Here’s The Story Behind Trump’s Podesta-Russia Tweet
by Tyler Durden
President Trump took to Twitter this morning to remind Americans that the “It was Russia” stone-throwers on the left may have been living in Russia-funded glass-houses after all…
Watch @foxandfriends now on Podesta and Russia!
Since anything connected to Russia is now considered treasonous, I’ve got a great story for you to sniff out.
It relates to John Podesta, but somehow I doubt you’ll be interested in this one… [Not]
The Daily Caller reports:
John Podesta, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 national campaign chairman, may have violated federal law by failing to disclose the receipt of 75,000 shares of stock from a Kremlin-financed company when he joined the Obama White House in 2014, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.
Joule Unlimited Technologies — financed in part by a Russian firm — originally awarded Podesta 100,000 shares of stock options when in 2010 he joined that board along with its Dutch-based entities: Joule Global Holdings, BV and the Stichting Joule Global Foundation.
When Podesta announced his departure from the Joule board in January 2014 to become President Obama’s special counsellor, the company officially issued him 75,000 common shares of stock.
The Schedule B section of the federal government’s form 278 which — requires financial disclosures for government officials — required Podesta to “report any purchase, sale or exchange by you, your spouse, or dependent children…of any property, stocks, bonds, commodity futures and other securities when the amount of the transaction exceeded $1,000.”
The same year Podesta joined Joule, the company agreed to accept 1-Billion-Rubles — or $35 million — from Rusnano, a state-run and financed Russian company with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.
Anatoly Chubais, the company CEO and two other top Russian banking executives worked together with Podesta on the Joule boards. The board met six times a year.
Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director said because of the Kremlin backing, it was essential Podesta disclose the financial benefits he received from the company.
“I think in this case where you’re talking about foreign interests and foreign involvement, the collateral interest with these disclosure forms is put in the forefront of full disclosure of any foreign interest that you may have,” he told TheDCNF in an interview.
The existence of the 75,000 shares of Joule stock was first revealed by the Government Accountability Institute report issued last year.
But Podesta didn’t pocket all the shares. Correspondence from Podesta to Joule instructed the firm to transfer only 33,693 shares to Leonidio Holdings, a brand-new entity he incorporated only on December 20, 2013, about ten days before he entered the White House.
Leonidio is registered in Delaware as a limited liability corporation. Podesta listed the address of his daughter, Megan Rouse, in the incorporation papers. His mother and father also appear to be co-owners of Leonidio.
TheDCNF made multiple inquiries to OGE and received no reply. TheDCNF inquiries to Mr. Podesta were not returned.
That’s not the end of the story though, as John Podesta’s brother, Tony [pictured left], confirmed Russia’s largest bank had hired the Podesta Group to lobby for an end to sanctions…
Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.
“The New York office of Sberbank CIB indeed hired Podesta Group. Engagement of external consultants is part of standard business practices for us,” Sberbank said.
Previously the Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector. In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
…
Regular readers will recall that the Sberbank-Podesta relationship goes back many years. Sberbank was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One, owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of the Clinton Foundation.
Consider if any or all of the above had taken place among any of the Trump administration – what would have occurred? How villified would the offender have been? As Mike Krieger concludes, personally, I doubt any of the above is a huge deal, and I certainly don’t think Podesta is working for Vladimir Putin under the table. However, just imagine the hysteria if the above narrative could’ve been connected to anyone in Trump’s orbit. It would’ve been plastered on the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times with headlines like, “More Financial Ties Emerge Between Those in Trump’s Orbit and Putin.”
Naturally, you won’t see this story hyped because it doesn’t fit the corporate media narrative, and the narrative is all they care about.
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TLB Source is from ZeroHedge and Tyler Durden. TLB recommends a visit to Zero Hedge for more pertinent articles.
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