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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wASHINGTON —<b> The team led by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, failed to do everything it could to determine what happened in the 2016 election, shying away from steps like subpoenaing President Trump and scrutinizing his finances out of fear he would fire them,</b> one of Mr. Mueller’s top lieutenants argued in the first insider account of the inquiry.</font></div><div><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Had we used all available tools to uncover the truth, undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our efforts?” wrote the former prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, in a new book, adding, “I know the hard answer to that simple question: We could have done more.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The team took elaborate steps to protect its files of evidence from the risk that the Justice Department might destroy them if Mr. Trump fired them</b> and worked to keep reporters and the public from learning what they were up to, Mr. Weissmann wrote in “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation,” which Random House will publish next week.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While he speaks reverently of Mr. Mueller, he also says his boss’s diffidence made him ill-suited for aspects of shepherding the politically charged investigation. He saw Mr. Mueller and his deputy, Aaron M. Zebley, as overly cautious.</b></font></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column" /></div><div class="css-8atqhb"><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann also defended against accusations by the president and his allies that he and other investigators were politically biased “angry Democrats”; Mr. Weissmann said his personal views had no bearing on the crimes that Russian operatives and Trump aides committed.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And he elevates particular details — for example, emphasizing that the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/michael-cohen-shell-company-payments.html" title="">same business account</a> that sent hush payments to an adult film star who alleged an extramarital affair with Mr. Trump had also received “payments linked to a Russian oligarch.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">” The president has denied the affair; his former lawyer Michael D. Cohen controlled the account. Mr. Mueller transferred the Cohen matter to prosecutors in New Yor</span>k.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Previously a mafia and Enron prosecutor and then a lawyer at the F.B.I. for Mr. Mueller, who was the bureau’s director for 12 years, Mr. Weissmann ran one of three major units for the special counsel’s office. His “Team M” prosecuted Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort for numerous financial crimes. The goal was to flip him and learn whatever he knew about any Trump campaign links to Russia.</span></p><div class="css-16l7vy9" data-testid="inline-message" aria-live="polite"><div class="css-1od6ynp"><div class="css-16858bh"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Mr. Manafort had worked for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine, and the investigation uncovered ties by his business partner<b>, Konstantin V. Kilimnik</b>, to Russian intelligence. The book builds toward investigators’ discovery that Mr. Manafort had shared internal campaign polling data with Mr. Kilimnik, who flew to the United States to meet with Mr. Manafort during the campaign, asking whether Mr. Trump would permit a peace plan for Russia to essentially take over all of eastern Ukraine.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">But while admitting this much, Mr. Manafort — seeing the dangle of a potential pardon from Mr. Trump — refused to cooperate further. Investigators did not obtain any final puzzle pieces and lacked the evidence to charge anyone in the campaign with a criminal conspiracy involving Russia’s covert electoral assistance.</font></p></div></div><div class="css-8atqhb"><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“It would seem to require significant audacity — or else, leverage — for another nation to even put such a request before a presidential candidate,” Mr. Weissmann wrote of Mr. Kilimnik’s request. “This made what we didn’t know, and still don’t know to this day, monumentally disconcerting: Namely, why would Trump ever agree to this? Why would Trump ever agree to this Russian proposal if the candidate were not getting something from Russia in return?”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Mr. Weissmann explained the significance of Mr. Manafort’s interactions with Mr. Kilimnik — also a major focus of <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html" title="">a recent bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report</a>, which explicitly labeled Mr. Kilimnik a Russian intelligence agent — more clearly than the Mueller report did.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Mueller had strictly forbidden leaks, and the special counsel team took extraordinary care to protect the high-profile, high-stakes investigation, Mr. Weissmann wrote. They kept window blind slats tilted at an angle to keep out prying eyes, shutting out natural light. They concocted an “almost comically elaborate and surreal” plan to sneak in “through the many hidden arteries of the courthouse” to obtain a grand jury indictment without tipping off reporters.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And worried about the possibility that Mr. Trump would fire them and the Justice Department would then seal off or destroy their evidence, the Mueller team members packed their numerous applications to judges for search warrants with extensive, up-to-date details about their investigation — ensuring they backed up their work beyond the reach of the executive branch.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ty Cobb, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, also privately promised to be a “canary in the coal mine” and provide a heads up if Mr. Trump was going to fire the special counsel team, according to Mr. Weissmann. In an email, Mr. Cobb wrote that he “never made the commitment” described by Mr. Weissmann.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The investigation played out against the backdrop of regular vilification of the Mueller team by Mr. Trump and his allies like Fox News’s Sean Hannity — who turned out to be in regular contact with Mr. Manafort cooking up a “smear campaign” over text messages. Mr. Weissmann, a major target, wrote that such “ad hominem” insinuations of bias appealed to emotion rather than reason.