Thread by @ZarinaZabrisky

🧵🚨Trump’s new Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, worked for a firm lobbying for Kremlin-linked oligarchs.

Her boss, who recommended Wiles for Trump’s campaign, lobbied for a Russian oligarch with deep ties to Putin and Rosneft.

Part 2: here.

Part 1: ⬇️

https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1855371636851040280

Before working for Trump's 2024 campaign, Wiles was a co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs.

Bryan Lanza, Mercury partner, lobbied for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s energy and aluminum firm conglomerate EN+ Group in 2018.

motherjones.com/politics/2019/…

“Deripaska has said that he does not separate himself from the Russian state. He has also acknowledged possessing a Russian diplomatic passport, and claims to have represented the Russian government in other countries."

“Deripaska has been investigated for money laundering and has been accused of threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering...”

Lanza did not represent Deripaska directly.

He represented the former British energy minister, Lord Gregory Barker, the board chairman of EN+ Group.

EN+ was removed from the sanctions list in Jan 2019.
opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/l…

Lord Barker resigned as chairman of EN+ in March 2022, after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, amid intense scrutiny of companies linked to sanctioned Russian oligarchs, alleged by authorities in the US, EU and UK.
theguardian.com/business/2022/…

Lanza appeared on CNN between Oct 2017--May 2018 as a Trump surrogate, attacking Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference--

while representing a Russian firm seeking to make the US government drop the sanctions.

opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/l…

Yesterday, Lanza, a former transition aide to Trump, told BBC that the incoming administration will focus on peace in Ukraine rather than territories.

A spokesperson for Trump's transition team later denied that Lanza spoke for Trump.

bbc.com/news/articles/…

Both Wiles and Lanza lobbied for Chinese tech companies. The Chinese video surveillance company Hikvision, tied to Uighur surveillance, paid Mercury $5.5 million since 2015. Amnesty reports the equipment use in the West Bank.

forbes.com/sites/johannac…

Mercury has also undergone scrutiny in Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the election for its role in the Ukrainian lobbying operation involving Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The firm has denied wrongdoing.

Mercury lobbied on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a nonprofit tied to former pro-Russian Ukrainian president Yanukovych.

Mercury was recruited to improve Yanukovych’s image.
opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/l…

Mercury worked to sway American public opinion in favor of Ukraine’s pro-Russian government by placing articles in The NYT, WSJ and AP and to undercut American public sympathy for an imprisoned rival of then-President Yanukovych, Yulia Tymoshenko.
cnbc.com/2016/08/18/tru…

Manafort’deputy, Rick Gates, directed two lobbying firms, Mercury and the Podesta Group, to set up meetings between a top Ukrainian official and US senators and congressman in 2012-2014.

Manafort oversaw the efforts.
cnbc.com/2016/08/18/tru…

Manafort, Gates and Mercury all failed to disclose their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.

Vin Weber, the principal for Mercury's Ukraine-related lobbying portfolio, acted as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and foreign political party.

In April, 2017, Mercury retroactively filed with FARA within the Justice Department.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Weber

Mercury’s founder, Vin Weber, an influential Republican and former congressman, told the AP that his firm was aware of Manafort’s and Gates’ affiliation with Ukraine’s political party and said Gates never participated in Mercury’s lobbying work.
cnbc.com/2016/08/18/tru…

In August 2016, a NYT report claimed that secret ledgers showed $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Manafort from the Yanukovych administration.

cnbc.com/2016/08/15/tru…

Manafort had ties with Deripaska (indirectly represented by Mercury’s Lanza) and used an intermediary to offer Deripaska private briefings about the election.

Mueller’s team said the intermediary “had ties to a Russian intelligence service.”

edition.cnn.com/2018/05/12/pol…

Susie Wiles led Trump’s campaign in Florida after she was introduced by Brian Ballard, Trump’s longtime lobbyist in Florida and a GOP fundraiser.

