
Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s Kremlin Connection - kushti
http://observer.com/2016/04/panama-papers-reveal-clintons-kremlin-connection/
======
saalweachter
Is this really the most interesting thing in the Panama Papers touching the
Clintons?

If I'm reading this right, there's a well-known group of lobbyists/Washington
insiders (the Podestra brothers) with ties to the Clintons and Obama, and the
new revelation is that the lobbying firm is also retained by Russia's biggest
bank? (As opposed to, being retained by the US's biggest bank?)

Does anyone else find that weak-sauce?

~~~
xlm1717
They don't just have ties, John Podesta is Clinton's campaign chairman. And
the Podestas aren't just lobbying for Russia's biggest bank. As the article
states, the majority shareholder in Sberbank is the Russian Central Bank. From
the Wikipedia page on Sberbank of Russia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia#Ownership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia#Ownership)):

"The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Central Bank of the Russian
Federation, owning 50%+1 voting share of Sberbank's voting shares."

Effectively, the Russian Central Bank controls Sberbank, but ostensibly
Sberbank is a private institution. The Podesta Group registered as a lobbyist
for Sberbank, which effectively gives the Russian Central Bank a lobbyist in
Washington. If the Russian Central Bank had registered directly with the
Podesta Group, as the article states the Podesta Group would have to register
as agents of the Russian government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The wikipedia page on the Foreign Agents Registration Act
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act))
states:

"...[requires] that agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a
"political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their relationship with the
foreign government and information about related activities and finances. The
purpose is to facilitate "evaluation by the government and the American people
of the statements and activities of such persons.""

Arguably, the Podesta Group is not facilitating evaluation of statements its
making on behalf of Sberbank, and by extension the Russian Central Bank,
because it registered as a lobbyist for a bank controlled by a state-owned
bank. The Russians suffered heavy sanctions recently. It doesn't stretch the
imagination that the Podesta Group received money from Russia to lobby
Washington to drop those sanctions.

As the article states towards the end, if Clinton wins the election, John
Podesta stands to gain a position of power in a Clinton administration. If
John Podesta benefited from money provided by a foreign government (again,
Sberbank is controlled by the Russian Central Bank), then that's a
relationship the Clinton campaign needs to explain.

~~~
darawk
What is the revelation here though? It seems to me that there are two primary
data points in this article:

    
    
      - Podesta group lobbies for Sberbank
      - Sberbank is owned by the Russian government
    

Neither of these things were revealed by the Panama papers, and neither of
these things were hidden by any of the parties involved. Sberbank is
transparent about its ownership by the Russian government, and the Podesta
Group registered as its agent of its own accord prior to the leak.

If this were going on in the shadows, maybe there'd be something here, and I
grant you that it's slightly unsettling that they have access to such a
powerful lobbying firm. But isn't that sort of the point of running a lobbying
firm? You lobby for who hires you, and the politicians you lobby are aware of
that and take what you have to say with the appropriate grains of salt.

~~~
clort
> Neither of these things were revealed by the Panama papers

are you sure? The article says that

    
    
      Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s
      biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
    

so I wonder if you have a reference to back your statement?

Also, you say

> Sberbank is owned by the Russian government

but this is not the point of the article. They are saying that Sberbank is
_controlled_ by the Russian government, which is subtly different.

~~~
darawk
From the article: "As reported at the end of March, the Podesta Group
registered with the U.S. Government as a lobbyist for Sberbank, as required by
law"

And are those things different? Maybe Russian corporate law is different than
it is in the US, but owning 51% of a company generally gives you control of
that company, unless there are weird share structures like non-voting shares a
la Google. But generally speaking, majority ownership and control are
synonymous.

------
apocalyptic0n3
This is the biggest non-story I've seen from the Panama Papers. There are a
lot of revelations in there, but this has no place in the news at all. A
lobbyist group connected to the Clintons is also connected to a Russian Bank.
They're a lobbyist group. They take money to lobby the government from many
different people. That's their purpose.

Total non-story trying to sound like a huge deal, though.

~~~
kafkaesq
Everyone else here seems to hear the words "big bank", and think Sberbank must
be sort of like Wells Fargo. But the thing is, Sberbank just isn't any old
"bank":

 _Funds moving through Sberbank are regularly used to support clandestine
Russian intelligence operations, while the bank uses its offices abroad as
cover for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR. A NATO
counterintelligence official explained that Sberbank, which has outposts in
almost two dozen foreign countries, “functions as a sort of arm of the SVR
outside Russia, especially because many of its senior employees are ‘former’
Russian intelligence officers.” Inside the country, Sberbank has an equally
cosy relationship with the Federal Security Service or FSB, Russia’s powerful
domestic intelligence agency._

Which make the question of why the Podestas would choose to take their
business a very interesting question indeed.

~~~
x0x0
Just wait until you hear what the cia gets up to. Or the state dept.

I think your surprise all over this thread is due to people not being stunned
that water is wet, politicians need money, and associated hangers-on are
venal.

Hell, look at the ties between Bush and the Saudi theocrats, whose greatest
hits include 9/11 and are currently doing their best to drag us into their
Iran proxy war.

~~~
kafkaesq
I wasn't saying that I was conceptually surprised by the connection. I was
just providing background for those who seemed not to appreciate its
importance.

------
leecarraher
Is this a sentence or just a collection of words:

Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its
public image—leading Moscow financial institutions not exactly being known for
their propriety and wholesomeness—and specifically to help lift some of the
pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s
aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-
hit financial sector.

~~~
kbenson
I ended up reading that sentence four or five times before I finally
interpreted every word and was able to parse it. I kept accidentally skipping
words that changed how it parsed.

~~~
swombat
I found it pretty clear... just ignore the bit in the em dashes:

> Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its
> public image and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions
> placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against
> Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial
> sector.

