Midnight Meme Of The Day

by Noah

McConnell not only didn't want to protect Mueller, he now says "case closed" and "time to move on." Case closed. Move on. It wasn't just the four words for $3.500,000. Words are cheap in Washington. Real, real cheap. McConnell gave Russia and Trump a package deal: Included were his reputation (such as it was), his soul (if he ever had one), and he sold out his country (How long has it been since he considered America his country? Did he ever?). McConnell put a price on all of that, $3,500,000. This is not to say that he hasn't sold his soul for cash before. It's the nature of the political world that he's surely done that time and time again as he's sold his soul and soId out his country to multi-national corporations and banks. He's a politician. It's what they do, but the individual amounts of each "transaction" are much smaller. People like McConnell usually think in terms of volume of "transactions." $20,000 here. $10,000 there. But this time it was Russia, a foreign adversary, for $3,500,000. He had a price. Hell, a guy like McConnell, I bet he would have done it for half that, but he got $3,500,000. Looks like he went for the gusto. I'll say it again: We used to prosecute, convict, and hang traitors. Instead, we now tolerate their existence in high positions of authority. Bizarro Country. Today, FOX "News" would offer the Rosenbergs a daily slot on FOX and Friends.

2018 In Review: $enate Majority Leader McConnell Puts A Price On Freedom And Pockets The Cash. The Whole World Is Watching, Part 5.

by Noah

Mitch McConnell: Accomplice in Trump's betrayal of America. Call him Accomplice #1. As Majority Leader, MConnell not only pushes Trump's agenda of policies and nominations, he is Trump's eager protector, ignoring his sworn oath, saying and doing nothing to protect the United States and The Constitution. Putin and his Bots may have pushed Trump over the top, helping him win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania with a perfectly coordinated and targeted campaign of misinformation and "fake news" that his idiot supporters still believe but Mitch the Treason Turtle has enabled and supported Trump's continued wrecking of America every day since. In fact, when, even before the 2016 election, President Obama followed protocol and informed McConnell of Russia's meddling on behalf of Comrade Trump. Obama suggested a bipartisan statement on the situation. McConnell refused and did nothing. It's pretty safe to say that he and the rest of the Republican Party higher-ups already knew anyway. As for Obama, hindsight is 20/20 but at that point, he should have just gone public with it on primetime TV instead of putting other diplomatic issues first, but Obama, being ridiculously polite and afflicted with a severe strain of his constant civility, chose the traditional wimp-out Democratic Party approach, i.e., do nothing-say nothing. Imagine if things had been the other way around.

So, let's call for McConnell's emails! Surely, there must be a hacker or security agency somewhere who has them. And, since there is nothing in the Constitution that says a sitting president can't be indicted, I'm sure there's nothing in the Constitution that says a sitting $enate Majority Leader can't be indicted either, not that one ever will be. The biggest crime involving McConnell (and House Speaker Ryan for that matter) is that no one is calling for him to be thoroughly investigated, indicted, and hauled before a jury. What additional indicators that McConnell is aiding and abetting the brotherhood of Trump and Putin in their repeated attacks on America do we need? Just the fact that McConnell has repeatedly refused to even bring protections for the Mueller Investigation to a vote in the Senate tells you where he stands. Combine that with his pre-election silence and you know he has chosen not to defend America against our Russian adversary. Continuing to ignore McConnell is insane. The disease that is Mitch McConnell has been ignored far, far too long. The vast majority of the mainstream media has, thus far given him a free pass, a get out of jail free card. It's like ignoring a local outbreak of the black plague and thinking it won't spread. Well, it has spread, and the result is Trump, McConnell's partner in crime, wrecking havoc on this country for the benefit of Russia, China and, to a growing extent (See Syria) the world.

But of course there is much more. Fully delineating McConnell's corruption would take a full book or perhaps an encyclopedia, yet he goes unscathed. I won't even bother here with how McConnell's bank accounts have exponentially grown since he became $enate Majority Leader or even before, nor, will I bother to give a look into his wife's fortune and how her father grew it. Just the fact that McConnell eagerly accepted in $3.5 million "campaign contributions" from Russian oligarch Len Blavatnik between 2015 and 2017 should raise public questions but it hasn't. Perhaps McConnell is just lucky that there is someone above him that is even more corrupt that everyone is paying attention to, but, Blavatnik, an Odessa-born man who made his fortune in the aftermath of the break up of the Soviet Union like so many oligarch's is reportedly among those with Russian connections that are on Robert Mueller's radar. Blavatnik is now a naturalized American citizen with dual citizenship. He claims not to be an oligarch himself but moves very freely in those circles. It's an "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck" scenario. Here in the U.S. he hangs out with the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Brett Ratner as he makes attempts at rising in the film industry while he is, since 2011, the owner of the Warner Music Group. He's also a philanthropist and he contributes freely to Republican politicians, not just McConnell but also Senators Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio.

