Much of the quoted media coverage below is based on the Magnitsky case as told by William Browder.
○ Fusion GPS and Orbis Stone Walling Congress
Russian ‘Gun-For-Hire’ Lurks In Shadows Of Washington’s Lobbying World | RFERL – July 2016 |
The hoots and jeers began the minute the movie ended and the lights went up on the seventh floor of the Newseum, a Washington museum dedicated to the free press. The film was a semifictionalized look at the story of Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who helped uncover a massive tax fraud and later died in a Moscow jail.
In the front of the room, a handful of Russian opposition activists shouted, “Shame!” at the director. In the back, out of the spotlight, was the event’s organizer — a fast-talking, nattily dressed man in a dark blue, double-breasted suit standing at a small table, sipping bottled water and quietly watching the commotion.
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In the controversial film The Magnitsky Act: Behind The Scenes, director Andrei Nekrasov (above) uses
actors to reenact the arrest and death in prison of Russian lawyer and whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky.Just five days after meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya showed up in Washington in the front row of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia policy, video footage of the hearing shows.
She also engaged in a pro-Russia lobbying campaign and attended an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. where Russian supporters showed a movie that challenged the underpinnings of the U.S. human rights law known as the Magnitysky Act, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin has reviled and tried to reverse.
[Source: The Hill today]
The June 13 showing was the film’s premiere. Other screenings had been canceled in Europe following protests by critics who say it is a crude attempt to smear Magnitsky’s name and that of the Western financier who employed him, William Browder.
That it was shown at all was a small coup for Rinat Akhmetshin, the man at the back of the room who for nearly 20 years has worked the shadowy corners of the Washington lobbying scene on behalf of businessman and politicians from around the former Soviet Union.
“I call him skilled because — though I am certain that they exist — I know of no Russian gun-for-hire who managed to run his campaigns so successfully, running circles around purportedly much more seasoned Washington hands,” says Steve LeVine, a veteran Washington reporter who explored some of Akhmetshin’s past work in his 2007 book The Oil And The Glory.
Barely registering in U.S. lobbying records, the 48-year-old Akhmetshin has been tied to efforts to bolster opponents of Kazakhstan’s ruling regime, discredit a fugitive former member of Russia’s parliament, and undermine a Russian-owned mining firm involved in a billion-dollar lawsuit with company information allegedly stolen by hackers.
Continued below the fold …
But his most recent campaign has a qualitatively new dimension, thrusting him to the center of an issue that helped send U.S.-Russia relations to lows unseen since the Cold War: Magnitsky’s death in 2009, the alleged persecution by Russian officials he blew the whistle on, and the eponymous U.S. law that punished alleged Russian rights abusers and infuriated the Kremlin.
“You undermine Browder, you undermine Magnitsky. You undermine Magnitsky, you undermine the sanctions,” says one U.S. government official who has followed the Magnitsky saga closely but wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on it. “Then you undermine the entire sanctions regime.”
The Paper Trail
A bespectacled 48-year-old who holds dual Russian-American citizenship and is known to ride around downtown Washington on a retro orange bicycle, Akhmetshin has managed to fly largely under the radar in past campaigns. There are only a handful of records in the congressional lobbying database bearing his imprint.
But a small paper trail in U.S. court records offers an illustrative sampling of his work.
In 1998, he founded the Washington office of an organization called the International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political Research to “help expand democracy and the rule of law in Eurasia.”
His earliest clients included members of Kazakhstan’s opposition, who were angling against the longtime rule of President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his ruling elite. Years later, he ended up in a public-relations effort to undermine a former Nazarbaev son-in-law before he fell out with the regime and fled the country.
In 2011, Akhmetshin was accused of helping to organize a smear campaign against former Russian Duma deputy Ashot Egiazaryan, who had sought political asylum in the United States in the face of criminal charges in Russia related to a business dispute.
A lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court in Manhattan charged that the campaign sought to persuade U.S. officials to revoke Egiazaryan’s asylum status and force him to return to Russia, where he was involved in a heated dispute with a billionaire businessman over a Moscow hotel project.
Akhmetshin was not the target of the defamation lawsuit, but in court filings, lawyers allege he was enlisted, along with another Washington public-relations company and private investigators, to help publish articles in a Jewish newspaper accusing the deputy of anti-Semitism.
He also fought to keep his e-mails and computer files from being released to opposing lawyers.
“Some of my clients are national governments or high-ranking officials in those governments,” Akhmetshin said in an affidavit in August 2012. “My government clients have highly sensitive discussions in my e-mails concerning the location or relocation of American military bases in areas within the former Soviet Union.”
More recently, Akhmetshin was caught up in a particularly nasty $1 billion legal fight concerning a potash-mining operation in central Russia. While a Dutch court was the main venue, the dispute spilled into U.S. courts when lawyers for one of the companies accused their counterparts of organizing a scheme to hack their computers and other communications.
The man who masterminded the scheme was Akhmetshin, according to a suit filed in November in New York state court that also accused him of being a former Soviet military intelligence officer who “developed a special expertise in running negative public-relations campaigns.”
In a related filing in federal district court in Washington, where lawyers sought to force him to turn over records and e-mails, Akhmetshin confirmed he was helping in an advisory capacity but denied the hacking allegations.
He also revealed his compensation rates. He said he was paid $45,000 up front; in a later declaration, he stated his normal billing rate was $450 an hour.
In an e-mail response to RFE/RL, Akhmetshin denied that he ever worked for Soviet military intelligence, something he would have had to declare when he applied for U.S. citizenship.
As detailed in press accounts and in Mr. Browder’s FARA complaint, in response to these actions, Prevezon Holdings and the Russian government began a lobbying campaign purportedly designed to try to: repeal the Magnitsky Act; remove the name “Magnitsky” from the Global Magnitsky Act and delay its progress; and cast doubt on the Justice Department’s version of events regarding the corporate identity theft of Hermitage’s companies, the fraudulently obtained $230 million, and the death of Mr. Magnitsky. [5]
Prevezon’s lobbying efforts were reportedly commissioned by Mr. Katsyv, who organized them through a Delaware non-profit he formed and through the law firm then representing Prevezon in the asset forfeiture case, Baker Hostetler. [6] Among others, the efforts involved lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and Fusion GPS, a political research firm led by Glenn Simpson. [7] According to press reports, Baker Hostetler partner Mark Cymrot briefed congressional staff on the asset forfeiture case, attempting to discredit the Justice Department’s version of events and instead push the Russian government’s account. [8] Rinat Akhmetshin, along with former Congressman Ron Dellums, reportedly lobbied the House Foreign Affairs Committee, telling staffers “they were lobbying on behalf of a Russian company called Prevezon and ask[ing] [the Committee] to delay the Global Magnitsky Act or at least remove Magnitsky from the name,” as well as telling the staffers “it was a shame that this bill has made it so Russian orphans cannot be adopted by Americans.” [9] Mr. Akhmetshin was also involved in the screening, targeting Congressional staffers and State Department officials, of an anti-Magnitsky propaganda film. [10] For its part, Fusion GPS reportedly “dug up dirt” on Mr. Browder’s property and finances, and attempted to generate negative stories about Mr. Browder and Hermitage in the media, shopping stories to a number of reporters. [11]
According to press reports, the Russian government also directly delivered a letter on the issue to a Congressional delegation visiting the country, which similarly sought to undermine the Justice Department’s account of events by accusing Mr. Browder and Mr. Magnitsky of a variety of crimes. [12] The letter from the Russian government also stated:
Changing attitudes to the Magnitsky story in Congress, obtaining reliable knowledge about real events and personal motives of those behind the lobbying of this destructive Act, taking into account the pre-election political situation may change the current climate in interstate relations. Such a situation could have a very favorable response from the Russian side on many key controversial issues and disagreements with the United States, including matters concerning the adoption procedures. [13]
It is particularly disturbing that Mr. Akhmetshin and Fusion GPS were working together on this pro-Russia lobbying effort in 2016 in light of Mr. Akhmetshin’s history and reputation. Mr. Akhmetshin is a Russian immigrant to the U.S. who has admitted having been a “Soviet counterintelligence officer.” [14] In fact, it has been reported that he worked for the GRU and allegedly specializes in “active measures campaigns,” i.e., subversive political influence operations often involving disinformation and propaganda. [15] According to press accounts, Mr. Akhmetshin “is known in foreign policy circles as a key pro-Russian operator,” [16] and Radio Free Europe described him as a “Russian `gun-for-hire’ [who] lurks in the shadows of Washington’s lobbying world.” [17] He was even accused in a lawsuit of organizing a scheme to hack the computers of one his client’s adversaries. [18]
…
[14] Isaac Arnsdorf , FARA Complaint Alleges Pro-Russian Lobbying, Politico (Dec. 8, 2016).