~~~
kbenson
I kept getting tripped on on some specific word being missing in the aside,
but I can't identify what it was anymore. It's less that it was "just a
collection of words" and more that I'm fairly sensitive to reading grammatical
errors (even if I'm often rushing too much to prevent them in my own
comments), and I kept interpreting one where there wasn't one. That's not
necessarily supporting evidence for the original comment, as even though I did
remember having some problem with that sentence specifically, the fault could
easily have been with me.

------
r721
The author of this piece (John R. Schindler) is a pretty interesting person:

[http://20committee.com/about/](http://20committee.com/about/)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
_" Admit nothing; deny everything; make counter-accusations."_

Man is obviously insane, needs urgent help.

;-)

------
bplatta
Seem to be 2 camps here: 1\. dismiss this as a tenuous connection which stems
mainly from the fact that Lobbying firms have many big clients 2\. grant this
connection deserves some attention and perhaps some explanation

For me, I think the author has some thoughts that are bleeding through . But I
don't think its necessarily fair to judge an article mainly on its author's
history (though an undeniable factor).

While granting this is the nature of a lobby firm, it does seem odd they would
agree to representing Sberbank. We're talking John Podesta (Clinton campaign
chairman) -> Tony Podesta (CEO Podesta Group) -> Sberbank (Podesta Group
client). Is the latter connection really not cause for suspicion?

~~~
saalweachter
The tricky thing is that it _could_ be a cause for _suspicion_ , but you could
also read it other ways.

Before John Podestra was the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, he was the
Counselor to Barack Obama. Before that, he was the founder of the Center for
American Progress (a left-wing think tank). Before that, Bill Clinton's Chief
of Staff. Before that, Deputy Chief of Staff, Assistant to the President, and
a senior advisor.

Which is to say, he has been a big part of the Democratic Party / progressive
movement for _a long time_.

And before that, he co-founded a lobbying group, the Podesta Group, with his
brother Tony Podesta, who still runs the Group.

So, do I think that a giant bank / nefarious Russian secret agency is likely
retaining the Podesta Group because it was founded and still run by the
brother of a powerful and influential member of the Democratic Party, who has
served in several Democratic administrations and is likely to serve in future
ones? Yeah, totally.

And it's probably worth being aware of the potential chain of influence and
corruption -- client to lobbyist, lobbyist to advisor, advisor to politician
-- but I find it far more likely that John Podesta is in Hillary's campaign
(and potentially, future administration) because he's a good, useful guy who
gets the right stuff done, rather than that he's there as some sort of
corruption-conduit, proof (PROOF!) of Hillary Clinton's unworthiness.

------
gefh
This seems like a pretty tenuous 'connection'.

~~~
kafkaesq
Sberbank is very close to the Kremlin. The connection could scarcely be _less_
tenuous.

As the article itself asks, the main question is why one of Clinton's chief
power brokers chose to take their money.

~~~
sickbeard
none of this information was a secret before the Panama leak

------
mig_
The Clintons use Windows, The Russians use Windows.

"Microsoft's Financial Reports Reveal Clinton's Kremlin Connection"

------
Grue3
So the choice is between Putin's favorite Trump and now apparently Clinton as
well? Though Bernie would probably practice appeasement toward Putin too.
Can't you Americans elect a strong leader for once?

~~~
krapp
You want another Bush? We have another Bush.

~~~
Grue3
He dropped out unfortunately. You guys may hate GWB, but he sure kept Putin in
check. I think he used to call him something like "pooty-poo", in person!

~~~
vkou
A collapsed economy kept Putin 'in check'.

Oh, and have you forgotten about the Russian-Georgian conflict over South
Ossetia? [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-
Georgian_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War)

That one was on Dubya's watch - whereby he proceeded to do nothing. It's
pretty clear to everyone that Great Powers will do as they please in 'their'
sphere of influence.

If Canada and Mexico were on the verge of joining a military alliance with
China, there would be Abrams tanks in Ottawa, and F-22s bringing democracy to
Mexico City before the week would be out.

~~~
Grue3
Did Putin annex South Ossetia? He didn't. Georgia returned to status quo. The
reaction of the West was completely different back then.

~~~
vkou
South Ossetia is for all intents and purposes, a vassal state. The distinction
is academic.

Georgia did not return to status quo - it lost territory. (If the NATO/UN
position on this is to be believed)

The reaction of the West was quite different - it largely sat back, and
watched.

------
astaroth360
Woohoo, the Sanders people found some lobbyists that have a connection with a
foreign bank that happen to be connected to the Clinton's. By their logic,
this proves Clinton is a pawn of Vladamir Putin.

This has got to be about the least interesting thing to come out of the Panama
Papers.

------
d33
Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what Americans want - a big scandal around Clinton
that would land Trumpet in charge.

~~~
grej
That is a false choice that the Clinton campaign would love for you to
believe. In actuality, the FBI investigation alone would have derailed any
other candidate, now this... For all the talk about Trump being teflon, it
sure seems Hillary has the some of the same "teflon-ness"

Sanders has won 7 out of the last 8 primaries and yet Clinton, with all her
legal baggage and ethical issues, is still the presumed frontrunner.

~~~
yolesaber
I was talking about this with a friend last night. Think of all the scandals
the Clintons have endured - from Whitewater to Travelgate to Lewinsky to
Benghazi...and yet nothing has impeded them. That either means they are in
fact predominantly innocent (I think we can rule this out, mostly...) or that
they are just such masters of politic and influence that they are able to fend
off any investigations into them. Seriously, Clinton lied about cheating on
his wife on national television and yet people still love him. They are a very
intriguing couple. I eagerly await a Caro-esque look at their role in US
history.

