Thread by @karolcummins

🇺🇸#TrumpInauguration🇺🇸
🇷🇺Russians in Attendance🇷🇺

Rinat Akhmeyshin
Leonard Blavatnik
Maria Butina
Sergey Kislyak
Alexander Mashkevitch
Konstantin Rykov
Alexey Repik
Polina Repik
Boris Titov
Natalia Veselnitskaya
Viktor Vekselberg & ?

🇺🇸#TrumpInauguration🇺🇸
🇷🇺Russian Americans in Attendance🇷🇺

🇺🇸Andrew Intrater (cousin of Viktor Vekselberg)
🇺🇸Alexander Shustorovich RUAmerican
🇺🇸Darren Blanton (Ripik)
🇺🇸Timothy Kasbe (Ripik)

And.?

📌Background📌

Presidential Inaugural Committee

💰Chairman: Thomas Barrack Jr.

💰Finance co-chairmen:
Roy Bailey
Lew Eisenberg

💰Finance vice chairs:
Sheldon Adelson
Miriam Adelson
Brian Ballard
Gentry Beach
Elliott Broidy
Robert Grand & others

washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost…

Mr. Barrack met Manafort in the 1970s, when they were both living in Beirut and working for Saudi interests. Early in 2016,. Barrack had recommended Mr. Manafort for the job of campaign manager. “The most experienced and lethal of managers” and “a killer.”
nytimes.com/2018/06/13/wor…

Thomas Barrack turned to Rick Gates Paul Manafort’s right hand man for help with planning the inauguration
vox.com/2018/7/5/17505…

📌The People Shaping Trump’s Inauguration
citizen.org/sites/default/…

DonJr began his fundraising journey after the GOP convention & right here in Dallas, squired by Tommy Hicks Jr., the eldest son of Dallas billionaire Tom Hicks, and their mutual buddy, Dallas hedge fund manager Gentry Beach. Raised 2M war chest for Trump.
dallasnews.com/news/politics/…

Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are distancing themselves from Opening Day Foundation after questions over whether the nonprofit is effectively peddling access to President-elect Donald Trump during inauguration weekend. Tom Hicks & Gentry Beach. 
dallasnews.com/news/politics/…

Trump's inaugural committee announced in April 2017 that it had raised $106.7 million to pay for the festivities.
thehill.com/homenews/admin…

Chairman of the presidential Inaugural committee Tom Barrack

washingtonpost.com/politics/hes-b…

Tom Barrack. A billionaire real estate investor who’s been a close friend of Trump for decades, Barrack’s business interests have recently been concentrated in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. vox.com/2018/7/5/17505…

To help with the planning and fundraising, Barrack turned to a Trump campaign aide: Rick Gates, the longtime right-hand man to Paul Manafort. (Barrack had known Manafort since the 1970s and helped convince Trump to bring him on to the campaign.)
vox.com/2018/7/5/17505…

Trump 2017 Inauguration Donors
opensecrets.org/trump/inaugura…

🇷🇺Who Attended the Inauguration?

Sergey Kislyak Russia’s top diplomat in the U.S. will be attending President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural on Jan. 20, even as his country’s alleged election-meddling has seen dozens of Russian envoys expelled.
thedailybeast.com/russian-ambass…

RUs were thrilled. 🙄The attendance of members of Russia's elite at Trump's inauguration was evidence of hopes for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations following a campaign in which Trump stunned U.S. foreign-policy experts by repeatedly praising Putin.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Alexey Repik Polina Repik
In the days before Trump's inauguration, a wealthy Russian pharmaceutical executive named Alexey Repik arrived in Washington, expressing excitement about the new administration. 🙄
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Polina Repik

Mike Pompeo & Alexey Repik

Alexey Repik posed for a photo shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike Pompeo, the president's nominee to head the CIA, although Repik later said he was not aware of Pompeo's intended role at the time.