[15] Id. (“Akhmetshin used to spy for the Soviets and `specializes in active measures campaigns’ … Akhmetshin acknowledged having been a Soviet counterintelligence officer”); Chuck Ross, Oppo Researcher Behind Trump Dossier Is Linked to Pro-Kremlin Lobbying Effort, The Daily Caller (Jan. 13, 2017) (Akhmetshin “was affiliated with GRU, Russia’s main intelligence directorate”); Steve LeVine, The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea 366 (2007) (describing how a former KGB officer turned businessman turned Kazahk politician “hired a lobbyist, and English-speaking former Soviet Army counter-intelligence officer named Rinat Akhmetshin [and] the skilled Akhmetshin burrowed in with Washington reporters, think tank experts, administration bureaucrats, and key political figures”); Plaintiff’s Complaint, International Mineral Resources B.V. v. Rinat Akhmetshin, et al. , No. 161682/2015, 2015 WL 7180277 (N.Y. Sup.) (“Akhmetshin is a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer who moved to Washington, D.C. to become a lobbyist.”).
[16] Isaac Arnsdorf , From Russia, With Love? , Politico (Aug. 17, 2016).
ENRC founders face Dutch fraud lawsuit | The Guardian – May 1, 2013 |
The trio of oligarchs behind Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) – the FTSE 100 miner being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office – have been hit by a fraud and bribery lawsuit against a separate part of their empire.
The Guardian has established that claims lodged in the Dutch courts show that International Mineral Resources (IMR) – which is wholly owned by the ENRC trio of Alexander Machkevitch, Patokh Chodiev and Alijan Ibragimov – is accused of “blatant fraud, exacerbated by bribery” by Russian fertiliser group EuroChem.
EuroChem had previously said it was claiming damages of $800m (£500m) from its supplier Shaft Sinkers, which is 48% owned by IMR, following problems with a $2bn Russian potash mining project.
In the new case, the fertiliser group alleges that an IMR executive bribed a EuroChem employee with hundreds of thousands of roubles to cover up the alleged ineffectiveness of Shaft Sinkers’ work. It also claims IMR facilitated the concealment of a report that questioned whether Shaft Sinkers’s sealing technology could be effective on the potash project.
EuroChem, which is owned by the Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, is again seeking $800m in damages – but this time from IMR – having made a similar-sized claim in October in separate arbitration proceedings against Shaft Sinkers.
IMR says its defence to the Dutch case will state that the EuroChem employee had signed a formal consultancy agreement with Shaft Sinkers to help it promote its business, which he had cleared with his immediate superior. They will also argue the alleged briber was only a consultant to IMR, not an employee. An IMR spokesman added: “The suggestion that IMR was somehow involved in the legitimate arrangement between Shaft Sinkers and a EuroChem employee is a fabrication.”
