{"id":84085,"date":"2022-01-08T16:33:19","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T13:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/?p=84085"},"modified":"2022-01-11T13:12:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T10:12:36","slug":"powerful-us-lobbyist-aids-businesses-linked-to-sanctioned-bulgarian-lawmaker-has-joint-company-with-notorious-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/powerful-us-lobbyist-aids-businesses-linked-to-sanctioned-bulgarian-lawmaker-has-joint-company-with-notorious-attorney.html","title":{"rendered":"Powerful US Lobbyist Aids Businesses Linked to Sanctioned Bulgarian Lawmaker, Has Joint Company with Notorious Attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States (US) Democratic Party lobbyist\u00a0Anthony Podesta\u00a0<\/a>has signed lobbying deals worth more than USD 2 million with Bulgarian companies whose owners are linked to controversial Bulgarian lawmaker, former media mogul and oligarch\u00a0Delyan Peevski, who is\u00a0sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0under the global Magnitsky Act for his extensive role in corruption in Bulgaria.\u00a0One of the contracts has\u00a0not been declared\u00a0in accordance with the requirements of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), an investigation of BIRD.bg found.\u00a0Another has been declared before the Senate, but not under the FARA.\u00a0According to operative information from BIRD sources, there have been meetings of Podesta with Peevski in Dubai.\u00a0In Sofia, he has started a business with \u201cPeevski\u2019s Trojan horse\u201d, attorney\u00a0Momchil Mondeshki.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anthony (Tony) Podesta<\/strong> is a well-known power-broker, lawyer, a donor to the Democratic Party and has warm ties to the Biden administration.\u00a0He has lobbied for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych<\/strong> in the past and has also failed to declare this fact, the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0reports.\u00a0His clients include Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak<\/strong>, the Burmese junta and Saudi officials.\u00a0His younger brother,\u00a0John Podesta<\/a>, is also a prominent figure in the Democratic Party who served as White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton<\/strong> from 1998 to 2001 and Counselor to President Barack Obama<\/strong> from 2014 to 2015.\u00a0John Podesta\u2019s leaked emails published by WikiLeaks caused a huge scandal in the US.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Tony Podesta\u2019s lobbying firm was going through difficult times as a federal investigation was launched against it in connection with another Washington lobbyist, Paul Manafort.\u00a0Investigators were interested in whether he had violated the rules for declaring lobbying activities under the FARA.<\/p>\n

At the time, Tony Podesta<\/strong> was\u00a0attacked on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0personally by then-President Donald Trump, who wondered why Podesta had not been detained in the investigation.\u00a0In the end, Podesta was not charged and the probe was\u00a0dropped<\/a>\u00a0by US authorities two years later, in 2019.<\/p>\n

Due to the deteriorating reputation of his company and the refusal of banks to work with it, in 2017 Podesta closed his lobbying business and devoted himself to his hobby as a collector of paintings and sculptures by famous artists.<\/p>\n

As such, he also made headlines in Bulgarian tabloids.\u00a0At the end of July 2021, the famous power-broker toured the capital Sofia\u2019s exhibition galleries together with art dealer and gallery owner\u00a0Stefan Stoyanov<\/strong>, with whom he has long been close.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tony Podesta celebrates his birthday in October 2021 in the company of Stefan Stoyanov \r\n\r\nPhoto by: Politico \/ BIRD.bg <\/strong><\/pre>\n
But this period of sitting on the sidelines seems to be over for Podesta.\u00a0He is returning to the lobbying business with new multimillion-dollar contracts with the Chinese Huawai and Bulgarian companies, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/a>reports.<\/p>\n
In fact, his visit to Sofia includes discreet business meetings and contracts worth a lot of money.\u00a0What the companies that Podesta deals with in Bulgaria have in common is that they are\u00a0all associated with\u00a0Peevski<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Another embarrassing fact is that not all of Podesta\u2019s contracts with Bulgarian companies have been declared under the FARA, according to a BIRD check into US lobbyists\u2019 registers.<\/p>\n
