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This is the biggest non-story I've seen from the Panama Papers. There are a lot of revelations in there, but this has no place in the news at all. A lobbyist gr
by apocalyptic0n3 11y ago
This is the biggest non-story I've seen from the Panama Papers. There are a lot of revelations in there, but this has no place in the news at all. A lobbyist group connected to the Clintons is also connected to a Russian Bank. They're a lobbyist group. They take money to lobby the government from many different people. That's their purpose.
Total non-story trying to sound like a huge deal, though.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoThe people, whom represent a Russian bank, deliver money to Clintons. It's apparently not uncommon for banks or their representatives to deliver money to Clintons, but saying it's a non-huge, non-story sounds like what you would expect from apologist propaganda.
- leroy_masochist 11y agoHow about if we put it in layman's terms: the man who is likely going to be President Hillary Clinton's chief of staff is being paid by the Russian government to lobby on behalf of the (nominally private) bank used most of the Russian intelligence services' operations abroad. That doesn't bother you?
- salgernon 11y agoWell, maybe he won't be now? I don't see this as a reflection on Clinton at all.
- stonemetal 11y agoBy itself it isn't that big a deal but considering the .5 million she was paid to give speeches to Russian investment firms, or the 2.35 million she received from a Uranium mining company that she helped sell to Russia. It is starting to be a pattern of behavior.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoOf what? Being involved with Russia? Is that bad?
- kafkaesq 11y agoEveryone else here seems to hear the words "big bank", and think Sberbank must be sort of like Wells Fargo. But the thing is, Sberbank just isn't any old "bank": Funds moving through Sberbank are regularly used to support clandestine Russian intelligence operations, while the bank uses its offices abroad as cover for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR. A NATO counterintelligence official explained that Sberbank, which has outposts in almost two dozen foreign countries, “functions as a sort of arm of the SVR outside Russia, especially because many of its senior employees are ‘former’ Russian intelligence officers.” Inside the country, Sberbank has an equally cosy relationship with the Federal Security Service or FSB, Russia’s powerful domestic intelligence agency. Which make the question of why the Podestas would choose to take their business a very interesting question indeed.
- xemdetia 11y agoIt seems incredulous to me to suppose that lobbyists would reject it on that basis. US banking is a powerful force in the world of international banking, it seems naturally prudent to retain lobbyists to make sure you aren't shut out of the world economy. I'm sure there are some very large banks in the US that have lobbyist equivalents in other countries that would look at our banks the same way. I'm sure major US banking institutions provide cover for US officers abroad as well.
- x0x0 11y agoJust wait until you hear what the cia gets up to. Or the state dept. I think your surprise all over this thread is due to people not being stunned that water is wet, politicians need money, and associated hangers-on are venal. Hell, look at the ties between Bush and the Saudi theocrats, whose greatest hits include 9/11 and are currently doing their best to drag us into their Iran proxy war.
- kafkaesq 11y agoI wasn't saying that I was conceptually surprised by the connection. I was just providing background for those who seemed not to appreciate its importance.