a typically corrupt repub: Kremlin-Controlled Russian Bank Hires Trump Insider as a Lobbyist

Kremlin-Controlled Russian Bank Hires Trump Insider as a Lobbyist
John Sweeney will be paid to help Vnesheconombank avoid sanctions.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/kremlin-controlled-russian-bank-hires-trump-insider-as-a-lobbyist/

With Congress mulling legislation to slap new sanctions on Russia for its attack on the 2016 American election, an important Russian bank connected to Vladimir Putin’s government has turned for help to a well-positioned lobbyist in Washington: a Trump insider and former Republican House member named John Sweeney. In August Sweeney signed a whopping contract to lobby on behalf of this bank to stave off sanctions from the US government.

Sweeney, who formerly represented district near Albany, filed paperwork late last month with the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit to represent Vnesheconombank, known as VEB, a Kremlin-controlled investment bank. The bank’s chair, Igor Shuvalov, was appointed last year by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave him orders to increase funding of national development projects.

The filing says that Sweeney will “engage in meetings and other communications with U.S. government officials regarding potential new sanctions legislation…that could affect” the bank.

<<snip>>

Sweeney was hired to work for Vnesheconombank by the International Centre for Legal Protection, a Moscow entity formed to help Russia and Russian entities enmeshed in complex international legal disputes. The onetime House member will receive $62,500 per month for 12 months for the work, according a contract he filed with Justice Department.

Reached by phone Thursday, Sweeney said he would call back, but he did not. He did not respond to a voicemail or questions sent by text message.

Sweeney represented an upstate New York district from 1999 through 2006, when he was defeated for reelection by Kirsten Gillibrand, now the junior senator from New York. In the final weeks of the 2006 race, Sweeney faced domestic abuse allegations (claims that he has denied). In the years that followed, Sweeney twice pleaded guilty to drunk driving charges. Sweeney stopped drinking and recently announced 10 years of sobriety. He also weathered a federal grand jury investigation, into whether he took official acts while in office to help three clients of an Albany lobbying firm in exchange for “a stream of financial benefits,” according to FBI records cited by the Albany Times Union. He was never charged in that case, which lasted from 2006 until at least 2008.

An early Trump backer, Sweeney led Trump’s successful primary campaign in New York. Sweeney served on Trump’s presidential transition team, helping to vet potential senior national security and intelligence officials, ambassadors, and political appointees for multiple agencies.

Sweeney began lobbying the White House soon after Trump took office. In 2017 and 2018 he worked on behalf of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project partly owned by Russia’s state-run gas giant, Gazprom. The pipeline, scheduled to be completed by next year, would transport natural gas directly from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukraine, which could damage that country’s gas industry. Sweeney’s work, for which he reported receiving $470,000 in lobbying fees, included opposing “potential financial sanctions affecting the project.” Lobbying disclosure forms he filed with Congress say he focused on influencing the “Executive Office of the President.”

<<snip>>