U.S. Senator Seeks Probe Of Firm Linked To Russia Dossier | RFERL – Apr. 1, 2017 |
The letter, addressed to Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, targets the work Fusion did in 2015 and 2016 connected to the act, which had been introduced in Congress but at the time not yet voted on.
The letter cites from a complaint filed by British-American businessman William Browder that alleged Fusion GPS, a public relations firm founded by a former Wall Street Journal reporter, may have worked as a lobbyist “for Russian interests in a campaign to oppose the pending Global Magnitsky Act [and] failed to register under [U.S. law].”
“The issue is of particular concern to the committee given that when Fusion GPS reportedly was acting as an unregistered agent of Russian interests, it appears to have been simultaneously overseeing the creation of the unsubstantiated dossier of allegations of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” the letter said.
The Grassley letter highlights the work done by a Russian-American man named Rinat Akhmetshin, who was instrumental in the Washington premiere of a film that sought to undermine the narrative surrounding the Magnitsky law’s namesake, Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky.
Barely showing up in U.S. lobbying records, the 48-year-old Akhmetshin cut a low profile in Washington lobbying circles, even as he was tied to such efforts as bolstering opponents of Kazakhstan’s ruling regime; discrediting a fugitive former member of Russia’s parliament; and undermining a Russian-owned mining firm involved in a billion-dollar lawsuit with company information allegedly stolen by hackers.
Asked to comment on the allegations in the Grassley letter, Fusion GPS said in an e-mail to RFE/RL:
“Fusion GPS was working for the U.S. law firm of Baker Hostetler, at its direction, in a litigation support role. That work is a matter of public record. By the very nature of that work, Fusion GPS was working with a law firm to ensure compliance with the law. Fusion GPS was not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
Akhmetshin did not respond immediately to an e-mail seeking comment.
…
Тhat case, known as USA v. Prevezon, alleges that a Russian businessman named Denis Katsyv used some of the Magnitsky funds, after they were laundered through European banks, to buy real estate in Manhattan.Тhe case, which has prosecutors seeking to seize more than $11 million in real estate and bank accounts, went on hiatus last year after a U.S. judge threw the defendants’ lawyer, Baker Hostetler, off the case.
Last month, the defendants’ new lawyers again asked the U.S. judge to throw out the case.
Letter to former head F.B.I. James Comey from U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary[pdf]
The Honorable James B. Comey, Jr. Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20535
Dear Director Comey:
April 28, 2017On March 6, 2017, I wrote to you requesting information about the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Christopher Steele, the author of the political opposition research dossier alleging collusion between associates of Mr. Trump and the Russian government. Although that letter asked for a response by March 20, the FBI has failed to provide one.
Ranking Member Feinstein and I had previously written to the FBI on February 15, 2017, asking for a briefing and documents relating to the resignation of Mr. Flynn and the leaks of classified information involving him. After a startling lack of responsiveness from the FBI, I was forced to delay Committee proceedings on the nomination for Deputy Attorney General in order to obtain DOJ’s cooperation. In response, on March 15, 2017, you did provide a briefing about the FBI’s Russia investigation to Ranking Member Feinstein and me. While a few of the questions from my March 6 letter were also addressed in that briefing, most were not. Nor was there any indication from the FBI before or during the briefing that the FBI considered it to be responsive to the March 6 letter.
Nonetheless, on April 19, 2017, the FBI sent Ranking Member Feinstein and me a four- sentence letter purporting to be in response to both the February 15 and March 6 letters. Two of those sentences are merely the standard closing boilerplate language in all FBI letters. The letter did not answer any questions and instead incorrectly claimed that the briefing addressed the concerns raised in both the February 15 and March 6 letters. That is incorrect. The FBI has failed to provide documents requested in the March 6 letter or to answer the vast majority of its questions.
