Major GOP donor Len Blavatnik had business ties to a Russian official
"Toss Blavatnik in with Derispaka and other ex-are they, or not? Russian billionaires who have given millions to GOP figures and in turn gained much influence into American conservative politics. P - One big question is, how close are the sympathies of these so-called ex-Russian billionaires with the interests of Russia and Putin."
Blavatnik, who owns Warner Media, attending the 2018 Grammys with his wife, Emily Appelson.
From our Obsession Power Struggles The global stage is rearranging—who will emerge as the next great political power? https://qz.com/on/power-struggles/
By Max de Haldevang
Geopolitics reporter Published January 22, 2019This article is more than 2 years old.
Quartz’s reporting shows that, during at least part of the time Blavatnik was stepping up his GOP donations, one of his many companies was partnered with a firm that was reportedly part-owned by a then-official in the Russian government. He also was in business with two other oligarchs now sanctioned by the US government. (Blavatnik’s contributions are legal—he became a naturalized US citizen in 1984.)
Asked in September 2017 by ABC News about a report that US special counsel Robert Mueller was looking into donations to Trump’s inauguration fund by Blavatnik and other Republican donors with Russian ties, Adam Schiff, now chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “if there were those that had associations with the Kremlin that were contributing, that would be of keen concern.”
Blavatnik owns stakes in companies that have together received millions of dollars in contracts from sensitive US government agencies such as the departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, according to federal filings. Those firms include biotech company Humacyte, chemicals firm LyondellBasell, and natural-gas giant Calpine, which was recently bought by a consortium co-led by Blavatnik’s main holding company Access Industries .. https://www.accessindustries.com/about/len-blavatnik/ .
Access Industries declined to answer detailed questions for comment on this story, sending a short statement via an outside public-relations company that said Blavatnik’s donations are “motivated by a desire to further a pro-business, pro-Israel agenda,” and “are a matter of public record and comply with all legal requirements.” Humacyte, LyondellBasell, and Calpine didn’t reply to emailed requests for comment.
Meet Len Blavatnik
Blavatnik left the USSR for America at age 21 in 1978, became a US citizen, and returned to Russia as a businessman in the 1990s. He swiftly became one of the richest of a generation of post-Soviet oligarchs, making a fortune in the newly privatized oil sector and the notorious .. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7690306.stm .. “aluminum wars.”
“Oleg Deripaska and the Russian aluminium wars .. https://www.europeanceo.com/profiles/oleg-deripaska-and-the-russian-aluminium-wars/ ” (2012) ---- The wild wild East (the period 1993-96) This was the start of what is now referred to as the Russian ‘aluminium wars’, a bloody period in the country’s post-communist asset grab from which a few dozen oligarchs emerged – and several potential oligarchs lost their lives…
...As the state began to sell off its resource assets, the size and value of the global market for aluminium, along with the potential for moving money around the globe, attracted such fierce competition that it is estimated 100 people were killed. In the words of Roman Abramovich, who testified recently in his suit over events of that period, “Every three days, someone was being murdered…”
===== INSERT into excerpt Government seizes the $42.5M New York mansion owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska while he is investigated for money-laundering, bribery, racketeering and MURDER "What Paul Manafort Knows" * Oleg Deripaska's $42.5million mansion on New York's Upper East Side is part of assets the FBI has frozen as the Russian billionaire is sanctioned * Roman Abramovich's ex-wife Dasha Zhukova who is a good friend of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner lives there with children Aaron Alexander and Leah Lou 2018 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=144133621
Trump’s Russia Scandal May Be Reaching a Breaking Point The scandal continues to engulf the White House. [...] Perhaps the biggest of the bunch: On August 27, the Washington Post reported that Trump was actively pursuing a deal to build a “massive” Trump Tower in Moscow while campaigning for the presidency. And the New York Times exposed a series of emails between Trump’s business associate Felix Sater and his lawyer Michael Cohen, in which Sater boasted about how the Moscow deal could help Trump win the White House. “Our boy can become president of the USA,” Sater wrote, “and we can engineer it.” P - Here are some of the other Russia investigation-related developments you may have missed in recent weeks: [...] Probing Trump’s knowledge of the June 2016 meeting (August 28): NBC News reports that Mueller’s team is “keenly focused” on what President Trump himself may have known about the infamous June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between Russian operatives and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort—and whether the president may have tried to help conceal that meeting’s purpose once it was uncovered by the media. [...] Deeper Kremlin ties seen in Trump Tower meeting (August 21): The New York Times reports that Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian immigrant who attended the July 2016 Trump Tower meeting, has much deeper ties to the Russian government and Kremlin-supported oligarchs than was previously known. The Times also reports that Akhmetshin, who is being investigated by Mueller, has worked for Russian oligarchs whose opponents faced sophisticated hacks. Akhmetshin’s sister, father, and godfather worked for Russian intelligence services, but Akhmetshin has denied allegations that he is a Russian spy. [...] Ivanka’s friendship with an oligarch’s wife (August 18): Bloomberg reports on the friendship between Ivanka Trump and Dasha Zhukova, the wife of Russian billionaire and Putin ally Roman Abramovich. Bloomberg notes that Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, has met multiple times with Abramovich, and that Trump and Kushner disclosed their ongoing social relationship with the couple—which included a four-day trip to Russia in 2014 at Zhukova’s initiation—on their security clearance forms. 2017 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134297466 ===== end insert into excerpt.
