British Oligarch Scandal Hits McCain

[malaise]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/375662/british_oligarch_scandal_hits_mccain
<snip>
Deripaska also reached out to a Washington-based intelligence firm, Diligence, chaired by GOP foreign policy hand Richard Burt, McCain's top foreign policy adviser in 2000 and an adviser in '08 (Burt left Diligence in 2007 to join Henry Kissinger's consulting firm). Deripaska's business partner in London, Nathaniel Rothschild, an heir to the English Rothschild fortune, bought a stake in Diligence, according to the New York Times and confirmed by a Rothschild spokesman. The firm offered Deripaska many useful services: corporate intelligence gathering, visa lobbying through considerable GOP connections and, crucially, help in obtaining a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for a Deripaska subsidiary, the Komi Aluminum Project. Getting the loan was useful in providing a layer of comfort to Western investors skittish about RusAl. So Diligence, now partly owned by Rothschild, provided a "due diligence" report to the World Bank, which the Bank then used to approve its loan to Deripaska.

Not surprisingly, the lobbying worked: in December 2005 Deripaska was issued a multientry US visa, according to the State Department.

Roughly two years later, in March of this year, Rothschild hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for McCain at London's posh eighteenth-century Spencer House, which Rothschild donated for the occasion. Given the close relationship between Rothschild and Deripaska, some speculated that Deripaska was the hidden hand behind the event. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that the fundraiser amounted to an illegal contribution by foreign nationals to McCain's campaign.

Deripaska's links to Davis & co may very well be more extensive than we reported. The British press has begun to expose the full-breath of Deripaska's influence-peddling. If only these articles had the same impact on our side of the pond.

Oops!

[electionwatcher]

1. The plot thickens.

As a Brit, who is following the US Election with great interest (and hope for an Obama victory), I find this particular development very interesting.

The British angle of the Deripaska/Rothschild story has been reported on heavily here over the past few days. Now, there appears to be an "American Connection". How many more branches to this dubious fundraising scandal will there be?

[malaise]

2. More than a few I bet

Look for that Eastern European link with McBush and his goons.