European politicians got millions to lobby for pro-Russian Yanukovych government

2018/2/24 23:59:35

A new indictment has accused former Trump aide Paul Manafort of paying some €2 million to European politicians to support a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. The lobbying group was led by a "former European chancellor."

 

Photo: Former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer


 

From Deutsche Welle, Feb 24, 2018

 

US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort paid a group of unnamed European politicians €2 million ($2.5 million) to lobby for a pro-Russian government in Ukraine, according to an indictment filed by US special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday.

 

The superseding indictment accused Manafort of wiring the money to the politicians — collectively called the "Habsburg group" — in 2012 and 2013 to give "independent assessments" favorable of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's government.

The group was meant to "act informally and without any visible relationship" to the Ukrainian government, a memorandum written by Manafort in June 2012 read.

 

Former chancellor behind the Habsburg group

 

An unnamed "former European chancellor" referred to as "Foreign Politician A" allegedly managed the lobbying group, according to the indictment. Manafort and the Habsburg group lobbied US lawmakers and senior government officials in or around 2013 in a strategy titled "SUPER VIP."

 

The House of Habsburg was an aristocratic family that occupied the throne of the primarily German-speaking Holy Roman Empire for hundreds of years. Chancellors head the governments of Germany and Austria; the post also exists in Switzerland, where the chancellor heads an office that supports the Federal Council, which serves as the head of government.

 

Although Mueller's indictment does not name any of the European politicians, the AP news agency previously reported that Manafort had worked with Mercury LLC, a US-based lobbying firm that had employed former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer.

 

Gusenbauer and Mercury lobbyists met with three members of the US Congress in 2013, according to a disclosure form filed by Mercury in 2017. The meetings were part of Mercury's outreach work on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a think tank that Mueller has described as a "mouthpiece" of the Yanukovych government.

 

The ex-chancellor is now a member of the "Dialogue of Civilizations" think tank in Berlin. Vladimir Yakunin, one of the organization's founders, was placed on a US sanctions list in 2014 in response to Russian intervention in Ukraine. The US said Yakunin, who at the time was president of state-owned Russian Railways, was "a close confidant" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

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