More Thoughts On Russian Influence in the US
You take the money, we'll take the... kind words?
Last week I released a breakdown of the latest US Department of Justice indictment of Russian agents using influencers in the US. If didn’t read it yet you can do so here:
I have further thoughts on the matter that I think are important for the conversation.
Services Rendered
In the criminal world people are very familiar with the term “dirty money”. It’s money that was obtained through illegal means. Therefore, if you were to try to deposit large sums in a bank or make big purchases it would raise a red flag. If you want your money to be any useful you have to “wash it”. Input it into a legitimate business as if you were a customer and clean tax paid money comes out the other end.
There are also interesting ways to pay people for services rendered that may not be ethical or legally upright. For example let’s say you’re a the CEO of Trillion Dollar Co. and you got “x” politician to do you a favor. You don’t just hand him a check for $250K and call it a day. Both of you would probably be in jail by the end of the week. Instead, after some time you invite the politician out to give a speech where you pay him $250k for the “speech”. This way everything looks legitimate on paper and no one can really question it without investigating deeply. There’s an old article from CNN that said “Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001”. Now, I’m not saying the Clinton’s were doing exactly what I described above. I’m just quoting this so you can see how crazy these speaking fees can get. Although, sometimes I wonder what’s being said at those events that costs $200k+.