Deripaska rose to the top of the pile with a controlling interest in Sibirsky Aluminium Investment Industrial Group, having somehow managed to survive the influence of the local Russian mafia and other threats to his life.With allegations of organised crime and multiple murders apparently dogging his every move, his wealth grew over the next ten years into one of the largest fortunes in Russia.
Meanwhile his friend, Roman Abramovich, acquired most of the rest of Russia’s aluminium industry…
...A 2010 story in the Financial Times explored Deripaska’s links with two heads of Russian organised crime gangs, but probably the most damaging to his reputation on the international business stage was the 2006 cancellation of his entry visa to the US, allegedly due to FBI concerns over his links to organised crime…
And the more rocks people turn over, the more it appears that Moscow Mitch may in fact be a Russian asset, like Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank called him recently.
Oh, not in the sense of a Russian asset in an old cold war thriller...
No. That’s not McConnell’s style.
What is his style, though, is allowing anyone to get away with anything as long as it advances his own personal goals…
So let’s talk about McConnell and Russia.
In the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, President Barack Obama called top congressional Republicans and Democrats together and informed them of national intelligence assessments that found the Russians were using an internet disinformation campaign to influence the presidential election…
Obama wanted to send out a bipartisan statement warning the Russians that such meddling wouldn’t be tolerated…
McConnell objected. Not only did he refuse to sign the letter, the Washington Post reported later that McConnell said “he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics...”
...Then, we have Oleg Deripaska...who was banned from doing business in the United States because of alleged ties to the Russian mafia…
...The Trump administration, however, cut a deal to allow Rusal, a Russian aluminum company 70% owned by Deripaska, to do business in the United States...When a bipartisan group of congressmen objected and tried to stop the Trump administration from doing that, McConnell stepped in and blocked them...
As recently as May 2016, Blavatnik’s business linked him to Russia’s then-deputy minister of Internal Affairs, Alexander Makhonov, Panama Papers files show .. https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/persons/makhonov/ . Amediateka, a major Russian TV-streaming company majority owned by Blavatnik’s Access Industries, seems to have outsourced part of its subscription services to Nemo TV, a company in which Makhonov and his business partner Dmitry Karyakin, who apparently founded Nemo, reportedly held a stake via offshore companies. Nemo also reportedly embedded Amediateka into its product and was its “exclusive technology partner” for smart TV platforms, according to a former Nemo executive. (The size of Makhonov’s stake in Nemo is unclear. When he and Karyakin set up what was reportedly the parent company for their offshore businesses in 2012, they split the shares 50-50. It’s unclear if the ownership structure changed or if there were other investors in Nemo.)
The connection between the two companies and Makhonov’s stake in Nemo TV was first reported .. https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/persons/makhonov/ .. by investigative journalism nonprofit OCCRP, based on Panama Papers files. That story didn’t mention Blavatnik or his umbrella company Access Industries.
It’s unclear whether Blavatnik had any interaction with Makhonov through the arrangement, but the small window into the apparent offshore entanglements of Russian businesses provided by the Panama Papers shows that Blavatnik did indeed share financial interests with a Russian official while heavily donating to the Republican party. There is no allegation of any illegality in these shared interests nor in holding those interests while making US political donations.
Louise Shelley, director of George Mason University’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, says these government ties are indicative of Russia’s general business climate. “To operate the businesses [Blavatnik] does, you can’t be a major actor without political ties—that’s just the way business operates [in Russia],” says Shelley, author of Dark Commerce .. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13270.html . “It’s very hard to function in the [commodities] sector without having those relationships.”
However, from 2015 to late 2017, he donated at least $6.35 million to Republican party institutions, PACs, and candidates, May wrote in the Dallas Morning News, based on FEC data. He gave the money in a mixture of personal donations and contributions via Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, which he also reportedly owns. (The two firms share the same CEO and Blavatnik’s brother is listed as AI Altep’s director, according to Open Corporates.)
Most of that cash went to Super PACs associated with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and onetime presidential candidates Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Lindsey Graham. McConnell, Rubio, Walker, and Kasich didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. A spokesman for Graham said the South Carolina senator “has been one of the harshest critics of Russia/Putin out there” and noted that it’s illegal for candidates to coordinate with Super PACs, while inexplicably linking to an article .. https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/rules-against-coordination-between-super-pacs-candidates-tough-to-enforce/ .. on how politicians are almost never actually punished for such coordination.