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I am a registered Democrat,” he wrote. “Does this make Paul <b>Manafort</b> or any of the other 32 people our office charged any less guilty? Did Russia not attack our democracy and disrupt our election with its self-described online information warfare operation? Which facts that we alleged in our various indictments — and to which many of those we indicted, including Manafort, would plead guilty — did our attackers believe were invented as a result of our alleged bias as ‘angry Democrats?’”</font></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column" /></div><div class="css-8atqhb"><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Trump’s allies have recently <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcenany-calls-out-press-mueller-phone-wiping" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">pointed with alarm</a> to documents showing that cellphones issued to Mr. Mueller’s team were erased during the investigation; Mr. Weissmann twice entered an incorrect passcode too often, triggering a security measure that erased his phone. In an interview, he portrayed the concerns as a “tempest in a teapot” and said his understanding was that all emails and other such data from phones were backed up. He called on the Justice Department to release information about the special counsel’s data backup system.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann also wrote that he is not “anti-Trump” but rather “pro the rule of law.” Still, the distinction is less than clear in a book that also portrays Mr. Trump as a liar and a dangerous demagogue trying “to peel the world around him away from the rule of law — away from reason itself — and mold it to accommodate his desire for unchecked power.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann was equally scathing about Attorney General William P. Barr, calling him an enabler and likening <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/us/politics/mueller-report-barr-judge-walton.html" title="">his misleading letter</a> last spring <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/us/politics/mueller-report-william-barr-excerpts.html" title="">about the then-still-secret Mueller report</a> as a betrayal and “gut punch.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann also criticized colleagues, portraying the special counsel team as divided between aggressive investigators like him, the F.B.I. special agent Omer Meisel and the prosecutor Jeannie Rhee — who headed “Team R,” which investigated Russian issues other than those centered on Manafort — and far more risk-averse law enforcement officials like Mr. Zebley who pulled punches.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one episode in 2017, the Mueller team issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank for information about Mr. Manafort’s income in Ukraine. Deutsche Bank had also lent large sums to the Trump Organization, and the White House somehow found out about the still-secret subpoenas — though not their focus. The White House demanded to know what investigators were doing, and Mr. Mueller authorized Mr. Zebley to tell the White House that they had not been seeking Mr. Trump’s financial information.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“At that point, any financial investigation of Trump was put on hold,” Mr. Weissmann writes. “That is, we backed down — the issue was simply too incendiary; the risk, too severe.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The book provides many other examples of concessions large and small. Investigators did not try to question Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka — who had spoken in the lobby to a delegation of Russians who came to Trump Tower in June 2016 to meet with campaign leaders who had been promised that they were offering dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.</font></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column" /></div><div class="css-8atqhb"><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They “feared that hauling her in for an interview would play badly to the already antagonistic right-wing press — <em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">look how they’re roughing up the president’s daughter </em>— and risk enraging Trump, provoking him to shut down the special counsel’s office once and for all,” he wrote.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, they did not subpoena the Trump Organization for emails about its efforts to develop a Trump-branded building in Moscow, which were active deep into the 2016 campaign.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And they did not immunize Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., a step that would have prevented him from being able to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying about matters like the Trump Tower meeting. Bound by grand-jury secrecy rules, Mr. Weissmann did not come out and say whether Donald Trump Jr. was threatened with or actually issued a subpoena and used his right against self-incrimination to repel it.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann laid much of the blame for what he saw as a pattern of timidity on Mr. Zebley, portraying him as a primary decision maker. “Repeatedly during our 22 months in operation, we would reach some critical juncture in our investigation only to have Aaron say that we could not take a particular action because it risked aggravating the president beyond some undefined breaking point.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Weissmann acknowledged, but did not clearly address, concerns that the aging Mr. Mueller had lost a step, both declaring that he was capable of making the tough decisions despite “speculative concerns” about his health but also describing him in one scene as looking drained and worn down by his years of grueling public service.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Mr. Zebley obtained Mr. Mueller’s sanction for many of his cautious directives, in one striking episode, Mr. Zebley appeared in Mr. Weissmann’s telling to have unilaterally agreed — without Mr. Mueller’s knowledge — to a request by the office of the deputy attorney general overseeing them, Rod J. Rosenstein, not to coordinate with state prosecutors “as it would undermine the president’s pardon power.”</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two other former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disputed the account. Mr. Rosenstein did not decline any request to share information with state prosecutors, a person familiar with his thinking wrote in an email.</font></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column" /></div><div class="css-8atqhb"><div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another person familiar with how the special counsel’s office interacted with Mr. Rosenstein’s office denied that there had been any agreement about sharing evidence with or withholding it from state prosecutors, and said Mr. Zebley had consulted with Mr. Mueller on every material decision.