Thread by @karolcummins

‼️The Firtash Connection

Franklin Foer brilliantly summarizes the Firtash assisted #UkraineGate plot to smear Joe Biden in exchange for dropping his extradition to the US together with TeamTrump’s efforts to attempt a coup at Naftogaz on his behalf.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Per Parnas: Giuliani’s team had a deal with Firtash.

Giulani would get the DOJ to drop its attempt to extradite the oligarch on bribery charges.

In return, Firtash promised to pass along evidence that would supposedly discredit both Biden & Mueller.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Firtash apparently paid Parnas $1 million for his services, though it’s still not totally clear what those services were.)

🔑The apparent centrality of Firtash should inform any assessment of Giuliani’s escapades and the entire Ukraine story.

reuters.com/article/us-usa…

🔑In his book Russia’s Crony Capitalism, Anders Aslund describes Firtash as a “Kremlin Influence agent.”

🔑A Ukrainian parliamentarian who investigated Firtash has called him “a political person representing Russian interests in Ukraine.”

reuters.com/article/russia…

🔑Firtash, that representative of Russian interests is who Giuliani and Parnas apparently enlisted as their partner.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑It’s reported that Firtash attached himself to the gangster Semion Mogilevich, one of the region’s most important Mafia bosses, a man the FBI placed on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. (His lawyers vociferously deny any connections to gangsters.)

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/d…

Background: Firtash II

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1188599803782955008?s=21

When Putin ascended to power in 2000, he gained control of his country’s natural-gas business.

He placed his allies at the helm of the country’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, & he has routinely wielded that company as an instrument of Russian foreign policy.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

📌In 2002, Firtash became Gazprom’s most important middleman: He was responsible for selling RU gas to UKR.

📌Gazprom sold Firtash gas at 4 times below the market price. When Firtash resold the gas to the UKR state, he pocketed a profit of $3 billion.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

‼️Firtash Gas Distribution

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1180922044323524608?s=21

📌Even as he amassed this fortune, bankers close to Putin extended Firtash an $11 billion line of credit.

📌A chunk of this cash cycled back to Moscow in the form of kickbacks.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

📌Another chunk of this money was spent bankrolling Russian political influence in Ukraine.

📌Firtash was one of the two primary patrons of the deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his political party.
#Manafort

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑This meant that Firtash was also writing the checks that covered the cost of Manafort’s services to Yanukovych.

🔑It’s worth pausing to marvel at the narrative symmetry of this scandal: Both Manafort & Parnas shared the same Russian-alligned paymaster.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

📌For his mastery of political campaigning, Manafort was dubbed a “mythical figure” in the Ukrainian press, “I can tell you he’s a real specialist,” says Manafort’s friend Firtash.

“He won three elections in Ukraine. He knew what he was doing.”

time.com/5003623/paul-m…

Manafort has been linked to Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash, whom Bloomberg has described as “Putin’s handpicked surrogate” in the Ukrainian natural gas industry.

themoscowproject.org/collusion/mana…

Manafort ultimately resigned from the Trump campaign because investigators in Ukraine found secret ledgers listing more than $12 million in off-the-books payments to Manafort from the Party of Regions

themoscowproject.org/collusion/mana…

🔑Another aspect of this story centers on the notorious a Black Ledger

🔑Manafort was convicted in part for his non-payment of taxes on undeclared income whose origins were revealed by Yanukovych’s secret accounts.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

🔑TeamGiuliani also persists in claiming that the “black ledger” is a fake in an effort to discredit the Mueller inv’n.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

Dec 2018: Parnas and Fruman slipped out of a large reception room packed with 100s of Trump donors to have a private meeting with Trump, Pence & Giuliani.

After that meeting Parnas said he was on a 'secret mission' for Trump (hurt Biden/help Manafort)

cnn.com/2019/11/15/pol…

I digressed, back to the Franklin Foer story:

📌When Firtash needed someone to pay his bail—which the Austrians set at $155 million, the highest in the nation’s history—the oligarch Vasily Anisimov, a member of Putin’s inner circle, supplied the cash.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Firtash has long seethed at Joe Biden.

🔑As vice president, Biden vigorously promoted an anti-corruption agenda that included liberating Ukraine’s energy sector from Firtash’s dominance.

thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-olig…

🔑When Biden visited Kyiv in 2015 and spoke before Parliament, he seemed to praise the Ukrainian government for “closing the space for corrupt middlemen who rip off the Ukrainian people.”

nytimes.com/2015/12/09/wor…

🔑Firtash raged against this speech. He described Biden as an “overlord.”

🔑Firtash said, “I was ashamed to look at this. I was repulsed.”

🔑If Firtash promised Parnas material that could be used against Biden, he was fulfilling a long-held grudge.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Most narratives of the plot against Biden allege that corrupt PG Viktor Shokin concocted the whole scenario out of a desire for vengeance.

Biden, after all, had demanded that the Ukrainian president fire Shokin, whose office was a bastion of corruption.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Oligarchs notoriously pay handsomely for the allegiance of prosecutors, who bring cases against their enemies.

🔑Over time, it has become clear that Shokin and Firtash are allies.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

📌Last Sept, at the request of Firtash’s lawyers [Toensing & diGenova], Shokin filed an affidavit in Austrian court testifying to the oligarch’s innocence.

