Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48) is well known as "Putin's favorite congressman" for voting against the Magnitsky Act.
Now, it looks like there are some seriously shady business deals going down that haven't previously been reported on. #ThursdayThoughts
comraderohrabacher.com
Now, it looks like there are some seriously shady business deals going down that haven't previously been reported on. #ThursdayThoughts
comraderohrabacher.com
In 2012, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher made an investment in a privately-held company called ISI Life Sciences, Inc. Rohrabacher does not have a background in biotech and prior to this investment, Rohrabacher hadn't reported any investments in privately-held companies.
Rohrabacher's investment was less than $1,000. For an investment of this size, Rohrabacher was not required to report the transaction on his financial disclosures.
According to Rohrabacher's financial disclosure for 2012, his investment in ISI was worth between $100,000 and $250,000 on December 31, 2012. In his subsequent annual financial disclosures, Rohrabacher has continued to list this investment as an asset worth between $100k & $250k.
According to ISI's one SEC filing, the company's first sale of equity was on 12/17/12. This is the earliest date that Rohrabacher could have owned shares. The company sold $354k in equity -- so there was at least one investor besides Rohrabacher since he invested less than $1k.
A 100x increase in the value of an investment in two weeks would be highly unusual. Especially occurring during the last two weeks of the year when there's relatively little value-creating activity taking place.
We couldn't find a single article or press release showing that ISI did anything at all between December 17th and December 31st.
Actually, we couldn't find any articles or press releases in the years since Rohrabacher's investment either ... But maybe they're just really under the radar.
If ISI is so "under the radar," how did Rohrabacher find out about ISI early enough to invest?
In fact, we have a LOT of questions to ask #ComradeRohrabacher.
comraderohrabacher.com/our-questions
comraderohrabacher.com/our-questions
THREAD: This seems like a big story. I can't believe no one has jumped on it yet.
@cmaiduc
@latseema
@jpanzar
@philwillon
@johnmyers
@ocregister
@JordanSGraham
@terisforza
@tonysaavedra2
@ReporterSandraE
@NBCLA
@AdrianNBCLA
@AnnetteNBCLA
@KimNBCLA
@cmaiduc
@latseema
@jpanzar
@philwillon
@johnmyers
@ocregister
@JordanSGraham
@terisforza
@tonysaavedra2
@ReporterSandraE
@NBCLA
@AdrianNBCLA
@AnnetteNBCLA
@KimNBCLA
https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1052891728527601665
THREAD: No one has written about this Dana Rohrabacher story yet.
@KCBSRadio
@CBSLA
@CBSLADave
@CBSLARachel
@cbsladavelopez
@KaraFinnstrom
@ComstockNEWS
@ErnestLKung
@SereneOnScene
@AmyJohnsonNews
@NewsJuan
@CBSLAKristine
@tina_patel
@CrystalCruzCBS
@KCBSRadio
@CBSLA
@CBSLADave
@CBSLARachel
@cbsladavelopez
@KaraFinnstrom
@ComstockNEWS
@ErnestLKung
@SereneOnScene
@AmyJohnsonNews
@NewsJuan
@CBSLAKristine
@tina_patel
@CrystalCruzCBS
https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1052891728527601665
THREAD about Dana Rohrabacher potential shady business dealings. We'd like answers to the questions in the last tweet. Maybe one of you could ask him?
@KCBSKCALDesk @KABC7
@ABC7
@vctorres27
@MirandaRjsNews
@ABC7Desk
@CHellerTVNews
@Michelle_Hedman
@KCBSKCALDesk @KABC7
@ABC7
@vctorres27
@MirandaRjsNews
@ABC7Desk
@CHellerTVNews
@Michelle_Hedman
https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1052891728527601665…
So, here are some things that don't add up.
Rohrabacher supposedly made a 100x return on his investment in ISI Life Sciences – without doing anything illegal or unethical -- but his previous investment history was a disaster – he lost 40-70% playing the stock market.
Rohrabacher supposedly made a 100x return on his investment in ISI Life Sciences – without doing anything illegal or unethical -- but his previous investment history was a disaster – he lost 40-70% playing the stock market.
