With the reporting being done "MoscowMitch" is going to have a hard time shaking his new nick name ….. they all up his ass like a Veterinarian doing a turtle colonoscopy ….
How a McConnell-backed effort to lift Russian sanctions boosted a Kentucky project
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) heads toward his office on Capitol Hill
By
Tom Hamburger and
Rosalind S. Helderman
August 14 at 11:10 AM
In January, as the Senate debated whether to permit the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Russia’s largest aluminum producer, two men with millions of dollars riding on the outcome met for dinner at a restaurant in Zurich.
On one side of the table sat the head of sales for Rusal, the Russian aluminum producer that would benefit most immediately from a favorable Senate vote. The U.S. government had sanctioned Rusal as part of a campaign to punish Russia for “malign activity around the globe,” including attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election.
On the other side sat Craig Bouchard, an American entrepreneur who had gained favor with officials in Kentucky, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Bouchard was trying to build the first new aluminum-rolling mill in the United States in nearly four decades, in a corner of northeastern Kentucky ravaged by job losses and the opioid epidemic — a project that stood to benefit enormously if Rusal were able to get involved.
The men did not discuss the Senate debate that night at dinner, Bouchard said in an interview, describing it as an amicable introductory chat.
But the timing of their meeting shows how much a major venture in McConnell’s home state had riding on the Democratic-backed effort in January to keep sanctions in place.
By the next day, McConnell had
successfully blocked the bill, despite the defection of 11 Republicans.
Within weeks, the U.S. government had formally lifted sanctions on Rusal, citing a deal with the company that reduced the ownership interest of its Kremlin-linked founder, Oleg Deripaska. And three months later, Rusal announced plans for an extraordinary partnership with Bouchard’s company, providing $200 million in capital to buy a 40 percent stake in the new aluminum plant in Ashland, Ky. — a project heralded by Gov. Matt Bevin (R) “as significant as any economic deal ever made in the history of Kentucky.”
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), left, and Craig Bouchard of Braidy Industries.
A spokesman for McConnell said the majority leader did not know that Bouchard had hopes of a deal with Rusal at the time McConnell led the Senate effort to end the sanctions, citing the recommendation of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
McConnell “was not aware of any potential Russian investor before the vote,” spokesman David Popp said.
Bouchard said no one from his company, Braidy Industries, told anyone in the U.S. government that lifting sanctions could help advance the project. Rusal’s parent company, EN+, said in a statement that the Kentucky project played no role in the company’s vigorous lobbying campaign to persuade U.S. officials to do away with sanctions.
But critics said the timing is disturbing.
“It is shocking how blatantly transactional this arrangement looks,” said Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration and now teaches at Stanford University.
Democratic senators have called for a government review of the deal, prompting a Rusal executive in Moscow last week to threaten to pull out of the investment.
[McConnell defends blocking election security bill, rejects criticism he is aiding Russia]
The Rusal-backed project is one of several issues fueling broader scrutiny of McConnell’s posture toward Russia and its efforts to manipulate American voters.
In 2016, McConnell privately
expressed skepticism about the intelligence reports on Russia’s activities in the election and
resisted a push by the Obama administration to issue a bipartisan statement condemning the Kremlin. Last month, he blocked consideration of election security bills that have bipartisan support, despite warnings from the FBI and the intelligence community about the risks of foreign interference in the 2020 election.
Democrats have accused McConnell of being unwilling to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, taunting him with the moniker “Moscow Mitch.” The critique has drawn an angry response from the usually understated majority leader.
“I was called unpatriotic, ‘un-American’ and essentially treasonous by a couple of left-wing pundits on the basis of boldfaced lies,” McConnell said late last month. “I was accused of ‘aiding and abetting’ the very man I’ve singled out as our adversary and opposed for nearly 20 years: Vladimir Putin.”
A McConnell aide declined Tuesday to discuss discussions that occurred in a classified setting in 2016, but noted that the senator signed a
bipartisan letter that fall requested by the Obama administration that warned state election officials about the risks of cyberattacks and urged them to be especially vigilant as Election Day approached.
McConnell has said since then that he supports efforts to improve election security and has budgeted more money for the effort, but does not agree with proposals that would give federal control over election issues that traditionally have been handled by states.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Oleg Deripaska of Rusal attend the APEC CEO Summit in Beijing in 2014
The controversy shows how Russia’s surreptitious 2016 activities, rather than unite U.S. officials, have left Democrats and Republicans bitterly divided — and have triggered heated debate about Russian investments in American businesses.
“You just can’t be so picky,” said Bouchard, who sold a Midwestern steel company he previously owned to another Russian firm. He now says politics shouldn’t get in the way of a good deal for Kentucky: “Whoever is going to help us go in and rebuild this place that’s been decimated, we just welcome it, with open arms.”
But in Kentucky, some leaders are questioning the wisdom of partnering with a Russian company recently punished by the U.S. government.
“Rusal is not okay,” said Kelly Flood, a Democratic state legislator from Lexington whosaid she regrets a 2017 vote to invest $15 million of state taxpayer money in the project. “It’s not okay that we’re turning to Deripaska, given the damage he’s done to our democracy. . . . Rusal’s reputation is now ours.”
A lawyer for Deripaska did not respond to a request for comment. He has denied being beholden to the Kremlin.
“While I realize I’ve involuntarily become a lightning rod for the anger some Americans have about the elections result, they need to look elsewhere for a scapegoat,” Deripaska
told The Washington Post in February. “I am nobody’s man, in Russia, the U.S. or anywhere else, for that matter.”
A promise for Appalachia
A sign declares the future home of Braidy Industries’ aluminum mill in Ashland, Ky. in 2018.
In Ashland, a city of 22,000 wedged along Kentucky’s border with West Virginia and Ohio, there has been enthusiasm for the Braidy Industries project, a venture the company says will bring as many as 650 new high-paying jobs to a region hit hard by the impending closure of a major steel mill and the decline of coal mining.
Bouchard said the idea for the mill was his brainstorm: a new environmentally friendly, low-cost, nonunion facility that will roll sheets of lightweight aluminum that are increasingly in demand to build cars and airplanes.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b26e00-b97c-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html
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