📌[Toensing & diGenova are allies of Trump & decades long pals of AG Barr]
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Foer asks:

📌How long have Shokin and Firtash been allies?

📌Were they working together when the plot against Biden first germinated?

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

📌What happened at Naftogaz?

Parnas and Igor Fruman hoped to obtain a contract to export American natural gas to Ukraine.

apnews.com/7f97eac651e7ad…

As part of this scheme, Parnas & Fruman seem to have launched a campaign to remove the leadership of the Ukrainian national company, Naftogaz, and to install managers more favorably inclined to their bid.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Correia, Parnas, Fruman, Rick Perry (& his TX oil & Gas cronies), Pence, Tommy Hicks Jr., (“the money guy,”) who is the co-chairman of the RNC and a close friend of Trump Jr. are all implicated in the attempt to takeover/control Naftogaz.

apnews.com/7f97eac651e7ad…

Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Warsaw to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II. But a top diplomatic priority of the trip was expediting U.S. natural gas exports to Eastern Europe.
apnews.com/7f97eac651e7ad…

Though he had no experience in the gas or energy business prior to working with Parnas, Correia was bent on securing a deal to sell US LNG to Ukraine through a pipeline in Poland.

cnn.com/2019/12/23/pol…

Rick Perry & the Sale & Transportation of US LNG (liquid natural gas) to Ukraine

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1180670096638758912?s=21

Federal Prosecutors Probe Giuliani’s Links to Ukrainian Energy Projects

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1195389795037413377?s=21

📌Foer asks: Is it possible they were fixated on remaking Naftogaz because of Firtash’s long-running battle with the company’s reformist leadership?

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Firtash believes that Naftogaz owes him money and that it is unfairly preventing him from accessing stored gas that he believes he owns.

🔑Was Parnas’s team attempting a coup at Naftogaz on behalf of Firtash?

rferl.org/a/ukraine-s-st…

🔑The CEO of Naftogaz Andriy Kobolyev came under attack by two associates of Rudolph Giuliani (Parnas & Fruman), President Trump’s personal attorney.

🔑They wanted to install a new Naftogaz chief and secure a gas-supply deal.

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑Kobolyev has fought hard to end this troubled history & turn Naftogaz into a proper, functioning company.

🔑His main focus now is “to be sure we are able to preserve the achievements of the last five years, especially in terms of fighting corruption.”

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑In her testimony to House impeachment investigators last month, Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, called Kobolyev “as clean as they come,” saying he had been “fearless and determined to sort of shake everything up.”

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑Kobolyev declined tocomment on Rick Perry’s efforts to shake up Naftogaz’s supervisory board, as first reported by the AP and confirmed to The Post that Perry had indeed lobbied Ukraine to install new board members during a May visit to Kyiv.

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑Kobolyev spoke at length about one of his primary headaches: the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who he said has caused Naftogaz trouble for many years.

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑Firtash and his companies have long taken part in “corrupt schemes” that have siphoned money away from Naftogaz, Kobolyev contends.

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

Firtash owns a group of companies that acquire gas from Naftogaz and sell it to households for use in heating and cooking.

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑Ukrainian regulations require Naftogaz to supply these companies, called oblgazy, even if they don’t pay for the gas, Naftogaz said.

🔑And often the oblgazy don’t pay, acquiring gas for nothing and selling it for a large profit,

washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…

🔑What did Giuliani do on firtash’s behalf?

🔑Giuliani has consistently sought to minimize his ties to Firtash. But over time, he’s conceded that he spoke with the oligarch’s lawyers in Chicago and that he meet with his proxies in Europe.

washingtonpost.com/politics/how-g…

Foer asks:

📌Did Giuliani press Firtash’s case at the Justice Department?

📌That is, did he fulfill the quid pro quo that Parnas alleged this week?

📌Did he attempt to help Firtash avoid American justice in exchange for material on Biden?

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑In October, The New York Times reported that Giuliani had met with officials in the Justice Department to discuss the case of a foreigner accused of bribery.

🔑Giuliani wouldn’t name his client, whom he described as “very, very sensitive.”

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Parnas told Rachel Maddow that he overheard Giuliani discussing his Ukrainian operation with Attorney General William Barr.

🔑If they in fact took place, did those discussions ever include the subject of Dmytro Firtash?

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

What did the russians know?

🔑Given Firtash’s past involvement with the Kremlin—given that the Russian state supplied him with his fortune, given that he did its political bidding in the past, given that a Putin insider loaned him the money for his bail

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

It seems fair to ask:

Did Firtash keep the Russians in the loop about his involvement with Parnas & Giuliani?

Did he ever seek to enlist their help?

These are admittedly speculative questions, but the oligarch’s background demands their consideration.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑Dmytro Firtash’s work in Ukraine undermined that nation’s democracy.

🔑He spent hundreds of millions entrenching the forces of kleptocracy.

🔑His machinations kept the country locked in Russia’s orbit.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

🔑That he may have been involved in spreading disinformation about Biden for the sake of avoiding extradition is the most important allegation from Lev Parnas’s trail of cable-news interviews.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Firtash story - Hail Mary Pass to fight extradition.

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1180870472403050496?s=21

🔑Yeah, it was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and also Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff.

The black ledger," Parnas said.

🔑[Parnas failed to mention the TeamTrumpGiulianiFirtash’s attempt to take over control of Naftogaz]

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/g…

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you.
#Firtash

Firtash III