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the failure to subpoena Mr. Trump, Mr. Mueller was determined to avoid “any public disagreements” with Mr. Rosenstein, Mr. Weissmann wrote. Because the special counsel regulations required telling Congress about any instance in which Mr. Rosenstein overruled him, Mr. Mueller never actually proposed subpoenaing Mr. Trump, instead coyly asking what Mr. Rosenstein’s reaction would be. Mr. Rosenstein just kept demurring.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the end, Mr. Weissmann said in an interview, the caution was more justified early on to avoid provoking Mr. Trump into firing them before they could get going. But he and Ms. Rhee, among others, believed the office should have been willing to be more aggressive later on, after they had learned much of what Russia had done and had already used indictments to drag it into public view.</font></p><p class="css-158dogj evys1bk0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We would have subpoenaed the president after he refused our accommodations, even if that risked us being fired,” he wrote. “It just didn’t sit right. We were left feeling like we had let down the American public, who were counting on us to give it our all.”</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><b>Firm Tied to Russian Oligarch Made Payments to <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Michael Cohen</span></b></div><div>Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s lawyer and fixer. His shell company received payments from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch, as well as corporations with business before the Trump administration.</div><div>
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</div><div>By Mike McIntire, Ben Protess and Jim Rutenberg</div><div>
</div><div> <b>May 8, 2018</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">A shell company that Michael D. Cohen used to pay hush money to a pornographic film actress received payments totaling more than $1 million from an American company linked to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, according to documents and interviews.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Cohen, </span>President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars Mr. Cohen received from Fortune 500 companies with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts he paid for luxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.</div><div>
</div><div><b>References to the transactions first appeared in a document posted to Twitter on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star who was paid $130,000 by Essential Consultants to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump.</b> The lawyer’s seven-page document, titled “Preliminary Report of Findings,” does not explain the source of his information but describes in detail dates, dollar amounts and parties involved in various dealings by Mr. Cohen and his company. <b>Most of the transactions involved two banks: First Republic Bank and City National Bank.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>The Times’s review of financial records confirmed much of what was in Mr. Avenatti’s report. In addition, a review of documents and interviews shed additional light on Mr. Cohen’s dealings with the company connected to Mr. Vekselberg, who was stopped and questioned at an airport earlier this year by investigators for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.</b></div><div>
</div><div>[ImageViktor Vekselberg, left, the Russian oligarch, with Marat Khusnullin, deputy mayor of Moscow, before the inauguration ceremony of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia this week.]</div><div>
</div><div>Taken together, The Times’s findings and Mr. Avenatti’s report offer the most detailed picture yet on Mr. Cohen’s business dealings and financial entanglements in the run-up to the election and its aftermath. F<b>ederal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating Mr. Cohen for possible bank fraud and election-law violations, among other matters, according to people briefed on the investigation. Stephen Ryan, a lawyer representing Mr. Cohen, declined to comment.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, is suing Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump to break her nondisclosure agreement related to the $130,000.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It is unclear whether that or any of the other transactions were improper, but Mr. Avenatti has asserted that Mr. Cohen’s use of<b> Essential Consultants </b>potentially violated banking laws. The financial records indicate that at least some of the money that passed through Essential Consultants was from sources and in amounts that were inconsistent with the company’s stated purpose.</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Mr. Cohen also used the company to collect $250,000 after arranging payments in 2017 and 2018 by a major Republican donor, Elliott Broidy, to a former Playboy model he allegedly impregnated, according to news reports last month.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among the other payments to Mr. Cohen’s company described in the financial records were four for $99,980 each between October and January by Novartis Investments S.A.R.L., a subsidiary of <b>Novartis,</b> the multinational pharmaceutical giant based in Switzerland. <b>Novartis — whose chief executive was among 15 business leaders invited to dinner with Mr. Trump at the World Economic Forum in January — spent more than $10 million on lobbying in Washington last year and frequently seeks approvals from federal drug regulators</b>. Novartis said in a statement that its agreement with Essential Consultants had expired.</span></div><div>
</div><div>In addition,<b> Korea Aerospace Industries </b>paid Mr. Cohen’s company $150,000 last November, according to the records. The company, an aircraft manufacturer, has teamed with the American defense contractor Lockheed Martin in competing for a multibillion-dollar contract to provide trainer jets for the United States Air Force that is expected to be awarded this year. A representative for Korea Aerospace declined to comment.</div><div>