There appear to be material inconsistencies between the description of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele that you did provide in your briefing and information contained in Justice Department documents made available to the Committee only after the briefing. Whether those inconsistencies were honest mistakes or an attempt to downplay the actual extent of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele, it is essential that the FBI fully answer all of the questions from the March 6 letter and provide all the requested documents in order to resolve these and related issues.
Also, more information has since come to the Committee’s attention about the company overseeing the creation of the dossier, Fusion GPS. Namely, Fusion GPS is the subject of a complaint to the Justice Department, which alleges that the company violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by working on behalf of Russian principals to undermine U.S. sanctions against Russians. That unregistered work was reportedly conducted with a former Russian intelligence operative, Mr. Rinat Akhmetshin, and appears to have been occurring simultaneous to Fusion GPS’s work overseeing the creation of the dossier. I wrote to the Justice Department about this issue on March 31, copying you, and I have attached that letter here for your reference. The Justice Department has yet to respond.
In addition to fully answering my March 6, 2017 letter, please also provide the following documents and information:
- Documentation of all payments made to Mr. Steele, including for travel expenses, if any; the date of any such payments; the amount of such payments; the authorization for such payments.
- When the FBI was in contact with Mr. Steele or otherwise relying on information in the dossier, was it aware that his employer, Fusion GPS, was allegedly simultaneously working …
FARA complaint alleges pro-Russian lobbying | Politico – Dec. 8, 2016 |
By ISAAC ARNSDORF 12/08/2016 02:00 PM EST Updated 12/08/2016 07:44 PM EST
The lobbying effort was commissioned by Denis Katsyv, who owns a company that the Justice Department has accused of laundering money from a tax fraud that Magnitsky uncovered. Katsyv and two other Russians organized the effort through a Delaware nonprofit and hired a lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin, disclosures show. But other people tied to the effort never showed up in filings either with Congress or the Justice Department.Akhmetshin recruited Lanny Wiles, a McCain campaign hand who has known Rohrabacher since their Reagan days. Wiles said he told Akhmetshin he didn’t want to work for a foreign entity, which would require registering under FARA. Akhmetshin told Wiles he wouldn’t have to register because he would be working for the law firm BakerHostetler, according to Wiles. Wiles said Akhmetshin paid him but not in full. Akhmetshin denied paying him.
BakerHostetler represented Katsyv in the money-laundering case at the time. The lead attorney, Mark Cymrot, briefed congressional staff about the case, people familiar with the discussions said. Cymrot’s defense strategy paralleled Akhmetshin’s lobbying effort in Congress: trying to discredit the U.S. government’s version of events and pin the tax fraud of Magnitsky and Browder. (The firm was later disqualified from the case because it had previously represented Browder.)
BakerHostetler hired a private research firm known as Fusion GPS led by Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter. (The firm also discussed information with journalists about Trump and his associates’ ties to Russia.) Simpson and his firm found records on Browder’s property and finances and tracked down potential witnesses, the company said in a statement to POLITICO. Fusion GPS also discussed the case record with several reporters, according to the statement.
Both Cymrot and Fusion GPS said they didn’t lobby or do anything that required registering under FARA.
“From time to time, we received inquiries about the lawsuit from the media and others and would respond by providing information on the public record,” Cymrot said in an email. He did not answer whether he communicated with congressional staff, but added, “We did not engage in lobbying and did not pay any lobbyists.”
The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer by Glenn Greenwald on Jan. 11, 2017
The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.
But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.
Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?
All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.
FOR MONTHS, THE CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in The New York Times and claimed that
“Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
The CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton and went to the Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”
○ Fusion GPS: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
[Update-1] Posted earlier in my diary:
○ Fusion GPS linked to California Strategies and Clinton Donors
Shortly after leaving the Journal Glenn Simpson co-founded SNS Global and used his talents to help Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr Al Qasimi regain his position as the ruler of an emirate of the United Arab Emirates (Ras al-Khaimah, the nothernmost emirate).
