A True Photo of Mitch McConnell

[Kid Berwyn]

4. The Misadventures of Moscow Mitch

Intel Committee Report Raises Questions About McConnell’s Role to End Sanctions on Company Identified as “Proxy for the Kremlin”

by Berry Craig
Kentucky Democratic Party, August 19, 2020

Frankfort, KY — The latest report from the bipartisan Senate Special Committee on Intelligence, which details Russian interference in the 2016 election, includes information that raises new questions about McConnell’s role in a troubled economic development project in Eastern Kentucky.

The company in question, Rusal, was founded by Oleg Deripaska and is the major investor in an aluminum company, Braidy Industries, which has struggled to start operations in northeast Kentucky for more than three years. Deripaska is identified in the report as a close adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin and involved in Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

But it’s the committee’s declaration for the first time that Rusal is still believed to be directly involved in Russian government actions that directly contradicts McConnell’s explanation about his support for lifting sanctions on Rusal in 2019. This new context brings into question McConnell’s role in sanctions being dropped for Rusal and Rusal’s subsequent investment in Braidy shortly thereafter. Yesterday morning, McConnell “applauded” the committee’s work.

A section of the report titled “Deripaska’s involvement in Other Russian Active Measures” 
identifies Rusal as one of Deripaska’s companies considered to be “proxies for the Kremlin, including for Russian government influence efforts, economic measures and diplomatic relations” (page 153).

Sanctions were first placed on Deripaska in April 2018, but were lifted in January 2019. The Treasury Department lifted the sanctions after a bill to keep sanctions on Deripaska and Rusal fell just three votes short in the Senate. At the time, McConnell called the bill a “political stunt” despite bipartisan support.

SNIP...

In August 2019 Time reported that one of Rusal’s major investors, Len Blavatnik, had donated millions of dollars to McConnell’s Senate Majority Fund PAC and the NRSC.

And in January 2020, after a shake-up in leadership, another McConnell donor, Charles Price, became chairman of Braidy.

Source: https://ky.aflcio.org/news/misadventures-moscow-mitch-intel-committee-report-raises-questions