Another attendee was Natalia Veselnitskaya , the Russian (GRU) lawyer whose June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. has become a focus of the Russia investigation.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Natalia Veselnitskaya (GRU) attended a black-tie inaugural party hosted by the campaign committee of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Moscow.), according to an associate who accompanied her.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Lobbyist Rinat Akhmeyshin & Natalia Veselnitskaya

Viktor Vekselberg
The Washington Post identified at least half a dozen politically connected Russians who were in Washington on Inauguration Day. Among them was Viktor Vekselberg, a tycoon who is closely aligned with Putin's government.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

📌Some Russian guests at Trump's inauguration said they got tickets through U.S. political contacts.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

One venue for credentials was the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which provided a slew of perks — such as tickets to events with Cabinet appointees, congressional leaders, the vice president-elect and Trump — to donors who gave at least $25,000.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

🇷🇺Konstantin Rykov🇷🇺

Trump's inauguration was celebrated jubilantly in Moscow, where Putin supporter Konstantin Rykov hosted an all-night party. Champagne flowed as an interpreter narrated the new U.S. president's speech.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Titov who was appointed by Putin to serve as a business ombudsman, told a RU TV station that new investment was likely to flow to Russia *ONCE US SANCTIONS WETE LIFTED*
Businesses "are waiting for this signal, and they believe it will soon come," he said.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Boris Titov, like several of the Russian elites who attended Trump's inauguration, declined to say how he obtained his tickets, only that they came "via our friends — entrepreneurs in the Republican Party."
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

While in Washington, he attended several receptions and met with U.S. lawmakers and business leaders, including a staff member at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Titov said.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Vekselberg heads of one of Russia's most powerful conglomerates, the Renova Group, which has investments in energy, telecom and mining. He attended Trump's inauguration as a guest of "one of his closest American business partners,"
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

The meeting between Cohen and Viktor Vekselberg, who made his fortune in the energy industry, was an impromptu session arranged by Vekselberg’s cousin, Andrew Intrater, a New York investment manager who was also in attendance
washingtonpost.com/politics/russi…

Who is Andrew Intrater? He is an American private equity executive whose cousin and largest client is Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, was looking for new investment opportunities with Michael Cohen.
nytimes.com/2018/05/22/us/…

Two of Vekselberg's U.S. business associates donated significant sums to the inaugural committee, federal filings show.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Andrew Intrater, a New York businessman who is president of the U.S. affiliate of Vekselberg's company, gave $250,000.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Access Industries, a company founded by Leonard Blavatnik — a Soviet-born American British billionaire who is a longtime friend and business associate of Vekselberg — contributed $1 million to the committee.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Russian American, IMG Artists chief executive Alexander Shustorovich, also gave $1 million, records show. IMG Artists' chief operating officer, John Evans, said Shustorovich, a U.S. citizen who immigrated to the country as a child
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

In 2000, Alexander Shustorovich, tried to give $250k to the George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign. They told him to keep his money.
📌However, in 2017, the Trump Inaugural Committee decided to take $1M from Shustorovich
qz.com/963801/trumps-…

Maria Butina, a Russian gun rights activist and assistant to Alexander Torshin, a former Russian senator who had brokered ties with top National Rifle Association officials attended the inauguration. But of course!
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

The Russian lawyer, Veselnitskaya, had met Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, during a private June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Trump Jr. had agreed to the gathering after he was told Veselnitskaya would provide damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian effort to assist his father's campaign.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Joining Veselnitskaya at the meeting was Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian American lobbyist and Soviet army veteran.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Seven months later, they were together again in Washington at an inauguration night black-tie party at the Library of Congress sponsored by the campaign committee of Rohrabacher, a GOP congressman who advocates for Putin
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

In a statement, Veselnitskaya told The Post that she attended a private event in Washington that night at Akhmetshin's invitation.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Michael Tremonte, a lawyer for Akhmetshin, said he was given tickets by a person involved in organizing the event & that he invited Veselnitskaya to join him b/c he knew she was in town. Tremonte said Akhmetshin did not attend any official inaugural events
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Repik said he and his wife obtained their tickets through Timothy Kasbe, who at the time was working for the RU-based retailer Gloria Jeans. Kasbe, who now works for a company in New Zealand, donated $150,000 to Trump's inaugural committee, records show.
washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-…