</div><div><b>How Michael Cohen Is Connected to a Russian Oligarch</b></div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s lawyer and longtime fixer, met with a Russian oligarch at Trump Tower to discuss Russia and was later paid by a company connected to him.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>AT&T </b>made four payments totaling $200,000 between October 2017 and January 2018, according to the documents. AT&T, whose proposed merger with Time Warner is pending before the Justice Department, issued a statement on Tuesday evening confirming that it made payments to Mr. Cohen’s firm.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“Essential Consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration,” the statement said. “They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The payments by Columbus Nova occurred between January and August of last year.<b> Andrew Intrater, the company’s American chief executive and Mr. Vekselberg’s cousin, donated $250,000 to Mr. Trump’s inauguration</b>, campaign finance records show. He and Mr. Vekselberg attended the event together and met with Mr. Cohen there, according to a person briefed on the matter. Columbus Nova retained him as a consultant soon afterward.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The consulting deal was worth $1 million and was supposed to last for a year, according to documents reviewed by The Times. But Columbus Nova decided to end the agreement midway through after it yielded a few investment ideas but no actual deals.</div><div>
</div><div>A person close to Mr. Intrater said that the executive had no idea Essential Consultants was used for the separate payment to Ms. Clifford, and that he hired a number of other consultants at the time for similar prices.</div><div>
</div><div>“Columbus Nova is an investment management company solely owned and controlled by Americans,” said Richard Owens, a lawyer for Mr. Intrater and Columbus Nova, adding that Mr. Vekselberg has never owned the firm. “After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures.</div><div>
</div><div>“Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved in or provided any funding for Columbus Nova’s engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue,” Mr. Owens said. “<b>Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else outside of Columbus Nova was involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A lawyer for Mr. Vekselberg did not respond to a request for comment.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In addition to questioning Mr. Vekselberg, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have also interviewed Mr. Intrater, though there is no indication that either man is suspected of wrongdoing, T</b>he Times reported last week.</div><div>
</div><div>The person close to Mr. Intrater said that he was encouraged to attend the inauguration by an American friend, unrelated to Mr. Cohen, and that he had wanted to use the trip as an opportunity to meet with business associates in Washington.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Mr. Vekselberg has invested in Columbus Nova’s private equity funds through his </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">sprawling Russian-based conglomerate, the Renova Group,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> which operates in the energy sector and elsewhere.<b> Mr. Vekselberg was one of seven Kremlin-linked oligarchs hit with sanctions</b> in April by the Trump administration, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">which also imposed the penalties on the Renova Group.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Renova has had a financial relationship with VTB, one of the largest state-owned banks in Russia,</b> according to documents that were part of the “Panama Papers” leak of files from an offshore law firm. The documents show that Mr. Vekselberg’s companies received at least $350 million in loans or investments from VTB and a subsidiary, VTB Capital. The current state of the debt is unclear, though one document suggests it was discharged in 2010.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Cohen created Essential Consultants in <b>Delaware</b> less than two weeks before he completed his deal with Ms. Clifford, who is now contesting her contract with Mr. Cohen as invalid.</span> Mr. Cohen initially said he paid her out of his own pocket by way of a home equity line of credit.</div><div>
</div><div><b>But last week, former Mayor Rudolph W.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Giuliani </span>of New York said that Mr. Trump had reimbursed Mr. Cohen through several $35,000 monthly transactions that amounted to more than $400,000 —<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> covering the payment to Ms. Clifford and, he said, other “incidental expenses.”</span></b></div><div>
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</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 820</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rusal, a Russian aluminum company, has invested heavily in a mill that the North American company Braidy Industries has planned for Eastern Kentucky — and according to a Senate Intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Rusal is a “<a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/08/19/senate-report-russian-investor-braidy-mill-kremlin-proxy/5607217002/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">proxy for the Kremlin</a>.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2019, journalist Morgan Watkins reports in the Louisville Courier Journal, Rusal agreed to invest $200 million in Braidy’s mill. And the bipartisan Senate Intelligence report, released on August 18, describes Russian oligarch and Rusal co-owner Oleg Deripaska’s ties to the Kremlin.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the report, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Deripaska’s </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">companies, including Rusal, are proxies for the Kremlin, including for Russian government influence efforts, economic measures and diplomatic relations.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watkins notes that according to a Securities and Exchange Commission report that Braidy filed in June, Rusal had provided $75 million for the mill as of December 31, 2019 but had discontinued contributions until Braidy could secure another $300 million in funding.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Rusal, but Kentucky’s two Republican senators — Sen. Rand Paul and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — have voted against keeping the sanctions in place. Watkins notes that on August 19, the Kentucky Democratic Party “questioned McConnell’s decision to support lifting the sanctions on Rusal in light of the Senate Intelligence Committee report’s identification of Rusal as a proxy for the Kremlin.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/mitch-mcconnell-screwed-over-kentucky-miners-to-fund-russia-linked-aluminum-"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/mitch-mcconnell-screwed-over-kentucky-miners-to-fund-russia-linked-aluminum-</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Here’s how Mitch McConnell screwed over Kentucky miners to fund Russia-linked aluminum plant: report</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Travis Gettys / Raw Story<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>September 10, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a measure that would have funded pensions and health care for coal miners in his home state of Kentucky, not long after steering almost the same Treasury Department funds to an aluminum plant linked to a Russian oligarch.