Trump’s campaign didn’t receive any Blavatnik cash during the 2016 campaign but he has donated .. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-funds-donald-trumps-defense-in-russia-probe-with-help-from-a-handful-of-wealthy-people-1506109617 .. large sums to the Republican National Committee’s legal fund, which has helped finance Trump’s legal defense for the Russia probe, according to the Wall Street Journal. He also gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. The committee raised an astonishing $107 million and reportedly spent $104 million; around double the cost of Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural celebrations. More than $1.5 million went to Trump’s hotel in Washington, according to .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/trump-inauguration-spending.html .. the New York Times. The White House did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
In a letter sent to Quartz in December, Blavatnik’s lawyer, Martin Singer, denied any suggestion of wrongdoing by Blavatnik, saying that he had “zero” involvement in Russian politics.
Blavatnik also gave hundreds of thousands to Democrats in the same period. Senators Harris, Wyden, and Bob Menendez were among the dozen or so politicians to receive comparatively small donations. None of the three senators have replied to emailed requests for comment.
Blavatnik’s donations to right-wing causes continued late into 2018. His foundation paid $50,000 .. https://qz.com/1482624/paul-ryan-and-nikki-haley-are-receiving-hudson-institute-awards-sponsored-by-len-blavatnik/ .. to be the “Patron Sponsor” of the conservative Hudson Institute think tank’s annual gala on Dec. 3, honoring the outgoing House speaker Paul Ryan and UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Past Hudson Institute honorees include former president Ronald Reagan, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and vice president Mike Pence. The founder of Hudson’s vaunted Kleptocracy Initiative, which publishes reports on the influence of Russian money in global politics, quit .. https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/chaos-at-conservative-think-tank-after-donor-revealed-as-ukrainian-born-oligarch/ .. the think tank as a result of the donation, telling the New York Post: “Blavatnik is precisely what the Kleptocracy Initiative is fighting against.” The Hudson Institute did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Since becoming a British citizen in 2010, Blavatnik has given the ruling Conservative party £94,500 ($121,000), according to Britain’s Electoral Commission. The Conservative party did not respond to a request for comment.
Blavatnik the philanthropist
Blavatnik takes great pains to distance himself from Russian politics. Within hours of describing Blavatnik as an “oligarch” when breaking the news .. https://qz.com/963801/trumps-inauguration-committee-took-1-mln-from-alexander-shustorovich-a-russian-american-whose-money-the-republicans-rejected/ .. of his donation to Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017, Quartz received an email from his PR representative. An outside spokesperson for Blavatnik’s Access Industries called the term oligarch “both highly inaccurate and offensive,” arguing that it implied having a “great deal of political influence” in Russia. The spokesperson said that Blavatnik hadn’t had any contact with president Vladimir Putin since 2000 and that he “plays no role in Russian politics.”
The tycoon has instead styled himself .. https://www.accessindustries.com/news/university-of-oxford-to-establish-new-school-of-government/ .. as a “major American industrialist and philanthropist.” In 2017, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for services to philanthropy. Candidates for knighthoods are typically recommended by the British government, currently headed by Conservative prime minister Theresa May.
He is a major funder of institutes, government schools, museum wings, and even seating tiers .. https://www.carnegiehall.org/Blog/2016/06/Carnegie-Hall-to-Unveil-Blavatnik-Family-First-Tier-in-October-2016 .. at the likes of Harvard, Oxford, London’s Tate Modern, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. A Tate spokesperson said Blavatnik has “a well-known track record for philanthropy” and that the museum is “grateful for his generous support.” The other three institutions didn’t reply to emailed requests for comment.
Earlier this year, Mueller‘s team questioned Vekselberg, according to the New York Times and CNN. Vekselberg has since been sanctioned by the US Treasury in response to a broad array of alleged global “malign activity” by the Kremlin. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said the sanctions targeted oligarchs who “profit from [Russia’s] corrupt system.” Vekselberg reportedly had $1.5 billion to $2 billion .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-renova/u-s-sanctions-on-vekselberg-have-1-5-2-billion-assets-frozen-sources-idUSKBN1HS0FB .. of his firms’ assets frozen due to the sanctions. The Treasury department added that two of Vekselberg’s top executives were arrested in 2016 for bribing Russian officials.
A close Putin confidante, Deripaska’s relationship with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is one of the central questions of the Trump-Russia affair. In the wake of Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, Deripaska and Rusal were sanctioned by the US Treasury department, which says the oligarch “does not separate himself from the Russian state” and accuses Deripaska of links to organized crime, ordering the murder of a businessman, and wiretapping a government official.
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