Through Blavatnik's 1st degree connections, you can draw a straight line between McConnell and Putin with Blavatnik in the middle. 6 degrees of separation is laughably unnecessary. Blavatnik came to America at the age of 21 and received a Masters degree in computer science from Columbia University. After that, he teamed up with an old classmate from his teenage years at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers named Viktor Vekselberg. If the name Viktor Vekselberg sounds a bit familiar to you, Vekselberg was detained by Robert Mueller's agents as he entered our country earlier this year. Vekselberg was a guest at Comrade Trump's inauguration and met with Michael Cohen shortly before. Vekselberg was photographed at a 2015 dinner in Russia sitting next to... wait for it... Gen. Michael Flynn. In the typically reserved New York Times style, The Times said that the detaining of Vekselberg "suggests that the special counsel has intensified his focus on potential connections between Russian oligarchs and the Trump campaign and inauguration committee." It may be time to turn over the next rock, the one under which Mitch McConnell lives. Let's see what Trump and Putin are getting for that $3.5 million. It seems we already know.

The failure of the mainstream media to expose the treachery, danger to, and betrayal of America by Mitch McConnell is every bit if not more of a failure to the American people than its constant broadcasting of Trump's complete rallies virtually every night of the 2016 campaign. In 2016, they promoted Trump right into the White House. In 2018, they protect his protector in the $enate.

For additional reading, I suggest this fine article in The Nation on the corruption of Comrade Trump's Republican Party by Russian rubles. If it hasn't already, it will spread and become fully bi-partisan. What we tolerate grows.

If Only My Gramps Had Stayed In Russia, Maybe I'd Own My Own Jet Now Too!

Mafiya by Chip Proser

Before I retired a few years ago, I was president of one of the divisions of TimeWarner, Reprise Records, a label started by Frank Sinatra as a refuge for artists, like himself, who didn't want to be pushed around by suits or by a producer. By the time I took it over, Sinatra had sold the company to Warner Bros. but I tried to run the company the way he intended it to be run. I took that seriously. Our artists did too. The roster included artists like Green Day, Neil Young, Morrissey, Joni Mitchell, Depeche Mode, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Fleetwood Mac, Chaka Khan, the Barenaked Ladies, the Replacements (and a hundred others)-- and none of these people fool around when it comes to artistic freedom.

After I retired the place started falling apart... actually, the whole music business was falling apart. For real. I was hired for a one-off job by Deutsche Bank. They wanted me to put my imprimatur on a bond offering they were doing for the company, basically so they could make a plausible claim to due diligence. They paid me an enormous sum of money to rubber stamp the bond offering. But I recognized it was a fraud almost immediately, a ponzi scheme. I was horrified, refused to give it a thumbs up and they told me to take my money and STFU.

Not long after, Time Warner sold the Warner Music Group to a Russian gangster, Len Blavatnik. He seemed to want the company, not because he was a fan of Ministry or Prince or even Cher or Madonna. Nope, as far as I could tell, Sir Leonid, wanted the storied record giant as a money-laundering operation for dirty Russian money.

He's also contributed many millions of dollars to the Republican Party, Republican candidates and, of course Señor Trumpanzee. Like many Putin cronies, he cut the Trumpanzee inauguration a cool million dollar check, money that has never been accounted for but is widely assumed to have gone right into fat-ass' pockets. Sir Leonid, by the way, is the richest man in Britain and Forbes ranks ranks him the 16th richest in the world. Still, laundering the billions and billions Putin stole from Russia-- now we're talking about the actual richest man of earth-- takes a lot of laundering. Trump's idol.

Yesterday Matthew Mosk and John Santucci broke a scoop for ABC News: Special counsel eyeing Russians granted unusual access to Trump inauguration parties. Hello, Sir Leonid! "Several billionaires," they wrote, "with deep ties to Russia attended exclusive, invitation-only receptions during Donald Trump’s inauguration festivities, guest lists obtained by ABC News show." Who remembers when it was a big deal just to be a plain old millionaire? That's how old I am.