Tony Podesta visited Sofia again in October 2021, after meeting with Peevski in Dubai.\u00a0In November he officially registered a consulting business in Bulgaria together with lawyer\u00a0Momchil Mondeshki<\/strong>, who is known as someone belonging to Peevski\u2019s trusted circle.<\/p>\n
The US lobbyist left unanswered our request for an interview sent by e-mail a week ago.<\/p>\n
From the \u201cdoyen of Bulgarian organized crime\u201d to sanctioned under Magnitsky oligarch<\/strong><\/h2>\n
On July 13, 2021, Podesta signed a contract with the Bulgarian company Protos Energy to promote the company\u2019s interests before all relevant US government officials such as the White House, the White House National Security Council, the Department of Energy, the leadership of the House and the Senate and their energy committees.<\/p>\n
The contract with Protos, worth USD 300,000, is for the period from July 21, 2021 to December 2021, and the payment was made on July 21 from the Protos account in the United Bulgarian Bank (UBB), account number 1087 7040 40.<\/p>\n
Protos Energy is owned by Georgi Samuilov, who confirmed the lobbying contract in a telephone conversation with a BIRD reporter.\u00a0He said he had hired Podesta to lobby because his energy company, one of the largest in Bulgaria, had an interest in the liquefied natural gas market in the US.\u00a0Samuilov declined to provide further details but said he had known Podesta for many years.<\/p>\n
Podesta declared this lobbying activity in the database for disclosing information about lobbying of the US Senate on August 23, 2021. The documents also include another company owned by Samuilov, INSA Oil.\u00a0On October 20, 2021, Podesta also submitted a report showing the amount of USD 500,000.\u00a0This means that he has received other payments besides the first one from Protos.<\/p>\n
INSA Oil is one of the largest Bulgarian gas and oil companies and is also owned by Georgi Samuilov<\/p>\n
The lobbying agreement in favor of Protos also includes the US Department of Energy.\u00a0But there is no information about Protos Energy or INSA Oil in the FARA official database.\u00a0The requirement under FARA is to declare lobbying before it starts.<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, the owner of Protos Energy and INSA Oil, Georgi Samuilov, worked for the Multigroup holding company, described in US State Department diplomatic cables as the \u201cdoyen of Bulgarian organized crime.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n
Multigroup boss Iliya Pavlov was shot dead by a hitman in 2003.<\/p>\n
In 2009, the former chief of the Main Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime (GDBOP) Vanyo Tanov, who later became head of the Customs Agency,\u00a0told Parliament<\/a>\u00a0that Samuilov had been involved in multimillion-dollar VAT and tax fraud but the latter was never arrested and the VAT fraud case was never brought to court.<\/p>\n
As of recent, Samuilov is suspected of being the frontman of oligarch Delyan Peevski.\u00a0The business weekly Capital\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that according to numerous sources, a company, which bought properties worth millions from Peevski, is controlled by Samuilov.<\/p>\n
In June 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)\u00a0sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0Peevski under the Magnitsky Act for his extensive role in corruption in Bulgaria. The State Department also\u00a0publicly designated\u00a0<\/a>Peevski as a person involved in corruption.<\/p>\n
Asked by phone if he had a connection with Peevski, Samuilov said he had never met him, did not know him personally and had nothing to do with the company that bought the oligarch\u2019s property.<\/p>\n
Contract with Hydrostroy<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Podesta\u2019s second contract worth USD 1.2 million is with Hydrostroy JSC, owned by\u00a0Veliko Zhelev<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
The contract mentions the same lobbying activities in the interest of Hydrostroy before the US government as the ones in the contract with Protos Energy.\u00a0The contract runs from August 16, 2021, to August, 16, 2022 and payments are due quarterly.\u00a0The first payment was invoiced to Podesta on August 16, 2021.<\/p>\n
