{"id":39817,"date":"2020-08-26T16:29:28","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T20:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=39817"},"modified":"2020-08-26T16:29:28","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T20:29:28","slug":"this-raises-more-questions-than-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=39817","title":{"rendered":"This Raises More Questions Than Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Real Clear Investigations<\/a> posted the following:<\/p>\n

Jonathan Winer, a former top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry who was a key conduit for disseminating the discredited Steele dossier in the U.S. government, worked as a lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in years preceding the Russiagate affair. This revelation raises new questions about Russian efforts to influence American foreign policy — far afield from any Kremlin efforts to favor Donald Trump.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Winer\u2019s connection to Deripaska came to light through last week\u2019s release of the fifth and final volume<\/a> of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. The Senate report also found that at different times ex-British spy Christopher Steele had worked for the powerful oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin, and sent scores of reports from his intelligence firm on to Winer, who admitted to the panel destroying many of them before leaving the State Department. Further, the Senate developed evidence that Glenn Simpson \u2013 whose company Fusion GPS contracted with Steele for the dossier \u2013 also did work for Deripaska. Simpson denied that, telling senators, \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve knowingly had any contact with his organization.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his initial interview with the Senate committee, Winer claimed never to have met the oligarch. In a second interview Winer revised this answer. He conceded that, beginning in 2003, Deripaska had hired the law firm Alston & Bird, where Winer was a partner. He worked on the Deripaska account but, asserting attorney-client privilege, refused to say what exactly he had done on Deripaska\u2019s behalf. RealClearInvestigations sent questions to Alston & Bird\u2019s spokesman but received no reply.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article notes:<\/p>\n

While at the State Department during President Barack Obama\u2019s second term, Winer disseminated to his colleagues over 100 memos written by Steele\u2019s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. Among them were memos apparently intended to help influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Steele\u2019s Russian client, billionaire Putin loyalist Deripaska.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Senate revelations establish that Winer was a key but little-known figure in Russiagate. He, along with former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr \u2013 whose wife worked for Fusion GPS \u2013 have emerged as prime vehicles for the dissemination of the Steele dossier to the highest reaches of the U.S. government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It gets worse. The article concludes:<\/p>\n

During his first stint, Winer worked with Namsrai representing a Russian nuclear power company called Techsnabexport. Or at least they did their best to make it appear they were primarily working for that company when they were actually working for the Russian government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

APCO\u2019s 2011 Foreign Agents Representation Act filing names Techsnabexport as the \u201cforeign principal\u201d for which it was working. The firm described their client as \u201can open joint stock company wholly owned by the JSC Atomenergoprom.\u201d In the fine print one discovers that that company in turn is \u201cwholly owned by State corporation for Atomic Energy, \u2018Rosatom,\u2019 which is wholly owned by the Russian government.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A \u201cContract for Lobbying Services and Consulting Services\u201d was drawn up by APCO in April 2010, a copy of which was attached as a secondary appendix to the FARA filing. The \u201cScope of Work\u201d includes \u201cCreating and promoting a new image of State Atomic Energy corporation \u2018Rosatom,\u201d supporting \u201cthe interests of Rosatom in the USA,\u201d and overcoming \u201cexisting political and trade barriers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In October 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved Rosatom\u2019s controversial acquisition of Uranium One, a Canadian company with extensive mining projects in the US.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Namsrai did not respond to emails from RealClearInvestigations asking why APCO listed Techsnabexport as its \u201cforeign principal\u201d client and not the official Russian state nuclear power enterprise, Rosatom, and whether Steele performed any work for the company.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Winer\u2019s connections with Russia and the Steele dossier emerge, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson says he wants to hear more from him. But, Johnson said, the committee\u2019s ranking Democratic member, Gary Peters, is trying to derail his efforts to enforce the committee\u2019s subpoena and interview Winer under oath. Peters\u2019 spokesperson did not respond to questions from RealClearInvestigations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAmong other issues, Mr. Winer\u2019s admitted destruction of his records related to his contacts with Christopher Steele is concerning and deserves an explanation,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI am looking forward to learning more from Mr. Winer in spite of Democrat attempts to further delay our investigation.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please follow the link and read the entire article. The fact that someone who obviously did not have America’s best interests at heart was in such a high government position is frightening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Real Clear Investigations posted the following: Jonathan Winer, a former top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry who was a key conduit for disseminating the discredited Steele dossier in the U.S. government, worked as a lobbyist for Russian … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11248,12790,11786,11213,9553,11437,11168],"class_list":["post-39817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-committee-on-foreign-investment-in-the-united-states","tag-jonathan-winer","tag-real-clear-investigations","tag-rosatom","tag-secretary-of-state-john-kerry","tag-steele-dossier","tag-uranium-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39818,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39817\/revisions\/39818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}