Thread by @dallasnews

.@UofDallas researcher Ruth May is an expert in all things corporate in Russia and has worked to make connections in the trail of money flowing from Russian oligarchs to the GOP. This thread is her latest 👇 1/12 dallasnews.com/opinion/commen…

According to May, digging through campaign finance reports available to the public shows troubling connections between Russian donors, Trump and a number of GOP leaders 2/12

The trail traces through Vladimir Putin, state-owned banks and state-affiliated companies, oligarchs and subsequently GOP leaders 3/12

Len Blavatnik, Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, oligarchs with ties to Russian government, are all connected by their role in RUSAL a massive company of which they own 69% 4/12

Billionaire, and dual U.S.-U.K citizen, Blavatnik contributed to PACs associated with @SenateMajLdr, @marcorubio, @ScottWalker, @LindseyGrahamSC, @JohnKasich, @SenJohnMcCain and @realdonaldtrump 5/12

Len Blavatnik, one of the largest donors to GOP political action committees in the 2015-16 election cycle, is just one of the concerning players 6/12

Blavatnik is accompanied by Oleg Deripaska – one of the Kremlin’s favorite oligarchs who gave $10 million a year to Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, to push pro-Russian policy according to the @AP 7/12

Viktor Vekselberg, one of the 10 richest men in Russia, has connections to at least two Americans who made significant contributions to GOP campaigns 8/12

At the center of all the money is the notorious Bank of Cyprus which has a long history of being a conduit for dirty money flowing in and out of Russia 9/12 dallasnews.com/opinion/commen…

Russia’s second largest state-owned bank VTB also quietly transferred $191 million into an offshore company which Yuri Milner then used to fund nearly half of a purchase of @Twitter in 2011 10/12

VTB was exposed in @ICIJorg’s #PanamaPapers in 2016 for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Putin, according to @McClatchyDC 11/12 mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-wo…

Explore for yourself the tangled web of Russian money that warrant special investigator Robert Mueller’s attention, according to Ruth May 12/12 dallasnews.com/opinion/commen…