These powerful businessmen, who amassed their fortunes following the collapse of the Soviet Union -- including one who has since been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department -- were ushered into events typically reserved for top donors and close political allies and were given unprecedented access to Trump’s inner circle.

Their presence has attracted the interest of federal investigators probing Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Matthew Olsen, a former senior national security official who now serves as an ABC News consultant, said their presence at inaugural events is “very concerning.”

“This reflects a Russian strategy of gaining access to our political leaders at a time when they are just forming a government,” Olsen said. “They don’t need to be spies in the James Bond sense. They are powerful people with significant wealth who are in a position to exert influence on U.S. policy makers. And they’re in a position to report back to Russian intelligence services on what they’re able to learn.”

The presence of people with Kremlin ties in Washington for Trump’s inaugural celebration was first reported by the Washington Post. But the guest lists obtained by ABC News offer a new glimpse at the level of access granted to several well-connected oligarchs.

Several donated enough to the Presidential Inaugural Committee to qualify for tickets to a “Candlelight Dinner” in Washington’s Union Station on the eve of the inauguration, a perk for $1 million contributors, the list of attendees show. Guests were treated to a preview performance by singer Jackie Evancho, a one-time runner-up on "America's Got Talent," who would go on to sing at the inauguration the following day.

A handful celebrated Trump’s surprise victory at the black-tie “Chairman’s Global Dinner,” an exclusive 500-guest affair held the same night in the Greek-columned Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium whose attendees included close Trump friends, high-ranking campaign aides, and an array of foreign ambassadors and dignitaries. The inaugural committee treated them to a dinner of butter-poached lobster, coffee-crusted beef tenderloin and chocolate raspberry dome. For entertainment, casino mogul and Trump pal Steve Wynn flew in Las Vegas show girls to perform a Broadway-style rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

Kerchhhhhing! Another few cents into Sir Leonid's account.

According to a source with knowledge of the congressional investigations, at least one oligarch was ushered into Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol for the traditional Inaugural Day luncheon, hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies-- an event typically out of reach to donors and even most rank-and-file members of Congress.

“It’s incredibly unusual,” said Stephen Kerrigan, who planned the 2009 and 2013 Obama inaugural festivities and said every guest was scrutinized for foreign ties. “Particularly if they were going to be within arm’s reach of the President, they went through an intensive vetting process.”

Names on the guest lists of the Candlelight Dinner included Victor Vekselberg, the billionaire head of the global conglomerate Renova Group, who was later sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury “for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy,” and his American cousin Andrew Intrater. Late last year, Vekselberg was stopped at a New York airport by federal agents working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and questioned, according to the New York Times. The Times also reported that Intrater was separately interviewed by the special counsel.

Vekselberg and Intrater were seated at the dinner next to Michael Cohen and his family, according to a source familiar with the arrangements. Intrater’s firm, Columbus Nova, later signed Cohen to a $1 million consulting contract. Emails to Renova Group went unanswered. A spokesperson for Intrater declined to comment when reached by ABC News.

Investigators for both the Mueller team and the congressional probes have also expressed interest in several of the other Russian guests who had no obvious place in Trump’s diplomatic orbit, three sources told ABC News.

Some had given money to past Republican candidates, including Leonard Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born billionaire philanthropist who holds American and British citizenship. He appeared on guest lists for both the Candlelight Dinner and the Chairman’s events. His global company, Access Industries, which holds a majority stake in Amedia, Russia’s largest producer of television series, gave $1 million to the inaugural fund.

A spokeswoman at Access Industries directed questions from ABC News to a company official who was not immediately available for comment.

...A Soviet-born billionaire Alexander Mashkevitch, who built a metals and mining empire in Kazakhstan, appears on the guest list for the Candlelight Dinner. Flight records show his private jet flew into Washington, D.C. on Jan. 19, 2017 and out two days later. European media reports indicate he settled money laundering charges with Belgian authorities in 2011 with no finding of wrongdoing by him. He has held an ownership stake in Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, one of the world’s largest mining and metals concerns, based in London.

