The Trump Administration announced Sunday that it had ended sanctions on three companies controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, then the very next day a Trump insider was appointed to Deripaska’s board.
Sanctions on Russian energy giant EuroSibEnergo, aluminum producer UC Rusal, and Rusal’s parent company, En+ Group, were lifted after just 10 months, despite strong objections from members of both parties in Congress.
Deripaska is one of Russia’s wealthiest men, and is a client of Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort
He amassed his fortune under Putin and has bought assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin’s interests.
A majority of House Republicans voted with Democrats to maintain the sanctions against Deripaska’s three companies.
But by then the measure had already failed in the GOP-controlled Senate.
After the sanctions were officially lifted, En+ announced the addition of seven new directors to its board.
According to bios released by En+, Christopher Bancroft Burnham, is chairman and CEO of Cambridge Global Capital LLC, a private investment advisory firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, DC.
“Mr. Burnham is a globally recognised expert in the implementation of accountability and transparency, and the implementation of best practice in government, corporations, and inter-governmental organisations, having served as Under Secretary General for Management of the United Nations [where he worked alongside Trump’s current national security adviser John Bolton] and Under Secretary of State for Management (acting),” the En+ release says. “Mr. Burnham is a former Vice Chairman at Deutsche Bank Asset Management and co-founded and led Deutsche Bank’s direct private equity group, RREEF Capital Partners. Mr. Burnham is also a former Assistant Secretary of State for Resource Management and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of State.”
The En+ release makes no mention of one other notable position Burnham also held: member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team.
Former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, described the Trump administration’s decision as a “huge gift to Putin”.
“Lifting of these sanctions was a big win for Putin and Deripaska. And what did we – the American people – get in return? Nothing,” he wrote on Twitter.
Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, tweeted that the move is a “sordid deal,” adding “the Trump Administration is working seven days a week with favoritism for Russia.”
“This represents just one more step in undermining the sanctions law, which President Trump has obstructed at every opportunity, while Russian aggression remains unabated,” Doggett said.
When the sanctions were imposed in April, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Deripask admits that “he does not separate himself from the Russian state.”
Deripaska has “acknowledged possessing a Russian diplomatic passport, and claims to have represented the Russian government in other countries,” the OFAC release continued.
“Deripaska has been investigated for money laundering, and has been accused of threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering.
There are also allegations that Deripaska bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group.”