How Russia was lobbying in the United States
The Kremlin and Russian state-owned companies have used lobbyists to try to ease US sanctions on Russia and also have a good press. What an insight into The Intercept has unveiled
Prior to its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin poured heavy sums of money into lobbying in the United States. The Kremlin itself, state-owned companies and other companies linked to Russian leadership have often used lobbyists to soften the fallout from Russia's foreign misadventures.
Russia's lobbying approach began in August 2008, when it sought to pacify US responses to Russian aggression following the country's invasion of Georgia. Washington blamed the five-day war on Russia. For this very reason, Moscow was forced to increase its spending on its lobbyists. From just over $ 5 million in 2007, before the invasion, Russia spent more than $ 9 million in 2009.
According to The Intercept Ketchum, a public relations firm, has worked to flip the narrative and blame Georgia for the conflict. Ketchum facilitated New York Times interviews with Russian military officials, distributed war briefings to the Washington Post, and arranged a CNN interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Ketchum also helped convey information for an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on August 20, 2008, which stated that Russia "remains committed to a peaceful resolution in the Caucasus." In early 2009, the Russian government took over another company, Alston & Bird, amid a multimillion-dollar increase in lobbying spending by Russian interests.
This Russian rehabilitation campaign has largely worked, and the Kremlin has successfully weathered the storm caused by its invasion of Georgia. The Bush administration did little to punish Putin's aggression in 2008.
Russia will have to face Washington's aftermath again after annexing the Crimean peninsula in 2014. With President Barack Obama joining in the criticism, Washington has been less lenient than in the past. Although Obama ruled out any military conflict with Russia, the United States canceled military consultations with Russia, sanctioned several Russian companies, and expanded security assistance to Ukraine.
In response to its newfound pariah status in Washington, the Russian government has halted its public relations campaign. The Kremlin has severed its ties with Ketchum. "We decided not to renew the contract due to anti-Russian hysteria," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time.
Even though the Russian government decided not to put pressure on Washington directly, Kremlin-related businesses and government interests facing punitive measures would have started spending millions to gain influence.
The 2014 Russian Aggression Prevention Act, a bill that offered a range of sanctions for the invasion of Crimea, including the seizure of assets of major Russian companies, specifically named Gazprombank, a bank founded by the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom . The bank hired lobbyist Patton Boggs and paid the company $ 1.5 million between 2014 and 2017 on issues related to banking laws and regulations, including penalties applicable under public records.
The Novatek company, whose ownership includes Putin's allies such as Gennady Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson, was also listed in the sanctions law. In response, the company paid public relations firm Qorvis Communications $ 740,000 between 2014 and 2015 to protect its interests. Between Qorvis and Squire Patton Boggs, several senior former government officials worked to advocate the interests of Kremlin-related companies: two former Republican United States senators, Trent Lott of Mississippi and John Breaux of Louisiana, as well as a former interim general counsel of the Department of the Treasury.
The lobbyists of these Russian companies have not always been so successful. Qorvis worked to overturn a White House executive order that authorized the seizure of assets of some Russian oligarchs in the United States, but the sanctions remained in place, costing Timchenko and Mikhelson about $ 16.5 billion combined.
After the invasion of Crimea, the Russian Direct Investment Fund was also plumbed by the United States. The Russian sovereign wealth fund has hired two lobbying firms, signing contracts with Capitol Counsel and Goldin Solutions worth $ 45,000 and $ 30,000 a month to lobby the Treasury Department. Capitol Counsel presented a letter to David Cohen, an undersecretary of the Treasury Department who worked to implement the sanctions, explaining the Fund's affairs with US entities. The Treasury Department eventually issued sanctions to the Fund, but not for more than a year after the invasion of Crimea and long after both Capitol Counsel and Goldin Solutions stopped working for the fund.
From 2016 to 2021, while Russia's illicit influence operation was making headlines, the Russian legal influence operation was silently humming. While the fallout from the 2014 invasion of Ukraine persisted, more than a dozen former congressmen, congressional staff and high-ranking sanctions officials lobbied on behalf of Kremlin-linked banks, Russian oligarchs and the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This included former Senator David Vitter, R-La., and former Representative, Toby Moffett, D-Conn., who both represented the now-sanctioned Russian bank Sovcombank in a contract by $ 90,000 a month signed with Mercury Public Affairs shortly before the recent invasion.
While most Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Putin's Russia, this group of former government officials helped ensure that their clients largely dodged the brunt of US retaliation for Putin's meddling in America and somewhere else.
It is possible that Russia's influence operation will take place again.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/russia-lobbying-stati-uniti/ on Sun, 15 May 2022 06:14:16 +0000.