Timothy Kasbe, who gave $150,000, has been the chief information officer with Reliance Industries, Sears, and Intrexon, as well as COO for Gloria Jeans, a Russian firm.
opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/b…

Before Trump’s inauguration, Repik established a business tie with Texas venture capitalist Darren Blanton, who served as an informal adviser to the Trump transition team.
bostonglobe.com/news/politics/…

A Soviet-born billionaire Alexander Mashkevitch, who built a metals & mining empire in Kazakhstan, appears on the guest list for the Candlelight Dinner. Flight records show his private jet flew into Washington, DC on 1/19/17 and out two days later.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/speci…

📌Candlelight Dinner 1M

Several Russian oligarchs received tickets to a "Candlelight Dinner" in D.C.'s Union Station the night before the inauguration - open only to those who contributed at least $1 million to the inauguration. 
thehill.com/homenews/admin…
thehill.com/homenews/admin…

Vekselberg sat at a table next to Michael Cohen and his family, a source told ABC News. 

Vekselberg reportedly got an invite to the party through his cousin Andrew Intrater, an American businessman who also donated to Trump's inauguration. 
thehill.com/homenews/admin…

Alexander Shustorovich, a Russian-born American music industry mogul with a background in nuclear energy, also donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration and attended Chairman’s Dinner.
thehill.com/homenews/admin…

For someone who repeatedly berated Wall Street during his campaign, President Trump received a lot of inauguration help from its inhabitants. Biggest share of inaugural funding came from Wall Street.
opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/b…

📌The securities and investment industry contributed the greatest chunk to Trump’s inaugural festivities, $14.3 million, or about 13 percent of all donations
opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/b…

After Wall Street, Trump was most popular with real estate ($9 million), casinos/gambling ($7.8 million from just 11 donors, most of which came from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson) and recreation ($7.2 million)
opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/b…

📌The required listing of donors the inaugural committee filed with the FEC in April was riddled with false names, and two campaign finance groups filed a complaint saying he violated federal law by not collecting basic accurate info.
opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/b…

Trump's Inauguration: Record Spending Leaves Little For Charities
npr.org/2018/02/15/586…

📌A record $107 million was raised for Trump’s inauguration.

So where did it all go?

📌No one will say.
usatoday.com/story/news/pol…

Trump’s Inaugural Committee Paid $26 Million to Firm of First Lady’s Adviser
nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/…

Washington lobbyist W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty Friday to acting as an unregistered foreign lobbyist, and admitted to lying to the Senate Intel Committee and funneling a Ukrainian oligarch's money to Donald Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee.
cnn.com/2018/08/31/pol…

Patten sought tickets to T’s inauguration on behalf of an unnamed prominent Ukrainian oligarch, ultimately paying $50,000 for four tickets. Patten used another American as a "straw purchaser," funneling the Ukrainian's 💰secretly thru a Cypriot bank acct.
cnn.com/2018/08/31/pol…

📌Special counsel eyeing Russians granted unusual access to Trump inauguration parties
abcnews.go.com/Politics/speci…

Mueller Makes Major Connection, Tying Secret Ukrainian Money to Trump Inauguration
lawandcrime.com/high-profile/m…

🇺🇸#TrumpInauguration🇺🇸

So many

🇷🇺Russians in Attendance🇷🇺

So many mysteries...

📌Stay tuned as SC Mueller has revealed just the tip of the iceberg regarding Trump’s Inauguration & the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

@threadreaderapp unroll please and Thank you.

‼️ICYMI‼️

📌Secret contributions to Trump’s inauguration become a bonanza for event planners
opensecrets.org/news/2018/03/s…

📌The People Shaping Trump’s Inauguration

Despite Candidate Trump’s Pledge to “Send the Special Interests Packing,” Trump’s Inaugural Committee Is Packed With Corporate Insiders
medium.com/public-citizen…