...The Trump inauguration brought in more than $107 million, double the amount of President Obama, to finance a week of festivities that was filled with far fewer events than past inaugurations-- only three Presidential balls. In May, ABC News reported that the Special Counsel had questioned several witnesses about millions of dollars in donations from donors with connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Is there one billionaire in Russia who's not an arch criminal? You're kidding, right? Their parents were happy with a bowl of shchi and a sip of sbiten. And now they all have their own planes and access to Trumpanzee. How did that happen? So many lucky people!

Trickery, deceit, law-breaking by Chip Proser

How Much Collusion? More Collusion Than Anyone Has Ever Seen Since Benedict Arnold... No, More Than That

Yesterday, Skip went over how Carnival revelers the world over are poking fun at Señor Trumpanzee. In Lisbon, it wasn't just Trump this weekend, but Trump, Putin and Kim Jong Un, 3 explosive assholes the whole world hates. The 3 were portrayed as sharks, an animal Trump is petrified of. People laughed. Trump doesn't care when people laugh at him. He's a clown with a mission-- no dignity but a mission. All the stuff about how a "confused" White House is bogged down in misogynistic scandals... the more ink it gets, the more it unfocuses people's minds from Trump's collusion with Putin. It's exactly what Señor T has in mind.

The Dispatch Argus is the daily newspaper that serves Moline, East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa. Over the weekend, the paper noted that Trump is doing Putin's work for him. "Russian President Vladimir Putin must be feeling pretty good about himself," wrote Dan Lee. "In 2014, Russia, under his leadership, annexed Crimea and got away with that. Russia also militarily intervened in Ukraine and got away with that as well. In 2016, according to U.S. intelligence sources, President Putin, who had 'a clear preference' for Donald Trump, 'ordered an influence campaign' intended to hurt Hillary Clinton. He also got away with that. In response to these egregious deeds, both houses of Congress, with huge majorities, voted to authorize new sanctions on Russia. President Trump with great reluctance signed the bill. However, the Trump administration recently announced that it does not plan to impose the new sanctions."

Instead of taking action against President Putin and his government, President Trump, who has bent over backwards to be complimentary to his Russian counterpart, is attacking his own Department of Justice and the FBI, both of them headed up by individuals he himself appointed.

John McCain wrote that if the Trumpist regime continues "to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him." The Argus-Dispatch agrees noting that "The legacy of the Trump years might well be the destruction of various branches of the federal government, among them the Department of State and the Department of Justice... Weakening our government and, by so doing, our country is undoubtedly what President Putin (and Chinese President XI) want to see happen."

I used to work at Warner Bros Records, historically one of the greatest music companies ever. Now... well, now it's just a money laundering for the Russian mafia. TimeWarner is no longer the parent company. It's owned by a Palin lackey named Len Blavatnik and operates at a tremendous loss. The company isn't about selling music or breaking or developing artists any longer. It's about laundering cash for Blavatnik and his Kremlin allies. Sad.

Ruth May, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News wrote that "as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia." She discovered Señor Blavatnik.

Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal. We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country.

An example is Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen and one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle. Blavatnik's family emigrated to the U.S. in the late '70s from the U.S.S.R. and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late '80s.

Data from the Federal Election Commission show that Blavatnik's campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.

In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund.

• Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S./U.K. citizen is considered one of the richest men in the U.K. with an estimated net worth of $20 billion.

• Access Industries and AI-Altep Holdings-- Blavatnik’s U.S.-based holding companies, conduits for his largest political contributions.

• RUSAL is the second-largest aluminum company in the world, based in Russia. Three billionaire oligarchs with ties to the Russian government control 69 percent of RUSAL: Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik.

• Steve Mnuchin, Trump's campaign finance chairman, owned Hollywood finance company RatPac-Dune with Len Blavatnik until he sold his stake to become secretary of the Treasury.

• Blavatnik contributed a total of $3.5 million to a PAC associated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Blavatnik contributed $1.5 million to the GOP Senate Leadership Fund PAC in the name of Access Industries and another $1 million in the name of AI-Altep Holdings during the 2015/2016 election season. And as of September 2017, he had contributed another $1 million this year through AI–Altep.

• Blavatnik contributed a total of $1.5 million to PACs associated with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida. He contributed $1.25 million to the Conservative Solutions PAC in the name of Access Industries, then another $250,000 to the Florida First Project via AI-Altep Holdings.

• Blavatnik contributed $1.1 million to Unintimidated PAC, associated with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, via Access Industries.

• Blavatnik contributed $800,000 to the Security is Strength PAC, associated with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., via Access Industries.

