Russian President Vladimir Putin hired high priced former Republican House Congressional aides as lobbyists through the subsidiary of the massive state-run gas company, which he owns a considerable interest.

A lobbying disclosure reveals that Gazprom is 38% owned by the Russian state, but fails to mention that Putin is a 4.5% direct shareholder in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline who hired Capitol Consultants, LLC.

Shortly after Putin’s lobbyists were hired, the White House made a public push to water down Congressional sanctions.

The Democratic Coalition’s co-founder Scott Dworkin made the lobbying connection to the Kremlin.

“Once again Putin is spending money in America,” says Dworkin, “just to interfere with our government.”

He cites a report The Bureau of Investigative Journalism entitled “Putin: The richest man on earth?” The independent, non-partisan news outlet wrote:

Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin, is one of the most outspoken. He claims Putin could be worth as much as $70bn, a figure that would make him the richest man in the world. This extraordinary sum is based on claims that Putin owns shares in three major oil and gas companies: 4.5% of national gas giant Gazprom, 37% of oil supplier Surgutneftegas and a major shareholder of a company that cannot be named for legal reasons. That company strenuously denies any links to Putin.

Russia’s MICEX stock exchange fell over 4% the day that the Senate voted on the new sanctions in June.

But the bill was held up in the House for six more weeks until finally being presented by Congressional Republicans to President Trump, and becoming the only major legislation he signed in his first six months in office.

Legistorm published the scoop:

The lobbying firm assigned Bob Brooks, former chief of staff to ex-Reps. James McCrery (R-La.) and Jay Dickey (R-Ark.), and Warren Tryon, a former House Financial Services Committee staffer, to the contract.

The new Russia sanctions could derail Gazprom’s pipeline projects, though they tell Reuters that they are accelerating work even though they don’t know where the pipes will land.

The President has bellowed about an “America First” trade policy, but now that it involves Vladimir Putin’s gas lines, it appears that he’s choosing sides with Russia. Reuters reports:

Despite Trump’s desire to promote U.S. liquefied natural gas exports to Europe that would compete with the Russian gas, he said he did not want the sanctions to get in the way of efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia has been known to use Gazprom as an instrument of state power for many years.

A member of the Ukrainian Parliament called Nord Stream 2 a “pipeline of deception” in Forbes, because its approval goes against the EU’s stated goals of being energy independent from Russia.

It’s not surprising that Putin would wish to lobby against sanctions, but at what point to Americans say enough to taking foreign cash to work against this country’s interests?

American sanctions against Russia’s state-run and Putin owned energy businesses are having their intended effect, yet sadly, Republicans are still taking big money to defend policies friendly to a ruthless dictator who hacked our elections.