Ever wonder what logic the US Senate’s Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been utilizing to justify his blocking US senators’ ability to vote on any bipartisan developed legislation designed to provide protection to the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe being led by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller III?
Could he be acting in a transnational way just like the republican President Donald Trump does to where he’s dependent on Russian monies via US companies?
Here’s the rest of the story…
As per Dallas News’Editor’s note May 8, 2018: This column, “How Putin’s oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns” by Ruth May, originally published December 15, 2017. New allegations about $500k in payments from a Russian oligarch made to Trump attorney Michael Cohen have placed it back in the news.
Excerpts:
“As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia.”
“Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.”
“An example is Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen and one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik’s family emigrated to the U.S. in the late ’70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late ’80s.”
“Data from the Federal Election Commission show that Blavatnik’s campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.”
“In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik’s political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.”
“In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund.”
“Under federal law, foreigner nationals are barred from contributing directly or indirectly to political campaigns in local, state and federal elections.”
“Should Blavatnik’s contributions concern Mueller’s team of investigators? Take a look at his long-time business associates in Russia.”
The Oligarchs
“Rusal is said to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite oligarchs, and he is founder and majority shareholder of Russia’s Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world. Blavatnik holds a stake in Rusal with a business partner.”
“Further, nearly 4 percent of Deripaska’s stake in Rusal is owned by Putin’s state-controlled bank, VTB, which is currently under U.S. sanctions. VTB was exposed in the Panama Papers in 2016 for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Putin.”
“Earlier this year, The AP reported that Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, began collecting $10 million a year in 2006 from Deripaska to advance Putin’s interests with Western governments. Deripaska’s name turned up again in an email handed over to Mueller’s team by Manafort’s attorneys. According to The Washington Post, in the email dated July 7, 2016, just two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, Manafort asked an overseas intermediary to pass a message on to Deripaska: “If he [Deripaska] needs private briefings, tell him we can accommodate.”
Viktor Vekselberg is one of the 10 richest men in Russia. He and long-time business partner Blavatnik hold a 20.5 percent stake in Rusal. (They met while attending university in Russia.)
In 1990, Blavatnik and Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Group for large-scale investments in energy, infrastructure, aluminum and other metals. One of their earliest investments was in Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK), founded in 1995. TNK is best known for its contentious partnership with British Petroleum after the two entities formed a joint venture in 2003. That rocky relationship ended 10 years later when they sold out to the state-controlled energy giant, Rosneft, under pressure from the Russian government.
“As for BP, that pressure took the form of growing harassment and intimidation from Russian authorities who at one point, according to Forbes, refused to renew visas for BP employees, forcing BP’s joint venture chief Robert Dudley (who is now chief executive of BP) to flee Russia and manage TNK-BP from a foreign outpost in a secret location.”
“Vekselberg has connections to at least 2 Americans who made significant GOP campaign contributions during the last cycle. They are among several Americans who also merit Mueller’s scrutiny.”
“Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg’s cousin. He’s also chief executive of Columbus Nova, Renova’s U.S. investment arm located in New York. (FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.)”
“Intrater had no significant history of political contributions prior to the 2016 elections. But in January 2017 he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee. His six-figure gift bought him special access to a dinner billed as “an intimate policy discussion with select cabinet appointees,” according to a brochure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.”
Alexander Shustorovich, chief executive of IMG Artists, attempted to give the Republican Party $250,000 in 2000 to support the George W. Bush presidential campaign, but his money was rejected because of his ties to the Russian government, according to Quartz. So why didn’t the Trump team reject Shustorovich’s $1 million check to Trump’s Inaugural Committee?
Simon Kukes is an oil magnate who has something in common with Intrater. From 1998 to 2003, he worked for Vekselberg and Blavatnik as chief executive of TNK. Redacted CIA documents released in 2003 under the Freedom of Information Act said “TNK president Kukes said that he bribed local officials.” The CIA confirmed the authenticity of the reports to The Guardian newspaper but would not comment further. In 2016, Kukes contributed a total of $283,000, much of it to the Trump Victory Fund. He had no significant donor history before last year’s election.
There is no doubt that Kukes has close ties to the Putin government. When he left his job as CEO of TNK in June 2003, he joined the board of Yukos Oil, which at the time was the largest oil company in Russia owned by the richest man in Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Four months after Kukes joined the board, authorities arrested Khodorkovsky at gunpoint on his private plane in Siberia on trumped up charges of tax evasion and tapped Kukes to be CEO. This decision could only have been made at the highest levels in the Kremlin. The arrest of Khodorkovsky rattled the nerves of international investors and was the first tangible sign that Putin was not going to be the kind of leader that global executives and Western governments had expected him to be when he first took office in 2000.