• Len Blavatnik contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Committee via Access Industries. A company spokesperson denied the gift represented significant support for Trump.

So is this legal?

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democratic leader on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News in September:

"Unless the contributions were directed by a foreigner, they would be legal, but could still be of interest to investigators examining allegations of Russian influence on the 2016 campaign. Obviously, if there were those that had associations with the Kremlin that were contributing, that would be of keen concern."

Under federal law, foreigner nationals are barred from contributing directly or indirectly to political campaigns in local, state and federal elections.

Should Blavatnik's contributions concern Mueller's team of investigators? Take a look at his long-time business associates in Russia.

The Oligarchs

Oleg Deripaska is said to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs, and he is founder and majority shareholder of Russia's Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world. Blavatnik holds a stake in Rusal with a business partner.

Further, nearly 4 percent of Deripaska's stake in Rusal is owned by Putin's state-controlled bank, VTB, which is currently under U.S. sanctions. VTB was exposed in the Panama Papers in 2016 for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Putin.

Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, began collecting $10 million a year in 2006 from Deripaska to advance Putin's interests with Western governments. Deripaska's name turned up again in an email handed over to Mueller's team by Manafort's attorneys. According to The Washington Post, in the email dated July 7, 2016, just two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president, Manafort asked an overseas intermediary to pass a message on to Deripaska: "If he [Deripaska] needs private briefings, tell him we can accommodate."

Viktor Vekselberg is one of the 10 richest men in Russia. He and long-time business partner Blavatnik hold a 20.5 percent stake in Rusal. (They met while attending university in Russia.)

In 1990, Blavatnik and Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Group for large-scale investments in energy, infrastructure, aluminum and other metals. One of their earliest investments was in Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK), founded in 1995. TNK is best known for its contentious partnership with British Petroleum after the two entities formed a joint venture in 2003. That rocky relationship ended 10 years later when they sold out to the state-controlled energy giant, Rosneft, under pressure from the Russian government.

As for BP, that pressure took the form of growing harassment and intimidation from Russian authorities who at one point, according to Forbes, refused to renew visas for BP employees, forcing BP's joint venture chief Robert Dudley (who is now chief executive of BP) to flee Russia and manage TNK-BP from a foreign outpost in a secret location.

Vekselberg has connections to at least two Americans who made significant GOP campaign contributions during the last cycle. They are among several Americans who also merit Mueller's scrutiny.

• Russia’s second largest state owned bank, VTB, is under U.S. sanctions. VTB owns 3.8% of Deripaska’s holding company, En+ Group. • Oleg Deripaska, a member of the Kremlin “family” since he married the daughter of an adviser to President Boris Yeltsin in 2001, is said to be one of Putin’s favorite oligarchs. He is the founder and majority shareholder of Rusal.

• Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S./U.K. citizen is considered one of the richest men in the U.K. with an estimated net worth of $20 billion. Blavatnik’s family emigrated from the U.S.S.R. in the late 70s and he returned to Russia when the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 80s.

Blavatnik co-founded the Renova Group with Vekselberg in 1990.

His U.S. based holding companies include Access Industries and AI-Altep Holdings.

Blavatnik and Vekselberg jointly own 20.5 percent of RUSAL.

• Viktor Vekselberg, one of the 10 richest men in Russia, has an estimated net worth of $13.5 billion.

Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik jointly own 20.5 percent of RUSAL.

• Columbus Nova is Vekselberg's U.S.-based investment arm of his Russian conglomerate, Renova Group

• Rusal is the second-largest aluminum company in the world, based in Russia. Three billionaire oligarchs with ties to the Russian government control 69 percent of Rusal: Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik.

The Americans

Andrew Intrater, according to Mother Jones, is Vekselberg's cousin. He is also chief executive of Columbus Nova, Renova's U.S. investment arm located in New York. (FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.)

Intrater had no significant history of political contributions prior to the 2016 elections. But in January 2017 he contributed $250,000 to Trump's Inaugural Committee. His six-figure gift bought him special access to a dinner billed as "an intimate policy discussion with select cabinet appointees," according to a brochure obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Alexander Shustorovich, chief executive of IMG Artists, attempted to give the Republican Party $250,000 in 2000 to support the George W. Bush presidential campaign, but his money was rejected because of his ties to the Russian government, according to Quartz. So why didn't the Trump team reject Shustorovich's $1 million check to Trump's Inaugural Committee?

