How a Champion of Democracy (Vin Weber )Became a Manafort Flack

[DonViejo]

Former Congressman Vin Weber literally won a medal for his promotion of democracy. Then he became part of Paul Manafort’s phalanx of lobbyists for a Putin-friendly strongman.

BETSY WOODRUFF
03.03.18 9:08 PM ET

In the middle of the 2012 presidential race, Mitt Romney’s campaign had an unusual moment. The Republican billed himself as a foreign policy hawk who would stand up to the Kremlin. But on May 9, 2012, one of his foreign policy advisors, lobbyist Vin Weber, signed a little-noticed contract with a man in Vladimir Putin’s wider orbit. It was a deal that would reverberate for years to come.

Weber spent twelve years in Congress, where he worked alongside Newt Gingrich, did a stint in Republican leadership, and built relationships on both sides of the aisle. Then headed to K Street, where he became one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists. From 2001 to 2009, he was chairman of the board at the National Endowment for Democracies, which boosts human rights and democracy activists around the world.

While Paul Manafort was scouring the globe for dictators to represent, Weber was sailing to the top of Washingtonian magazine’s Top 50 Lobbyists list. But their paths crossed. One year, Weber was a hero for democracy. The next, he was (unwittingly, per his firm) a Putin ally’s flack.

And now, Weber and his firm have been roped into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Team Trump and the Kremlin. A spokesperson for Weber’s firm said they are cooperating with Mueller’s probe, and confident they didn’t do anything wrong.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-champion-of-democracy-became-a-manafort-flack?ref=home

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Vin Weber is no prize, even though he opposed Trump's nomination.

Weber was a Congressman from Minnesota for awhile, but didn't run for reelection in 1992 because he wrote 125 bad checks worth nearly $48,000 (this was part of the House banking scandal). After that he was an advisor to Newt Gingrich. Weber frequently offered his opinions on NPR about health care issues, but never revealed that he was a paid lobbyist for several health insurance giants. Weber is a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signers (along with Cheney and Rumsfeld) of the PNAC letter to Bill Clinton advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if he's tangled up in some other sleazy business.