“Khodorkovksy was given a 13-year sentence in a Siberian prison and served 10 years before being released by Putin in December 2013, a month before the start of the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, as a sign of goodwill. As for the fate of Khodorkovksy’s company, its largest oil subsidiary was sold in a sealed bid auction to Baikal Financial Group, a shell company with an unpublished list of officers. Baikal was registered at an address that turned out to be a mobile phone store in Tver, Russia. Three days after the auction, all of Baikal’s assets were acquired for an undisclosed sum by Rosneft, the Russian oil giant that went on to buy TNK-BP in 2013.”
“In total, Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich and Kukes made $10.4 million in political contributions from the start of the 2015-16 election cycle through September 2017, and 99 percent of their contributions went to Republicans. With the exception of Shustorovich, the common denominator that connects the men is their association with Vekselberg. Experts who follow the activities of Russian oligarchs told ABC News that they believe the contributions from Blavatnik, Intrater and Kukes warrant intense scrutiny because they have worked closely with Vekselberg.”
“Even if the donations by the 4 men associated with Russia ultimately pass muster with Mueller, one still has to wonder: Why did GOP PACs and other Trump-controlled funds take their money? Why didn’t the PACs say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” like the Republicans said to Shustorovich in 2000? Yes, it was legal to accept their donations, but it was incredibly poor judgment.”
“McConnell surely knew as a participant in high level intelligence briefings in 2016 that our electoral process was under attack by the Russians. Two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement in October 2016 that the Russian government had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell’s PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik’s AI-Altep Holdings. The PAC took another $1 million from Blavatnik’s AI-Altep Holdings on March 30, 2017, just 10 days after former FBI Director James Comey publicly testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russia’s interference in the election.”
“And consider Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s campaign finance chairman. Could he have known that the Trump Victory Fund, jointly managed by the Republican National Committe and Trump’s campaign, took contributions from Intrater and Kukes? Mnuchin owned Hollywood financing company RatPac-Dune with Blavatnik until he sold his stake to accept Trump’s appointment as Treasury secretary.”
“Which PAC officials are making the decisions to accept these donations?”
Gronda Morin 
There can be no doubt in the minds of those who aren’t under the spell cast by Trump that Trump, McConnell, Mnuchin and probably many more have broken the law. The simple reality is that nobody, no matter how rich, donates a million dollars to a political candidate without expecting something in return. Our campaign finance laws are so loose that our politicians are easily bought and paid for. And yet, Trump claims “there was no collusion”, and his loyal, blind followers believe him. Sigh.
Hugs!
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Dear Jill,
With the dark monies buying our GOP lawmakers, it’s a wonder that we have a democracy left. It has to be a top priority to END the influence of these dark monies. I have to believe that any GOP lawmaker with half a conscience left would want this noose around his/ her neck loosened.
This would be one way for voters to see who is beholden to these dark monies at their expense by having them vote on legislation designed to fix this.
Mitch McConnell is the number 1 GOP leader that I want to see lose his next election.
Hugs, Gronda
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The two things I would most like to see happen before November 2020 are Citizen’s United overturned, and all states re-districted by fair and impartial means. I want strict campaign finance rules, for otherwise it becomes a matter not of who is best qualified, but of who has the most money.
Hugs!!!
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Gronda, quite simply, with Citizens United leveraging dark money spending, no one knows for sure where their funds are coming from. Two comments. First, the Russian spy who is about to plead guilty was infiltrating the NRA. Second, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia et al promoting fossil fuels at the Climate Talks in Poland. Why those three? Why does Trump seem to have a soft spot for the other two?
My guess is foreign money is all over the campaigns. Public officials need to know who their benefactors are for our sake. Keith
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Dear Keith,
Let’s face it. There is now another explanation for the US Congressional members cowardice in kow-towing to President Trump, a leader who is doing the bidding of Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel for financial reasons even if the his actions are counter to US national security interests.
It could very well be that the GOP lawmakers are also dirty.
I’m very upset about the House Speaker Paul Ryan refusing to allow the US Senate’s bill from being voted on, the one that would block, the US from participating in Saudi Arabia’s war with Yemen. With his allowing Rep. Nunes to blow up the House Judiciary committee among other actions, I can’t help but wonder how he has been bought off.
Hugs, Gronda
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