Simon Kukes is an oil magnate who has something in common with Intrater. From 1998 to 2003, he worked for Vekselberg and Blavatnik as chief executive of TNK. Redacted CIA documents released in 2003 under the Freedom of Information Act said "TNK president Kukes said that he bribed local officials." The CIA confirmed the authenticity of the reports to The Guardian newspaper but would not comment further. In 2016, Kukes contributed a total of $283,000, much of it to the Trump Victory Fund. He had no significant donor history before last year's election.

• Andrew Intrater is Viktor Vekselberg’s American cousin and chief executive of Columbus Nova, the U.S. investment arm of Renova Group.

Intrater had no significant donor history prior to the 2016 elections. He contributed $250,000 to Trump’s Inaugural Committee. In June, he donated $35,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, $29,600 to the Republican National Committee and $2,700 to the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign. FEC records list his employer as Renova US Management LLC.

• Columbus Nova is the U.S-based investment arm of Viktor Vekselberg’s Russian conglomerate, Renova Group.

• Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, has significant investment holdings in the U.S. through his private equity group, Columbus Nova.

• Russian-American chief executive of IMG Artists Alexander Shustorovich contributed $1 million to Trump’s Inaugural Committee. But his $250,000 gift to the Republican National Committee in support of the George W. Bush campaign in 2000 was rejected because of his ties to the Russian government.

• 

• Russian-American oil magnate Simon Kukes worked for Vekselberg and Blavatnik from 1998 to 2003. Kukes ccontributed a total of $283,000, much of it to the Trump Victory Fund. He had no significant donor history until 2016.

There is no doubt that Kukes has close ties to the Putin government. When he left his job as CEO of TNK in June 2003, he joined the board of Yukos Oil, which at the time was the largest oil company in Russia owned by the richest man in Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Four months after Kukes joined the board, authorities arrested Khodorkovsky at gunpoint on his private plane in Siberia on trumped up charges of tax evasion and tapped Kukes to be CEO. This decision could only have been made at the highest levels in the Kremlin. The arrest of Khodorkovsky rattled the nerves of international investors and was the first tangible sign that Putin was not going to be the kind of leader that global executives and Western governments had expected him to be when he first took office in 2000.

Khodorkovksy was given a 13-year sentence in a Siberian prison and served 10 years before being released by Putin in December 2013, a month before the start of the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, as a sign of goodwill. As for the fate of Khodorkovksy's company, its largest oil subsidiary was sold in a sealed bid auction to Baikal Financial Group, a shell company with an unpublished list of officers. Baikal was registered at an address that turned out to be a mobile phone store in Tver, Russia. Three days after the auction, all of Baikal's assets were acquired for an undisclosed sum by Rosneft, the Russian oil giant that went on to buy TNK-BP in 2013.

In total, Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich and Kukes made $10.4 million in political contributions from the start of the 2015-16 election cycle through September 2017, and 99 percent of their contributions went to Republicans. With the exception of Shustorovich, the common denominator that connects the men is their association with Vekselberg. Experts who follow the activities of Russian oligarchs told ABC News that they believe the contributions from Blavatnik, Intrater and Kukes warrant intense scrutiny because they have worked closely with Vekselberg.

Even if the donations by the four men associated with Russia ultimately pass muster with Mueller, one still has to wonder: Why did GOP PACs and other Trump-controlled funds take their money? Why didn't the PACs say, "Thanks, but no thanks," like the Republicans said to Shustorovich in 2000? Yes, it was legal to accept their donations, but it was incredibly poor judgment.

McConnell surely knew as a participant in high level intelligence briefings in 2016 that our electoral process was under attack by the Russians. Two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement in October 2016 that the Russian government had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell's PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings. The PAC took another $1 million from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings on March 30, 2017, just 10 days after former FBI Director James Comey publicly testified before the House Intelligence Committee about Russia's interference in the election.

And consider Steve Mnuchin, Trump's campaign finance chairman. Could he have known that the Trump Victory Fund, jointly managed by the Republican National Committe and Trump's campaign, took contributions from Intrater and Kukes? Mnuchin owned Hollywood financing company RatPac-Dune with Blavatnik until he sold his stake to accept Trump's appointment as the Treasury secretary.

Which PAC officials are making the decisions to accept these donations?