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kentucky Republican doesn’t like the “Moscow Mitch” nickname that’s been stuck to him, but these latest revelations might make it difficult to shed, reported The Daily Beast.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McConell voted in January to lift sanctions on <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Rusal, a Russian aluminum company formerly headed by Putin ally Oleg Deripaska,</span> and just days after the Treasury Department officially de-listed the company — it announced a $200 million investment in an aluminum plant in northeastern Kentucky.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats have raised questions about how much McConnell knew about the investment before he voted to lift sanctions, but a Braidy Industries spokesperson told The Daily Beast the company never lobbied Congress about sanctions, and said no employee or director of the company ever spoke to McConell about Rusal, the only outside investor in the plant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But, the website reported, McConnell’s connection to the Rusal-Braidy deal is deeper than previously understood.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Rusal was lobbying the Trump administration to remove sanctions, the Kentucky Republican was pushing for federal funds to be used to help build the Braidy plant near Ashland, back in his home state.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The federal government has been giving Appalachian states millions of dollars since 2016 to help clean up abandoned coal mining land, and to assist in economic development there.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But McConnell and other Kentucky lawmakers, including Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), helped steer $4 million away from sewer and road repair in October 2018 to preparing for construction on the aluminum plant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s not clear when Braidy Industries and Rusal began, but two sources with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast that McConnell was instrumental in helping them secure the federal funding that had been earmarked for community development in his state.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McConnell then blocked a bill sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) that would have pumped $4 million federal money into miner pensions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Treasury Department collects fees from coal companies each year that are then distributed to the Department of the Interior to clean up abandoned mines and improve the communities they’ve left behind.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McConnell argued that he wanted a more permanent fix to the pensions when he blocked Manchin’s bill, but he seemingly raided $4 million the Treasury fund to help start construction on the aluminum plant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Senate majority leader’s office defended the move, saying pensions should be addressed through a broader bipartisan measure, but coal miners are furious.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re not ever going to quit until they give us what we’ve earned. We’re not going to quit until we get it,” said Dwayne Thompson, a retired Peabody Energy coal miner from Kentucky. “I hope Senator McConnell gets that. If he supports us, we will support him.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Some miners believe McConnell blocked the pension funding because some union members had supported his 2014 opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and one union leader said Congress has been stalling on assistance to them for years.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Coal miners understand something — when people tell us ‘we’re going to pass legislation’… we don’t believe it,” said Cecil Roberts, president of the UWMA. “Anyone who understands how Congress works knows that that’s a fight.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">update</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns">https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns</a></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Dallas Morning News</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">FILED UNDER COMMENTARY AT MAY 8 SHARE</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Editor's note May 8, 2018: This column 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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Touch chart to see info:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">So is this legal?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democratic leader on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News in September: "Unless the contributions were directed by a foreigner, they would be legal, but could still be of interest to investigators examining allegations of Russian influence on the 2016 campaign. Obviously, if there were those that had associations with the Kremlin that were contributing, that would be of keen concern."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Under federal law, foreigner nationals are barred from contributing directly or indirectly to political campaigns in local, state and federal elections.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Should Blavatnik's contributions concern Mueller's team of investigators? Take a look at his long-time business associates in Russia.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Oligarchs</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oleg Deripaska 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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Earlier this year, The Associated Press 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."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Viktor Vekselberg is one of the 10 richest men in Russia. He and long-time business partner Blavatnik </b>hold a 20.5 percent stake in Rusal. (They met while attending university in Russia.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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. <b>TNK is best known for its contentious partnership with British Petroleum</b> after the two entities formed a joint venture in 2003.<b> That rocky relationship ended 10 years later when they sold out to the state-controlled energy giant, Rosneft, under pressure from the Russian government.