Moscow Mitch [View all]

[Kid Berwyn]

MITCH MCCONNELL, RUSSIA SANCTIONS, AND RUSAL’S INVESTMENT IN KENTUCKY

The Moscow Project
July 31, 2019

Excerpt...

A bipartisan majority in the Senate tried to block Trump from weakening the sanctions, but McConnell protected Deripaska and Russia and torpedoed the bipartisan effort.

* In a rare bipartisan moment, Democrats were joined by eleven Republicans in an effort to block the deal and to enforce sanctions against Deripaska’s companies.

* However, McConnell came out forcefully for lifting the sanctions, making a floor speech “accusing Democrats of politicizing the sanctions.”

* McConnell and the remaining Senate Republicans prevented the bipartisan group from reaching the 60 vote threshold. The Trump administration officially lifted the sanctions in January 2019.

McConnell soon reaped his reward. Shortly after the sanctions were lifted, Rusal announced a massive investment in Kentucky, giving McConnell a political boost in a re-election year.

* Merely three months after the sanctions were lifted (April 2019), Rusal announced it would be investing $200 million into a Kentucky aluminum mill run by Braidy Industries, becoming a 40% stakeholder in the project.

* According to The Wall Street Journal, this mill would be “the largest new aluminum plant built in the U.S. in nearly four decades.”

* The deal was hardly a coincidence – the investment was made possible because former top McConnell staffers lobbied on behalf of Braidy Industries for the project.

* McConnell, it seems, had his eye on this project for a while. In August 2018, just months after Rusal was first sanctioned, McConnell spoke on the Senate floor about Braidy Industries, highlighting the jobs that the new aluminum mill would be bringing to Kentucky.

* The state of Kentucky invested $15 million in the project, which is expected to bring 550 jobs to the area.

Just last week, Robert Mueller told the American people that Russia is still interfering in the democratic process. In response to recent criticism of his continued efforts to block election security bills, McConnell complained about being “accused of ‘aiding and abetting’ the very man I’ve singled out as our adversary and opposed for nearly 20 years: Vladimir Putin.” But McConnell’s long pattern of protecting Trump and Russia speaks louder than his complaints.

Continues...

https://themoscowproject.org/dispatch/mitch-mcconnell-russia-sanctions-and-rusals-investment-in-kentucky/

And his fiends...