The Supreme Court

The contributions are legal because the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling, Citizens United, and several subsequent decisions, allowed American corporations and citizens to give unlimited amounts of money to PACs and non-profit 501c4 organizations, regardless of how they make their money, where they make their money, or with whom they make their money. The only caveat is that PACs and non-profits cannot coordinate their activities with the political candidates they support.

The man who led the winning fight for Citizens United was David Bossie, president of the conservative non-profit since 2001. In 1996, Bossie was hired by Republican Rep. Dan Burton to lead an investigation into President Bill Clinton's campaign fundraising. Burton fired him 18 months later for manipulating recordings of conversations among law officials and Webb Hubbell, a Clinton confidant who resigned as associate attorney general and pleaded guilty to tax fraud during the Whitewater investigation. CNN reported at the time that Newt Gingrich, who was speaker of the House, called Bossie's tampering with the Hubbell recordings an embarrassment to the Republicans.

Bossie served as Trump's deputy campaign chairman.

The Super PAC, Make America Number 1, is primarily funded by Trump's largest donor, Robert Mercer. His Renaissance Technologies hedge fund donated $15.5 million to the PAC.

Mercer's daughter, Rebekah, assumed control of Make America Number 1 in September 2016 and is now tainted by her role in the communications between Wikileaks and Cambridge Analytica, the firm that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, hired for $5.9 million to handle the digital portion of the Trump campaign.

Robert and Rebekah Mercer are major investors in Cambridge Analytica. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rebekah Mercer asked Cambridge chief executive Alexander Nix if the firm could compile stolen emails related to Hillary Clinton so that they could be more easily searched. (This suggestion came from someone she met at an event supporting Sen. Ted Cruz, according to The Hill. Cambridge Analytica had worked on digital marketing for Cruz before he dropped out of the Republican primary.)

Nix confirmed that he had asked Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to forward the Clinton-related emails. Assange said he declined the request.

Rebekah Mercer also heads the non-profit Making America Great, formed in March 2017. The non-profit ran a seven-figure ad campaign highlighting Trump's achievements. Bossie is the group's chief strategist.

Erik Prince, brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, contributed $150,000 to Mercer's Make America Number 1 PAC and another $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund. Prince has recently testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about his trip to the remote Seychelles for a secret meeting in December 2016 with a close ally of Putin, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The purpose of the meeting was allegedly to setup a back channel of communication between then president-elect Donald Trump and the Russians, though Prince has denied this allegation. Before the 2015-16 elections, Prince's political contributions totaled a mere $31,800 as far back as 2007, according to FEC records.

The hybrid super-PAC, The Committee to Defend the President, was formed in 2013 under the name Stop Hillary PAC. It is managed by Dan Backer, the lead attorney who won the McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission case in 2014. The Supreme Court decision eliminated the cap on how much wealthy individuals can donate to federal candidates, parties and PACs in a single, two-year election cycle.

Like Bossie, Dan Backer helped to open the floodgates to millions of dollars of influence brought to bear on incumbents and their political challengers who are now pressured to kowtow to their donors with the biggest bank accounts, even if their billions are earned in Russian rubles.

Backer was born in Russia and emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1978.

The changes to our campaign finance laws created an avenue for Russia to try to influence our elections. There are holes in our firewall and they aren't on the internet.

When It Comes To Taking Tainted Kremlin Money There Are A Certain Breed Of Democrats Eager To Make The Gravy Train Bipartisan

Blavatnik pumps huge sums into GOP politics-- and to certain corrupt Democrats

Academic Ruth May overlooked something in her blockbuster report, Tangled web connects Russian oligarch money to GOP campaigns, for the Dallas Morning News. Yes, the Putin crony with all the cash, Leonid "Len" Blavatsky gives mega-bucks to corrupt Republicans-- and he certainly doesn't contribute to any progressives-- but he also gives massive "contributions" to corrupt conservative Democrats. I knew his name sounded familiar when I started reading about him-- he's the Russian Mafia guy who bought Warner Bros Music from AOL. May's info is all correct for as far as it goes, but doesn't mention the tens of thousands of dollars doled out to the DCCC and DSCC and to corporate whores like Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, Evan Bayh, Rahm Emanuel, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford and, of course Hillary Clinton.

"Party loyalty," wrote May, "is often cited as the reason that GOP leaders have not been more outspoken in their criticism of President Donald Trump and his refusal to condemn Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. Yet there may be another reason that top Republicans have not been more vocal in their condemnation. Perhaps it's because they have their own links to the Russian oligarchy that they would prefer go unnoticed. Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank. During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonid "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org."