How is he so good at picking the right biotech start-up when he was so bad at investing in household names like Cisco and Apple? 🤔
There are 54 members in California’s House delegation – but Dana Rohrabacher is the ONLY one who has ever reported making a 100x return on a private investment in a two-week period. Is he really that much smarter than every other member of Congress from California?
According to SEC rules, Dana Rohrabacher was not a “qualified investor” to make this speculative investment in this private company. He didn’t have sufficient income or net worth to qualify.
To put it another way, if a registered financial adviser had tried to talk Rohrabacher into making his investment in ISI Life Sciences, it would have been illegal.
And if Rohrabacher had lost money, he would have even been able to sue his adviser for allowing him to make the investment in the first place.
This, of course, raises the question of who advised Rohrabacher in his investment in ISI Life Sciences -- because it appears that whoever did was breaking the law.
Rohrabacher has friends on the board of this company
He may have been a stranger to investing and he's certainly no expert in biotech - but he wasn't a stranger to the individuals listed on this company's SEC filing.
He may have been a stranger to investing and he's certainly no expert in biotech - but he wasn't a stranger to the individuals listed on this company's SEC filing.
Take Craig Keshishian, for example. He's listed as an Executive Officer and Director of ISI. According to his LinkedIn profile (we've taken a screenshot of it in case he deletes it), Keshishian worked in the Reagan White House from 1981 to 1983...
...and spent part of that time in the Office of Speechwriting.
Reagan Administration archives reveal that Dana Rohrabacher was also in the Reagan White House speechwriting office from 1981 through the entire period Keshishian was in the White House.
Reagan Administration archives reveal that Dana Rohrabacher was also in the Reagan White House speechwriting office from 1981 through the entire period Keshishian was in the White House.
And that isn't Rohrabacher's only connection to the company's board. Edwin Laird, a Board member of this company, is such a strong supporter of Rohrabacher that he’s publicly defended Rohrabacher’s record on Russia as recently as October 2018.
Unethical at best - but quite possibly illegal. If the Congressman got a tip from a friend that this investment would quickly grow – he broke the law.
But even if he didn’t know his investment would grow this quickly, it was unethical for Rohrabacher to make this investment based on private information from his friends and likely in violation of House rules.
Craig Keshishian and Edwin Laird could also be guilty of felonies if they brought this investment to Dana Rohrabacher's attention - even though he was not qualified to make this investment.
Additionally, neither Keshishian nor Laird are registered investment officials and may have broken California law in addition to their SEC violations.
And get this: ICI told the SEC they're located at 610 Newport Center Drive, Suite 500. Newport Beach, California. And the company is still listed on Rohrabacher's financial disclosures. This is hinky, at best...
Suite 500 was vacant and available for sublease - so if ISI isn't at this address where are they?
ICI made one SEC filing in April 2013 – but even though they are headquartered in California, they never made any filings with the State of California.
(It's really really hard to legally operate any kind of business in the State of California without filing something with some office or agency of the State at some point.)
Not only is their so-called office location vacant – it’s also huge. We found a leasing advertisement indicating that the space is 15,000 square feet. Makes sense for lots of employees ... but we couldn't find any ISI employees anywhere
This is a really large office in a really nice building in a really nice part of a really nice city. The monthly rent is $60,000, based on the $4 per square foot price and the 15,000 square footage.
These details are in the sublease promo.But according to the SEC filing, this company only raised about $300,000 in capital. 🤔🤔🤔
Hard to imagine that they were paying $60,000 rent for even one month.
Harder still to imagine how anyone would have ever signed them a lease.
Harder still to imagine how anyone would have ever signed them a lease.
Even if they were subleasing a tiny tiny portion of this space - and only paying $10,000 in rent, their money would disappear pretty quickly and Dana Rohrabacher's investment would evaporate.
And another thing:
Where tf is the CEO? According to the SEC filings, the Executive Officer is Craig Keshishian. He seems to have left ISI to work somewhere else - although he's no longer on their Executives page.
Where tf is the CEO? According to the SEC filings, the Executive Officer is Craig Keshishian. He seems to have left ISI to work somewhere else - although he's no longer on their Executives page.
He has a huge gap in his work history and claims that he left the United States to spend over a decade in Eastern Europe. And how was Craig Keshishian spending his time in these former Warsaw Pact countries? Privatizing industries, he says.
