Russian lobbying that touched Trump tied to Moscow figures

The Russian lobbying effort that pierced President Donald Trump’s inner circle and touched Democratic and Republican lawmakers was directly connected to three Moscow businessmen, according to lobbying registration records and interviews.

The lobbying campaign was led by Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin and his lobbying partner Robert Arakelian, but also involved a former Democratic congressman and a former Export-Import Bank official, lobbying disclosure forms show.

Akhmetshin and Arakelian filed a series of lobbying disclosure reports in 2016 and 2017 detailing their work for a group called The Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation. They reported lobbying on adoption issues related to the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law reviled by Vladimir Putin that sanctioned Russia for human rights abuses in the death of a Russian whistleblower named Sergei Magnitsky.

The reports indicated at least $50,000 was spent on the group’s lobbying effort and that three Russian businessmen — Denis Katsyv, Mikhail Ponomarev and Albert Nasibulin of Moscow — had a direct interest in the outcome of the lobbying results.

“Mikhail Ponomarev, Albert Nasibulin and Denis Katsyv support policies that would reinstate the ability for U.S. citizens to adopt Russian children,” several of the lobbying reports state in a section requesting the disclosure of foreign entities that were interested or directed the lobbying campaign.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/342097-russian-lobbying-that-touched-trump-tied-to-moscow-figures