Marco Rubio's Conservative Solutions PAC and his Florida First Project received $1.5 million through Blavatnik's two holding companies. Other high dollar recipients of funding from Blavatnik were PACS representing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at $1.1 million, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at $800,000, Ohio Governor John Kasich at $250,000 and Arizona Senator John McCain at $200,000.

In January, Quartz reported that Blavatnik donated another $1 million to Trump's Inaugural Committee. Ironically, the shared address of Blavatnik's companies is directly across the street from Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York.

Len Blavatnik, considered to be one of the richest men in Great Britain, holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K. He is known for his business savvy and generous philanthropy, but not without controversy.

In 2010, Oxford University drew intense criticism for accepting a donation of 75 million pounds from Blavatnik for a new school of government bearing his name. Faculty, alumni and international human rights activists claimed the university was selling its reputation and prestige to Putin's associates.

Blavatnik's relationships with Russian oligarchs close to Putin, particularly Oleg Deripaska, should be worrisome for Trump and the six GOP leaders who took Blavatnik's money during the 2016 presidential campaign. Lucky for them no one has noticed. Yet.

Oleg Deripaska is the founder and majority owner of RUSAL, the world's second largest aluminum company, based in Russia. Len Blavatnik owns a significant stake in RUSAL and served on its Board until November 10, 2016, two days after Donald Trump was elected. Blavatnik's resignation from RUSAL's board was published on the company's website with a note in all caps: "NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES."

Deripaska controls RUSAL with a 48 percent majority stake through his holding company, EN+ Group, and the Russian government owns 4.35 percent stake of EN+ Group through its second-largest state owned bank, VTB. VTB was exposed in the Panama papers in 2016for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Vladimir Putin and is under sanctions by the U.S. government.

Deripaska has been closely connected to the Kremlin since he married into Boris Yeltsin's family in 2001, which literally includes him in the Russian clan known as "The Family."According to the Associated Press, starting in 2006, Deripaska made annual payments of $10 million to Paul Manafort through the Bank of Cyprus to advance Putin's global agenda.

Len Blavatnik's co-owner in RUSAL is his long-time business partner, Viktor Vekselberg, another Russian oligarch with close ties to  Putin. Blavatnik and Vekselberg hold their 15.8 percent joint stake in RUSAL in the name of Sual Partners, their offshore company in the Bahamas. Vekselberg also happens to be the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus.

Another oligarch with close ties to Putin, Dmitry Rybolovlev, owns a 3.3 percent stake in the Bank of Cyprus. Rybolovlev is known as "Russia's Fertilizer King" and has been in the spotlight for several months as the purchaser of Trump's 60,000 square-foot mansion in Palm Beach. Rybolovlev bought the estate for $54 million more than Trump paid for the property at the bottom of the crash in the U.S. real estate market.

The convoluted web that links Putin's oligarchs to Trump's political associates and top Republicans is difficult to take in.

Trump and Putin have a common approach to governance. They rely heavily on long-term relationships and family ties. While there have been tensions between Putin and Deripaska over the years, the Kremlin came to Deripaska's rescue in 2009 when he was on the verge of bankruptcy by providing a $4.5 billion emergency loan through state-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB), where Putin is chair of the advisory board.

VEB, known as President Putin's "pet bank," is now in crisis after sanctions applied by Europe and U.S. in 2014 have isolated it from the international banks that were the sources of its nearly $4 billion in hard currency loans that, according to Bloomberg, mature this year and in 2018.

Russia's international currency reserves are near a 10-year low, which has put further pressure on the president of VEB, Sergey Gorkov, to find sources of international rescue capital. Notably, it was Gorkov who met secretly with Jared Kushner in December at Trump Tower. Kushner's failure to report the meeting with Gorkov has drawn the attention of the Senate intelligence committee that now wants to question Kushner about the meeting.

As for the Democrats, Blavatnik personally wrote multiple big dollar checks to crooks like Schumer, freshman New Jersey Blue Dog Josh Gottheimer, Jason Kander, Cory Booker, of course, and direct to the DCCC $64,800, another 61,300 to the DNC and $86,200 to the DSCC. After he had maxed out to Kander, he gave the Missouri Democratic State Committee $10,000 to spend on Kander's failed Senate campaign. Crooked Long Island New Dem Kathleen Rice was another conservative Democrats who got big multiple "contributions" from Blavatnik.