Citing court records and other documents, the report states that Trump Jr. and banker Gentry Beach have been involved in business deals going back to 2008 and the two recently founded a company together, despite denials from the president’s son, who said he and Beach were just friends. However, Beach, whose family has oil interests and attended the University of Pennsylvania with Trump Jr., had special access to National Security Council officials last year when he used his influence to back a plan to weaken U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and open up business opportunities between the two countries. The AP report says career foreign-policy officials raised concerns about the propriety of meeting with Trump family friends. The Trump Organization insisted that Trump Jr. has never arranged meeting “with anyone at the White House or any other government agency.”