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 <b>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.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Vekselberg has connections to at least two Americans who made significant GOP campaign contributions during the last cycle. They are among several Americans who also merit Mueller's scrutiny.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Touch chart to see info:</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Americans</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg's cousin. He is 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.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Alexander Shustorovich,</b> 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?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Simon Kukes</b> 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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Touch chart to see info:</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Khodorkovksy</b> 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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Even if the donations by the four 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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">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 the Treasury secretary.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Which PAC officials are making the decisions to accept these donations?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Supreme Court</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The contributions are legal because the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling, Citizens United, and several subsequent decisions, allowed American corporations and citizens to give unlimited amounts of money to PACs and non-profit 501c4 organizations, regardless of how they make their money, where they make their money, or with whom they make their money. The only caveat is that PACs and non-profits cannot coordinate their activities with the political candidates they support.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The man who led the winning fight for Citizens United was David Bossie, p</b>resident of the conservative non-profit since 2001. In 1996, Bossie was hired by Republican Rep. Dan Burton to lead an investigation into President Bill Clinton's campaign fundraising. Burton fired him 18 months later for manipulating recordings of conversations among law officials and Webb Hubbell, a Clinton confidant who resigned as associate attorney general and pleaded guilty to tax fraud during the Whitewater investigation. CNN reported at the time that Newt Gingrich, who was speaker of the House, called Bossie's tampering with the Hubbell recordings an embarrassment to the Republicans.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Bossie served as Trump's deputy campaign chairman.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Super PAC, Make America Number 1, is primarily funded by Trump's largest donor, Robert Mercer. His Renaissance Technologies hedge fund donated $15.5 million to the PAC.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mercer's daughter, Rebekah, assumed control of Make America Number 1 in September 2016 and is now tainted by her role in the communications between Wikileaks and Cambridge Analytica, the firm that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, hired for $5.9 million to handle the digital portion of the Trump campaign.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Robert and Rebekah Mercer are major investors in Cambridge Analytica. According to The Wall Street Journal, Rebekah Mercer asked Cambridge chief executive Alexander Nix if the firm could compile stolen emails related to Hillary Clinton so that they could be more easily searched. (This suggestion came from someone she met at an event supporting Sen. Ted Cruz, according to The Hill. Cambridge Analytica had worked on digital marketing for Cruz before he dropped out of the Republican primary.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Nix confirmed that he had asked Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to forward the Clinton-related emails. Assange said he declined the request.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rebekah Mercer also heads the non-profit Making America Great, formed in March 2017. The non-profit ran a seven-figure ad campaign highlighting Trump's achievements. Bossie is the group's chief strategist.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Erik Prince, brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, contributed $150,000 to Mercer's Make America Number 1 PAC</b> and another $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund. Prince has recently testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about his trip to the remote Seychelles for a secret meeting in December 2016 with a close ally of Putin, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The purpose of the meeting was allegedly to setup a back channel of communication between then president-elect Donald Trump and the Russians, though Prince has denied this allegation. Before the 2015-16 elections, Prince's political contributions totaled a mere $31,800 as far back as 2007, according to FEC records.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The hybrid super-PAC, The Committee to Defend the President, was formed in 2013 under the name Stop Hillary PAC. It is managed by Dan Backer,</b> the lead attorney who won the McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission case in 2014. The Supreme Court decision eliminated the cap on how much wealthy individuals can donate to federal candidates, parties and PACs in a single, two-year election cycle.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Like Bossie, Dan Backer helped to open the floodgates to millions of dollars of influence brought to bear on incumbents and their political challengers who are now pressured to kowtow to their donors with the biggest bank accounts, even if their billions are earned in Russian rubles.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Backer was born in Russia and emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1978.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The changes to our campaign finance laws created an avenue for Russia to try to influence our elections. There are holes in our firewall and they aren't on the internet.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Touch chart to see info:</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ruth May is a business professor at the University of Dallas and an expert on the economies of Russia and Ukraine. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @ruthcmay</font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></font></font></p>