A little more on the Manafort lobbying problem

[November 1, 2017]

A New York publicist who has represented clients including former Trump Organization adviser Felix Sater and Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov says he was asked by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates if he could avoid registering with the Justice Department as a foreign agent while he worked for them — and whether he would agree to be paid from offshore accounts.

  Business Insider

So, it definitely wasn't an oversight or sloppiness that caused Manafort to not file as a lobbyist for Ukrainian interests.

Torossian said that he met and/or spoke with Manafort and Gates "on multiple occasions in February and March 2012" to discuss a prospective PR campaign "for billionaires and the Ukrainian government."

It was around that time that Manafort and Gates "solicited two Washington, DC, firms (Company A and Company B) to lobby in the United States on behalf of" the Ukrainian government, according to the newly unsealed indictment. NBC News reported on Monday that Company A and B was Mercury Public Affairs and The Podesta Group, respectively.

"They acted like they controlled the government of Ukraine," said Torossian, who did crisis work for the Eric Trump Foundation as recently as last month.

[...]

The work would have been fairly standard for Torossian, who has worked for the current mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, and Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.

But things went south, Torossian said, when Gates and Manafort asked him whether he could avoid registering with the Justice Department as a foreign agent in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

"We discussed how to get around filing FARA and I was uncomfortable at that point," recalled Torossian, who has advocated more uniform foreign-lobbying disclosure requirements.

I can see how that might make him nervous. What would be the purpose of intentionally avoiding registration with the USG? Money laundering mascarading as or simply tied to lobbying, or merely tax evasion?

But the desire to flout FARA wasn't the only thing that irked Torossian about their meetings. "They also asked if I had a problem being paid from offshore accounts," he added. "They said they made way more money offshore than in the US."

But what about the Podesta Group?

Paragraph 22 [of the original Gates & Manafort indictment] outlined how Mercury Public Affairs and The Podesta Group "lobbied multiple members of Congress and their staffs about Ukraine sanctions, the validity of Ukraine elections, and the propriety of Yanukovych's imprisoning his presidential rival, Yulia Tymoshenko."

Paragraph 23 alleged that both firms "were paid for their services...solely through off-shore accounts associated with the Manafort-Gates entities, namely Bletilla Ventures Limited (in Cyprus) and Jeunet Ltd. and Global Endeavour Inc. (in Grenadines)." The firms were paid "over $2 million" from the offshore accounts, according to the indictment.

There are also indications that the companies knew they were effectively working for the Ukrainian government but only registered as foreign agents retroactively. According to the indictment, Gates told Mercury in February 2012 that the firm would be "representing the Government of Ukraine in [Washington] DC."

I guess they weren't so picky about how they got their money.

That's Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. John was originally a co-founder but left the group in 1993. Tony took a powder October 30, 2017, after Mueller got interested in the group, and the same day Manafort and Gates were first indicted. Will there be anybody left standing when this shit show is over?