Russia Gave to Citgo, Then Citgo Gave to Trump
Dr. Vanessa Newman at the Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/27/russia-gave-to-citgo-and-citgo-gave-to-trump
"SNIP.............
The oil companys half-million donation to Donald Trumps Inaugural Committee wasnt illegal. But it certainly wasnt moral. And the cash may have come from the Kremlin, at least indirectly.
Recently released Federal Election Commission filings show that Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (known as PDVSA) gave Trump more money than Shell or Walmart. The donation is unusual for PDVSA: Citgo had not donated to previous presidential inaugural committees.
Citgos donation to the Trump Inaugural Committee and the horrifying images emerging from Venezuelas weeks of brutally repressed protests (26 killed, 437 injured, and 1,289 arrestedaccording to Venezuelas attorney general; Venezuelan prisoner rights NGO Foro Penal says 1,536 have been detained as of April 25) are connected: Russian money and influence is behind both of them. Some of those detained are tortured in Venezuelas equivalent of CIA headquarters, known as The Tomb, for its subterranean torture chambers. The Inaugural Committee donation came days after Citgo (a Delaware-incorporated company with operational headquarters in Houston) mortgaged 49.9 percent of its holdings to Rosneft, an oil company controlled by the Kremlin. That enabled Citgos parent company PDVSA to make its bond payments. Rosneft is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department. So is its CEO, Igor Sechin, Russias Darth Vader. One of the most feared men in Russia, Sechin is close to Vladimir Putin and is one of Putins key instruments of geopolitical power. Net net: If Venezuela defaults on its bond payments, Rosneft (i.e., Putin & Co.) could own several refineries, nine pipelines, and distribution terminals all across the Eastern U.S., from Texas to Maine, without any government oversight. If the Russians end up owning Citgo, they will be using American consumers to fund their autocracy and Assads brutality in Syria.
We are extremely concerned that Rosnefts control of a major U.S. energy supplier could pose a grave threat to American energy security, impact the flow and price of gasoline for American consumers, and expose critical U.S. infrastructure to national security threats, a bipartisan group of six senators wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier this month.
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