Wiles is described as Ballard's "top lieutenant."

edition.cnn.com/2018/05/12/pol…

Ballard had lobbied for Trump in Florida and had built a Washington practice.

He represented a Russian oligarch David Yakobashvili, closely connected with Putin and known for his involvement with Rosneft and the defense industry complex in Russia.

motherjones.com/politics/2019/…

Yakobashvili paid Ballard $450,000 through the first three quarters of 2018 to lobby the U.S. government on immigration and trade policy.

opensecrets.org/news/2019/01/b…

Yakobashvili, among other roles, is an investor in Petrocas Energy Group, a Cyprus-based major petroleum company, that owns over a hundred gas station chains in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, and two oil terminals in Georgia.

In 2014, Russian state-owned Rosneft oil giant purchased 49% of the Petrocas shares. The controlling stake in Petrocas was retained by David Yakobashvili.

In 2020, after the US imposed sanctions on Rosneft over its dealings with Venezuela, Rosneft sold more than a third of its seaborne oil product exports to small trading firms, including Petrocas.

reuters.com/article/legal/…

Rosneft sold off the 49% stake in Petrocas due to the Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

civil.ge/archives/494557

Petrocas was allegedly responsible for transporting Russian-sanctioned oil into Georgia. Ukraine accused Yakobashvili of providing material/financial assistance for activities compromising Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence.
georgiatoday.ge/ukraine-sancti…

❗❗❗Rosneft connections are important due to the allegations of the company’s role in Trump’s election campaign.

Close ties to Putin are also alarming.

Yakobashvili is a co-owner of the former poultry breeding facility in Rublevka, located at some of Russia’s most expensive real estate near Moscow.

Putin’s estate in the Novo-Ogaryovo estate is nearby.

2 hectares could be worth over $22.7 million.

In the mid-2000s, the land was gifted or sold at a symbolic price to Putin’s former bodyguards and their families by Gorki-2, in which Yakobashvili owned 29%, according to the last available report dated 2015.

occrp.org/en/investigati…

Landowners include an assistant to Putin, the wife of Dmitry Medvedev's security chief, businessman Arkady Rotenberg, Putin’s childhood friend and close ally and Putin’s former security guards and their relatives.

rublevka.proekt.media/person/agrokom…

Yakobashvili served on the board of SFC Sistema, the largest diversified public financial corporation in Russia and the CIS, and one of the hundred largest defense companies in the world, for 13 years.

businesswire.com/news/home/2011…

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, with the help of RTI Systems, deployed a system of radar stations along the Russian borders, capable of detecting air targets at long range.
munscanner.com/2022/03/etushe…

The owner of the RTI Systema is Vladimir Yevtushenkov, an oligarch close to Putin.

Yevtushenkov could be one of the intermediaries who introduced pro-Russian Ukrainian Yanukovych to the instigators of hostilities in Donbas in 2014.

munscanner.com/2022/03/etushe…

Yakovashvili is reported to attend meetings with Putin

riamediabank.ru/media/5743093.…

Ballard, who lobbied for Yakobashvili, sent Susie Wiles to run Trump’s campaign in Florida in Sept 2016.

Ballard worked as Trump’s Florida lobbyist and is closer to Trump than any other lobbyist. He has known Trump for 30 years.

politico.com/magazine/story…

Ballard's firm, Ballard Partners, worked on lobbying a case involving Rosneft, helping an Indian company Reliance Industries Ltd to escape sanctions for importing Venezuela crude oil.

Reliance paid Ballard Partners $775,000—$330,000.

caravanmagazine.in/politics/relia…

Reliance, the largest cash-paying client of PdVSA, a state-owned Venezuelan oil company, purchased PdVSA’s crude oil through Rosneft Trading SA, the Geneva-based trading unit of the Russian oil giant, in order to avoid the US sanctions.
reuters.com/article/us-ven…

With Putin-linked oligarchs and lobbyists entangled at the White House levels, the implications for US interests are dire.

Demanding transparency and accountability is critical--while we still have some the system of checks and balances in place.