Obama’s Justice Department is investigating both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Donald Trump campaign for possible ties to corrupt funding traceable back to Russian Vladimir Putin’s regime. While Trump’s alleged involvement through his campaign manager has been extensively covered by the media, forcing that campaign manager to resign, far less ink has been spilled over Clinton’s extensive connections.

Skolkovo, a research facility known as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley and partially funded by the Russian government, contributed tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The Obama administration’s plan was to help Russia create its own version of Silicon Valley. Obama claimed he wanted to “reset” U.S. relations with Russia. Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer revealed that Clinton was behind it, asserting that “no cabinet official in the Obama Administration was more intimately and directly involved in the Russian reset than Hillary Clinton.”

Schweizer published a report in June with the details, entitled From Russia With Money. He found that 17 of the 28 American, European and Russian companies that participated in the Skolkovo initiative were Clinton Foundation donors such as Google and Intel, or sponsored speeches for former President Bill Clinton. Some on the Russian side of the Skolkovo initiative also contributed to the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton’s Campaign Manager, John Podesta, Also Did Quite Well With Russian Money

The FBI warned technology companies to avoid the Skolkovo initiative due to concerns that Russian companies backed by Putin’s government wanted to gain access to “classified, sensitive, and emerging technology” from U.S. tech companies. But undeterred by the warning, Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, went ahead and served on the Skolkovo board representing Joule Energy, a solar company based in the Netherlands.

Two months after Podesta joined the foreign firm (which included senior Russian officials), a $35 million transfer came in from Rusnano, an investment firm founded by Putin. One of the investors in Joule was Hans-Jorg Wyss, a major Clinton Foundation donor. Podesta consulted for a foundation run by him.

Podesta, who formerly served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton, failed to disclose his position on the board of this offshore company in federal financial reports, as appears to be clearly required by law, prompting the FBI investigation. Additionally, while serving in that position he headed the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, which wrote favorably about the Russian government, apparently in exchange for money secretly funneled to the organization by Russians, according to Schweizer. The organizations in the trail of money have ties to Russian oil and gas companies, which opposed U.S. efforts to explore fracking and natural gas.

How Many Pay-to-Play Schemes are Connected to the Clinton Foundation and the Putin Government?

Schweizer’s report alludes to numerous apparent quid pro quos like this one. “The other senior State Department official involved in the Skolkovo process was Lorraine Hariton,” he writes, “the State Department’s Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs. (Hariton served on Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Committee during the 2008 campaign.)”

I have previously covered other similar pay-to-play operations involving Clinton’s revolving door between the state department and the Clinton Foundation. Congressional members are now demanding an investigation into a large transfer of money to the Clinton Foundation made by the Russian owner of Uranium One, which was timed when Clinton gave authorization as secretary of state for him to buy the company.

Trump’s Campaign Manager was Demoted and Resigned After His Russian Ties Were Exposed

Trump has also been criticized for hiring a presidential campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has ties to funding from the Russian government, specifically, by way of his connection to a former pro-Russian Ukrainian regime. However, Manafort was only in that position for four months, and resigned Friday from the campaign due to the controversy.

In 2012, Manafort and one of his associates helped the Ukrainian organization European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which included members of then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling party, direct money to Washington firms to lobby Congress for the benefit of Yanukovych. (Yanukovych was eventually forced out due to corruption and fled to Russia.) Like Podesta, Manafort was criticized for failing to notify the Department of Justice as a lobbyist about ties to foreign parties and leaders. Regardless, the FBI has said Manafort is not the target of their investigation.

Podesta Blames the Client

The Podesta Group also represented Centre for a Modern Ukraine. The lobbying firm is now threatening to turn on its own client, issuing this statement,

The firm has retained Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if we were misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties. When the Centre became a client, it certified in writing that “none of the activities of the Centre are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party.” We relied on that certification and advice from counsel in registering and reporting under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act. We will take whatever measures are necessary to address this situation based on Caplin & Drysdale’s review, including possible legal action against the Centre.

It remains to be seen whether Podesta will resign as Clinton’s campaign chair. Unlike Trump, Clinton doesn’t seem to have a problem with her campaign manager’s deals, perhaps because she was heavily involved with the same type of activity herself. Tellingly, Trump replaced Manafort with Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, who made Schweizer’s Clinton Cash into a documentary. It sends a strong message as to how Trump will treat covert funding from Putin’s government. (For more from the author of “The Trump-Russia Link: Notable. The Hillary-Russia Web: Huge.” please click HERE)

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