A recent history of Russia’s efforts to buy influence in US politics

Two prominent US politicians-turned-lobbyists, Trent Lott and John Breaux, are the latest weapon in Russia’s simmering conflict with the West. Lott and Breaux were hired by Gazprombank, a financial institution controlled by Russia’s state oil company, to lobby against economic sanctions leveled on the firm by the US. (The sanctions are meant to deter Russian buccaneering in Ukraine.)

Representing Russia’s complex relationship with the US is no easy task, but the two former lawmakers will be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to employ their good names, if past experience is any indicator. Nor is success guaranteed, as the following perusal of recent Russian efforts to sway US policy shows:

TASK: Obtain a visa for a dubious oligarch to buy a US auto company.

Oleg Deripaska is one of the richest men in Russia, an oligarch who assembled his fortune during Russia’s post-USSR “aluminum wars,” an often violent battle for the state’s industrial resources. In 2006, he was reportedly considering a bid for American auto-maker Chrysler, but his visa to visit the United States was revoked, reportedly due to his connections to organized crime. These were highlighted at the time by a lawsuit brought by a former business associate, Michael Cherney, for allegedly stealing his share of business in a deal reportedly related to extortion pay-offs.

“Cherney is a thug, they’re (Cherney and Deripaska) both thugs, you don’t end up running the Russian aluminum business without being a thug,” Stewart Lawson, a former HSBC executive in Russia, told US diplomats in a 2010 conversation reported in leaked diplomatic cables. Diplomats also noted that “Deripaska enjoys a favorable relationship with President Putin—he is a more or less permanent fixture on Putin’s trips abroad, and he is widely acknowledged by our contacts to be among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis.”

So, in 2009 and 2010, Russia hired the Endeavour Group and its founder, Adam Waldman, to get the visa and smooth over the deal. Deripaska paid the firm a $40,000 monthly retainer, and Russia’s foreign minister wrote a letter to Waldman encouraging his efforts. Ultimately, however, no visa was procured, though special arrangements allowed Deripaska to visit the US twice in 2009, where he met with FBI investigators about a criminal probe and with executives at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and General Motors.

TASK: Help Russia make a good impression on the international stage.

Russia hired  public relations firm Ketchum Inc. to provide “communications support” when it hosted the G8 summit for the first time in 2006, paying $2 million upfront. Apparently, all went well: The summit was overshadowed by the outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanon, and the biggest controversy was a hot mic moment where then-US president George W. Bush complained about Syria’s inability to convince Hezbollah to “stop doing this shit.” Ketchum was hired back again in 2007, given $845,000 to help smooth Russia’s path into the World Trade Organization, which went off without a hitch.

TASK: Keep tabs on US lawmakers.

The venerable law firm Alston & Bird has been on a $15,000 to $35,000 monthly retainer from Russia since 2009, when Ketchum hired it to monitor developments in the American capital that might affect US-Russia relations. While the actual activities of the firm on Russia’s behalf remain unclear, its lobbying practice boasts former senator Bob Dole and congressman Earl Pomeroy as advisors capable of conveying messages to their erstwhile colleagues in public employ. Hopefully, these experts have at least updated Putin’s views on how things work in Washington; in 2005, he apparently thought that the US president shared his autocratic power when it came to rigging elections and silencing journalists.

TASK: Slip propaganda into US publications.

Ketchum again! The company spends a good deal of time placing favorable op-eds in US publications, perhaps gaining the most attention last year when the New York Times ran a column by Vladimir Putin trolling Americans interested in intervening in Syria’s civil war. While re-reading Putin’s jottings after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a laugh—”under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council”—far more troubling are the company’s efforts to place op-eds without disclosing its status as a paid representative of Russia. Last year, ProPublica documented how Ketchum’s $23 million relationship with Russia resulted in CNBC and the Huffington Post publishing favorable pieces by outside contributors without mentioning how they got published. All this effort doesn’t appear to be working: A record number of Americans are suspicious of Russia.

A recent history of Russia’s efforts to buy influence in US politics