FBI Raid On Oleg Deripaska Is Bad For Russia Collusion Hoaxers, Not Trump

Federalist– When news broke earlier this week that the FBI had raided two homes connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the corporate media and some of the main figures in the Russia-collusion hoax spun the story as related to Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the propaganda-pushing press left unreported Derispaska’s connections to Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., as well as evidence suggesting Steele engaged in potentially criminal lobbying on behalf of Deripaska in violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA.

On Tuesday morning, FBI agents searched a home used by Deripaska in New York’s Greenwich Village and in D.C. on Washington’s Embassy Row, according to The New York Times. “A spokesman for the F.B.I. office in New York would say only that the agents were ‘conducting a law enforcement operation pursuant to a law enforcement investigation,’” the Times reported, while Deripaska’s spokeswoman “issued a statement confirming the searches, and saying that the investigation was related to U.S. sanctions.”

The Trump administration sanctioned Deripaska in 2018, explaining then that the Russian oligarch had acted, or purported to act, for a senior official of the Russian Federation. “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,” according to the Treasury Department. The announcement of the sanctions added that “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.”

The search warrants may focus, as Deripaska’s spokeswomen claimed, on purported crimes related to the U.S. sanctions levied against Deripaska. But the interest in Deripaska likely extends beyond the Southern District of New York — to Special Counsel John Durham. And Deripaska may well be the player that proves the downfall of Steele. more here