The media is buzzing about Donald Trump’s recently diminished campaign chair, Paul Manafort, following a series of revelations about his shady dealings as a consultant for Ukrainian oligarchs and other allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Associated Press just reported that Manafort may have violated the law by failing to disclose a lobbying arrangement with a non-profit supportive of former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, a Putin ally who was ousted by popular uprising in 2014. Federal law requires lobbying firms to publicly declare when they are representing a foreign entity.
The media, however, has devoted far less attention to the other lobbying firm that joined Manafort in this shady deal—the Podesta Group. The firm is a lobbying powerhouse in Washington, D.C., run by Democratic fundraiser Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. The group was paid $1.13 million between 2012 and 2014 to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of the non-profit.
The AP report suggests that Podesta Group employees had considered the arrangement unlawful:
In separate interviews, three current and former Podesta employees said disagreements broke out within the firm over the arrangement, which at least one former employee considered obviously illegal. Podesta, who said the project was vetted by his firm’s counsel, said he was unaware of any such disagreements.
Tony Podesta has raised nearly $300,000 for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. He has made millions working for a variety of sketchy clients, including the major Russian financial institution Sberbank, which was implicated in the web of offshore financial dealing exposed by the so-called Panama Papers. Tony and his ex-wife, Heather Podesta, both attended the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where they celebrated Hillary Clinton’s warm embrace of the lobbying industry.
Hillary Clinton is even more directly tied to shady Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who is one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $10 million and $25 million. Pinchuk’s business dealings include shipping oil pipelines to the Iranian government while Hillary was serving as secretary of state.
Donald Trump also reportedly has ties to Pinchuk. While addressing a conference in Kiev (by video), Trump described the Ukrainian billionaire as “a very, very special man, a special entrepreneur.”