There is no information about this contract in the databases of the US Senate and of the FARA.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Hydrostroy is one of the largest Bulgarian construction companies, which prospered under the former governments of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.\u00a0In 2016, Hydrostroy\u00a0acquired the<\/a>\u00a0company\u00a0Vodstroy 98<\/strong>\u00a0, which is allegedly controlled by Peevski.\u00a0Vodstroy 98 was officially owned by\u00a0Ivan Mirinski<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
After Borisov left office, the new Interior Minister, Boyko Rashkov, accused the owner of Hydrostroy (without mentioning him by name) of syphoning money from road construction.<\/p>\n
On October 25, 2021, Rashkov took part in a talk show on TV channel bTV and said that an unnamed businessman had sent BGN 21 million to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), linking the origin of the money to a multimillion-dollar road construction fraud known as \u201cHemus Gate\u201d and named after the Hemus Highway which remains unfinished after long years of construction.<\/p>\n
Asked who the businessman he was talking about was, Rashkov declined providing a name but used a metaphor in Bulgarian alluding to Veliko Zhelev.<\/p>\n
By the editorial closure of this article, Hydrostroy did not respond to our request for contact with Veliko Zhelev, sent to the official company email.<\/p>\n
Lobbying for a shady Bulgarian arms dealer in Riyadh<\/strong><\/h2>\n
However, these are not the only contracts signed by Podesta in Bulgaria in 2021. Another shady Bulgarian businessman secured his services for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia in August 2021.<\/p>\n
This is Kiril Klenovski, known in the past as the right hand of Georgi Iliev, the boss of organized crime group\u00a0VIS<\/a>, who was shot dead by a hitman in 2003. The Iliev brothers and Klenovski had a joint business in the 1990s through VKG Group.<\/p>\n
Klenovski, through his company Water Stone, is a tenant of the infamous luxury apartment with armored glass at a prime location in downtown Sofia. In the past, it belonged to fugitive banker Tsvetan Vassilev, former majority shareholder in the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB) and is now owned by financier Emil Harsev.<\/p>\n
Klenowski is currently exporting weapons and ammunition through his companies Water Stone and Rearm.\u00a0His contract with Podesta is for Rearm for lobbying the Saudi Ministry of Defense in connection with an upcoming tender.\u00a0It was concluded on August 15, 2021, for a total value of USD 400,000, and Podesta can receive 4% of the commission based on a successful transaction.<\/p>\n
BIRD has data that Klenovski maintains accounts in the state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB), from where the first tranche of USD 100,000 was transferred to Podesta\u2019s account in the Bank of America on August 25, 2021.<\/p>\n
However, an inspection of the register of the Interdepartmental Commission for Export Control and Non-Proliferation of Weapons showed that Rearm did not have a license to export weapons and ammunition.\u00a0There is no license for Water Stone either, which means that exports are made through other companies, and Klenowski\u2019s companies mediate in the transactions.<\/p>\n
Asked on the phone for comment, Klenovski said he was abroad and did not remember the contract with Podesta, as he had many different contracts.<\/p>\n
Partnership with Peevski\u2019s \u201cTrojan Horse\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
On November 8, 2021, Anthony Podesta and attorney\u00a0Momchil Mondeshki<\/strong>\u00a0established the company Podesta and Mondeshki with a capital of BGN 1,000, in which they have equal shares.\u00a0The main subject of activity of the new company is consulting services in the field of business and management.<\/p>\n
The company contract was registered with a notary, and Podesta\u2019s friend\u00a0Stefan Stoyanov<\/strong>\u00a0provided translation services.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Momchil Mondeshki became infamous over the\u00a0Yaneva Gate<\/a>\u00a0recordings, in which he discussed with judges Vladimira Yaneva and Rumyana Chenalova power-broker schemes.<\/p>\n
These secretly recorded and leaked conversations revealed the Mondeshki is especially close to Delyan Peevski, who had to approve the trustees of the failed CCB.\u00a0In a publication of Capital, he is mentioned as \u201cPeevski\u2019s Trojan horse\u201d because of his role in the liquidation of the assets of the collapsed bank.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Bivol managed to catch on camera attorney\u00a0Mondeshki at an exhibition in Hanover, but he refused to answer questions and his bodyguards were aggressive towards the film crew.<\/p>\n