Given Dana Rohrabacher's Putin-o-philia, we can't help but wonder how Keshishian was spending his time during the multi-decade gap in his LinkedIn resume. A gap that corresponds with the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin.
Keshishian popped up in Alaska in September 2006. According to the archived "Dean's Report" for that month, kept by the Dean of the Fisheries school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, "Mr. Craig Keshishian from Indicator Systems, Inc. (ISI) arrived on September 26.
He spent September 27 in Fairbanks discussing a new invention by his company and then traveled to Kodiak to meet with FITC faculty on September 28. A joint proposal from ISI and FITC may result from his visit."
To be blunt, there's very little public information out there about Craig Keshishian. And we tracked him down for months and combed the archives of the web.
Why does this matter? It matters because there was very little public information out there about Craig Keshishian at the time that Dana Rohrabacher decided to invest in Keshishian's company.
Presumably, Rohrabacher made his investment on the basis of private rather than public information. And that's against the law.
Read more about our research into #ComradeRohrabacher's shady investment into ISI here: comraderohrabacher.com/isi-life-scien…
We're just getting started.
On Rohrabacher and others.
And right after the election, we'll start gearing up for 2020 because we know that lasting change won't come from just one election.
Wanna help?
Follow @BlueWaveCS and sign up at ➡️citizenstrong.org
On Rohrabacher and others.
And right after the election, we'll start gearing up for 2020 because we know that lasting change won't come from just one election.
Wanna help?
Follow @BlueWaveCS and sign up at ➡️citizenstrong.org
Oh, yeah. There's this other thing.
According to the financial disclosure that Rohrabacher just filed in August, he was a busy bee last year. Back on April 25, 2017, Dana Rohrabacher sold an option on a screenplay entitled "The French Doctoresse" for $15,000-$50,000..
According to the financial disclosure that Rohrabacher just filed in August, he was a busy bee last year. Back on April 25, 2017, Dana Rohrabacher sold an option on a screenplay entitled "The French Doctoresse" for $15,000-$50,000..
("Doctoresse" is Rohrabacher's really weird way of saying "doctor who happens to be a woman.")
April 2017 was a good month for #ComradeRohrabacher. Exactly two weeks before somebody "bought" his "screenplay," Rohrabacher was in Berlin meeting with Russian lobbyist, Rinat Akmetshin.
Either it is an incredible coincidence, or this is the same "French Doctoresse" script that Rohrabacher was shopping around in 1989.
Hopefully the script is better this time around - but back in 1989, the Los Angeles Times reported that there was a pro-Hitler scene. That is bad. On a scale of 1-10, we're putting it at "definitely more than 10."
Wait ... how pro-Hitler was it?
Welp...
************
Hitler stands in a hallway, talking to an aide. The sound of music and people talking can be heard.
HITLER: Is it the usual guest list this evening?
Welp...
************
Hitler stands in a hallway, talking to an aide. The sound of music and people talking can be heard.
HITLER: Is it the usual guest list this evening?
AIDE: With one exception. Your sculptor has invited a friend. She is a doctor who is married to a French pilot. She has an interesting story. Her husband was arrested as a terrorist.
She, on the other hand, became a doctor for the German air force last year and recently saved the lives of a number of our airmen.
HITLER: Where is her husband now?
AIDE: In one of the camps.
In the reception room. Jeanne addresses Hitler in a rush.
HITLER: Where is her husband now?
AIDE: In one of the camps.
In the reception room. Jeanne addresses Hitler in a rush.
JEANNE: Mein Herr. I came to remind you of your decree that for everyone who saved a German life, a life could be expected in return. My husband is a prisoner.
HITLER: Ah. The French doctoresse. Madame, I have just this moment given the order to locate your husband, clothe him and surrender him to your care. Coincidentally, tonight we are having a French-style dinner...come to the table. You may consider this evening in your honor." 🤣
How do we know the screenplay is really worth $50,000? Seems like it's worthless.
P.S.: Just so you know we aren't making it up ... here's a link to an article from 1989 that excerpted the screenplay. articles.latimes.com/1989-10-11/ent…
P.S.: Just so you know we aren't making it up ... here's a link to an article from 1989 that excerpted the screenplay. articles.latimes.com/1989-10-11/ent…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