Sheikh Khalid had served his father 37 years in government. But he led protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq where, according to The New York Times, he burned an American flag. (Some accounts say he was present while a flag was burned.) He also reportedly allowed the local radio station to broadcast [cached] anti-American propaganda.
Since some U.S. soldiers waging Operation Iraqi Freedom operated from the UAE, the move led his father to strip him of any role in the government and instead place his younger brother, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qasimi, in line for the throne.
A few years later, Sheikh Khalid decided to hire U.S. and British opposition research firms – including SNS Global – to wage a PR war against his brother. Mideastern media called this “a bloodless coup.”
○ Death of Gulf emirate ruler Sheikh Saqr prompts fight over succession | The Guardian – Oct. 2010 |
○ UAE: Saud Bin Saqr – A Sheikh like no other?Still, the sheikh met Hillary Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark, and more than a dozen Congressmen before attending President Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
Sheikh Khalid’s PR campaign claimed that he was a secular pro-Western ruler who believed in womens’ rights, and that under his brother the emirate had become a close ally of Iran and a staging ground for terrorism.
…
SNS was a subcontractor to California Strategies, another opposition research firm run by hardball Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House aide who handled Bill’s “bimbo eruptions” and later insinuated that the Monica Lewinsky affair was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.As Lehane’s partner, SNS pocketed $40,000, and Simpson personally registered as a lobbyist for a foreign agent in October 2009, although he said this was done merely out of an abundance of caution.
Smearing a traditional marriage supporter on “Obama’s Enemies List”
According to Glenn Simpson’s LinkedIn page, he left SNS Global in December 2010 and co-founded Fusion GPS, becoming its CEO the next month.
Although its website [Exp. 23 Dec. 2017 – registrar blocked] provides virtually no information about its functions, it lists “strategic intelligence” and touts an experience in “politics.” “That’s a polite way of saying ‘opposition research’,” wrote Kim Strassel at the Wall Street Journal.
Simpson refused to say who paid him to target VanderSloot’s personal life but defended his firm’s actions, saying, Frank VanderSloot is “a legitimate subject of public records research” because of “his own record on gay issues.”
The Obama administration then subjected VanderSloot to three audits in four months – two from the IRS and one from the Department of Labor. He had never been audited before.
FUSION-GPS WebArchive cached page in year 2011
- Glenn R. Simpson [pdf – Vandersloot defamation lawsuit against Mother Jones]
- Peter R. Fritsch
- Benjamin S. Schmidt, now managing director at The Camstoll Group
[Update-2] The Latest in the Russian Lawyer Story BooMan's front page story
On Monday I wrote “Trump’s Inner Circle Met With No Ordinary Russian Lawyer” which can still be used as a primer on this case. More details have come out since, and as I suspected the Russian lawyer was accompanied by at least one Russian intelligence officer. I had assumed it would have been the translator, but I made that determination when I thought there were only two guests invited into the Trump Tower boardroom. It’s now clear that a “former” GRU officer named Rinat Akhmetshin was in attendance, and there may have been others.
It’s going to take me some time to distill all of this into a succinct blog-length post and maybe that will have to wait for the weekend. In the meantime, I have a link to some essential reading. It’s a letter that Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote in April to John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security, asking for information about Mr. Akhmetshin. Grassley identifies him as an admitted former “Soviet counterintelligence officer” who has been accused of lobbying on behalf of the Kremlin without registering as an agent of a foreign power.
If you continue on down the pages in that link, you’ll come to a letter written to Heather H. Hunt, who was/is the chief of the Justice Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Unit at the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of DOJ’s National Security Division. The author of this letter is a lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management, the Russian-focused hedge fund that had its subsidiaries stolen by Russian mobsters as part of the biggest tax heist in Russian history.
Co-founder of firm behind Trump-Russia dossier won’t testify before Senate
[In the above, some links added are mine – Oui]
