During the week of October 9, 2019, four associates involved with the president’s  personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani in his Ukrainian capers, set up to collect data from local officials that would help President Trump win his reelection bid in 2020, were arrested on US soil for campaign finance violations at the direction of the (SDNY) Southern District of New York US Attorneys’ offices. These Giuliani partners in crime, organized to help President Trump with his reelection plans, include,  Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin.

For the Russian connection, the question is, which Russian oligarch has been providing the financing for these operatives’ different expensive opposition research ventures? The two serious possibilities are Andrey Muraviev or Dmitry Firtash.

Here’s the rest of the story…

As per an October 11, 2019 Mother Jones report, “Who’s the Secret Russian in the Indictment of Giuliani’s Pals? We Found Some Clues.” by David Corn:

Excerpts:

“When the US attorney for the Southern District of NY charged 2 associates of Rudy Giuliani and 2 other men on (10/9/2019) with campaign finance violations, the indictment contained a big mystery.”

“Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—who had been helping Giuliani search for dirt on Joe Biden and the Democrats in Ukraine—and David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, who were each identified as businessmen, were charged in what seems to be overlapping capers.”

“Parnas and Fruman allegedly made secret donations to Republicans in an effort to advance their business interests and promote the agenda of one or more Ukrainian officials (which included firing the US ambassador to Ukraine). And these two Giuliani confederates also teamed up with Correia, a business partner of Parnas, and Kukushkin and allegedly made donations secretly financed by a Russian national to Republican candidates for state offices in Nevada to buy influence they could use to set up a cannabis business there. This Russian, who would be part of their legal marijuana venture, sent $1 million from overseas accounts to Fruman that was to be used for contributions to federal and state candidates in Nevada and other states, according to the indictment. It’s illegal for a foreigner to funnel donations to US candidates.”

“The mystery: Who is this wealthy Russian who allegedly tried to make illegal contributions to US politicians in pursuit of launching a cannabis venture?”

“The indictment doesn’t say. It refers to this individual only as “Foreign National-1.” And the question cannot be yet answered definitively. But California state records and emails obtained by Mother Jones indicate that a Russian businessman named Andrey Muraviev had previously worked with Kukushkin to develop a cannabis enterprise.”

“In 2016, Kukushkin and Muraviev joined with a Sacramento businessman named Garib Karapetyan, who has been involved in the recreational marijuana business, to create a corporation called Legacy Botanical Company LLC, which was listed at a Sacramento address, according to a filing with the secretary of state in California. (Two years earlier, Karapetyan lost an arbitration case filed by Philip Morris USA after he registered the domain name marijuanamarlboros.com.) In emails Kukushkin sent in 2016 and 2017, he described his desire to acquire medical cannabis dispensaries in California and engage in other legal pot projects. In one email, he cc’d Alexander Mikhalev, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as the chief financial officer of Parus Capital, a fund that Muraviev established in 2008. In another email, Kukushkin expressed interest in developing cultivation facilities in N California’s Sonoma County and referenced “contributions”  he was willing to make to run cannabis businesses there.”

“One cannabis business consultant in California tells Mother Jones that Kukushkin, while he was seeking investment opportunities in the cannabis field in California and Oregon, said he was representing “a large agricultural and materials businessman from Russia” and identified him as Andrey Muraviev.”

Link to report:  Who’s the Secret Russian in the Indictment of Giuliani’s Pals? We Found Some Clues…

Background on Dimitry Firtash, as per 10/15/2019 Time report:

“By the mid-2000s, Firtash had established himself as a partner to the Kremlin in the European gas trade. With the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his company had won exclusive rights to buy natural gas from Russia and resell it in Ukraine. Firtash owned about half of the company, while Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly, owned the other half. The arrangement made Firtash a billionaire.”

“With additional loans from Russian state banks, Firtash then bought up factories across Ukraine, especially in the chemicals and fertilizer industries, which helped make him an important powerbroker. In the presidential elections of 2010, he backed the Kremlin’s preferred candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, and urged his factory bosses across the country to help get out the vote. “People weren’t voting for him,” Firtash recalled of those elections in his interview with TIME. “They were voting for us. They know that politicians come and go. But we are still there with our businesses.”

As per an October 15, 2019 Time report, “Exclusive: How a Ukrainian Oligarch Wanted by U.S. Authorities Helped Giuliani Attack Biden” by Simon Shuster:

Excerpts:

“In their effort to discredit President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, close allies of the President have received key documents and information from a Ukrainian oligarch wanted in the U.S. on corruption charges, according to five people directly involved in this effort and two other people familiar with it.”

“The information came from the legal team of Dmitry Firtash, a wealthy industrialist with assets across Europe, who has spent the last five years in Vienna fighting extradition to the U.S. on bribery and racketeering charges. The U.S. Department of Justice said in 2017 he was among the “upper echelon associates of Russian organized crime”—something Firtash vigorously denies, along with all charges against him.”

“As part of his legal defense, Firtash’s lawyers have gathered documents that make controversial allegations against former special counsel Robert Mueller and former Vice President Joe Biden. Firtash’s lawyers have passed these documents and other information to associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.”

“In his frequent appearances on cable news, Giuliani has presented some of these documents to the American public as evidence for his claims of wrongdoing by Mueller and Biden. The key document is an affidavit from a former Ukrainian prosecutor who accuses Biden of corruption. “The witness I’m relying on,” Giuliani told Fox News on Oct. 6, was the prosecutor Viktor Shokin. “That’s the affidavit I put out,” Giuliani added. He did not mention that the affidavit was obtained by the Firtash legal team. At the beginning of the document, Shokin writes that he is making the statement “at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash.”

“Asked about his ties to the Firtash legal team, Giuliani wrote in a text message to TIME on Tuesday (10/15/2019): “I do not represent Mr. Firtash and I have never met him.”

“Over the last two months, a TIME investigation has traced some of Giuliani’s claims about Biden and Mueller to a troubling relationship, one in which a foreigner wanted by the U.S. government on corruption charges has taken steps, as part of his own legal strategy, that are helping the American President attack his most prominent critics.”

“This alignment of interests has taken shape at the same time, and with many of the same goals and actors, as the parallel effort by Trump and Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden’s family. The effort in Ukraine was brought to light in September in a complaint from an intelligence-community whistleblower. It’s now the subject of an impeachment inquiry in Congress into alleged abuse of office by President Trump.”

Link to entire report:  Exclusive: How a Ukrainian Oligarch Wanted by U.S. Authorities Helped Giuliani Attack Biden…