Subject: [big campaign] Re: McCain's 70th Bday bash with Russian tycoon...
From: David Donnelly <[email-masked]>
To: Moira Whelan <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:23:29 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Check out the EADS/Airbus connection.

Seven lobbyists for EADS/Airbus are helping McCain. McCain¹s raised more
money from EADS/Airbus than any other politician. McCain intervened on
Airbus¹s behalf in a contract worth up to $100 billion.

Here¹s the ad we ran this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8OXXZCn9QI

DD

On 6/13/08 4:15 PM, "Moira Whelan" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> #35
> Online Journal
> http://onlinejournal.com
> June 12, 2008
> John McCain's 70th birthday bash held on boat of Russian tycoon By Wayne
> Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer
>  
> (WMR) -- John McCain's campaign is trying to make political hay out of the
> conviction of Chicago tycoon Tony Rezko, a one-time fundraiser for presumptive
> Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. However, the McCain campaign
> wants to bury the story of McCain's 70th birthday bash held on board the yacht
> of a Russian aluminum tycoon in the Adriatic Sea. The party was held on August
> 29, 2006, McCain's birthday and followed a congressional junket by McCain and
> five other GOP senators to the Republic of Georgia.
>  
> The host for McCain's yacht party off the coast of the Republic of Montenegro
> was, according to WMR sources with close links to the Republican Party, Oleg
> Deripaska, one of Russia's most powerful tycoons who made his billions in
> cornering Russia's aluminum market in the 1990s.
>  
> The 40-year old Deripaska is also
> politically-connected, having married the daughter of Russia's late President
> Boris Yeltsin. Unlike most other Russian tycoons, who now live in exile abroad
> and are protected by Israeli passports, Deripaska maintains close relations to
> Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and another Russian tycoon, Roman
> Abramovich, who was also invested in Russia's aluminum industry. In 2000,
> Deripaska merged his firm, Basic Element, with Abramovich's firm, RusAl. Both
> tycoons maintain expensive homes in London.
>  
> Deripaska has attracted the attention of U.S. law enforcement and he has been
> the subject of several civil law suits filed against him because of his
> business practices. However, no federal criminal charges have been brought
> against Deripaska. That is because Yeltsin's son-in-law counts, in addition to
> McCain, former GOP Senator and 1996 GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole among
> his most ardent supporters. In 2005, Deripaska paid Dole $500,000 in lobbying
> fees and was granted a visa to enter the United States.
> However, in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. government
> refused to grant Deripaska another visa because the FBI discovered he made
> "inaccurate statements" to the bureau.
>  
> In the past, the Canadian firm Magna
> International, in which Deripaska is a $1.5 billion investor, attempted to buy
> Daimler Chrysler. The deal ultimately fell through.
>  
> McCain and Deripaska first met at a dinner party held concurrently with the
> Davos World Economic Forum in January 2006 in Switzerland. The party was
> hosted by Canadian gold mining billionaire Peter Munk, owner of Barrick Gold,
> which has counted former President George H. W. Bush, former Canadian Prime
> Minister Brian Mulroney, former Senator Howard Baker, major Democratic Party
> lawyer/lobbyist Vernon Jordan, and former German Central Bank President Karl
> Otto Pohl among the members of its International Advisory Board. The party was
> arranged by McCain's 2000 campaign manager Rick Davis of the Washington
> lobbying group Davis Manafort. Attending the meeting in Davos were McCain,
> Davis, Deripaska, and Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and John Sununu (R-NH),
> as well as the host, Munk.
>  
> On August 29, 2006, McCain attended a dinner party in Montenegro that was
> followed by a champagne reception on a yacht that was hosted by Deripaska.
> Also reportedly in attendance was Davis, whose lobbying firm was representing
> the government of Montenegro; Munk; and Nathan Rothschild who, on March 20 of
> this year held a controversial fundraiser for McCain at Spencer House in
> London. The fundraiser raised questions about McCain receiving illegal "in
> kind" contributions from a foreign national.
>  
> The 70th birthday bash was reportedly a promise of huge cash donations to
> McCain's forthcoming presidential campaign, another indication of violations
> of law prohibiting donations from foreign sources. The quid pro quo for
> Derpaska was that McCain and his top lobbyists were pushing the European
> Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) and its Airbus subsidiary to
> receive the lucrative US Air Force contract to replace the Air Force's fleet
> of refueling tankers. The reported source for the aluminum in the Airbus
> tanker aircraft is Deripaska's Russian Aluminum Company (RusAl).
>  
> Some two weeks after the McCain birthday bash in Montenegro, the Russian
> state-owned Vneshtorgbank announced that it was acquiring more than 5 percent
> of EADS. At the same time, it was announced that RusAl was in negotiations to
> merge with a Russian aluminum competitor, SUAL, and Glencore of Switzerland,
> the firm owned by billionaire American fugitive Marc Rich.
>  
> The nexus of McCain with Russian oligarchs like Deripaska, as well as Munk,
> Rothschild, and Rich signifies that McCain is owned and operated by the very
> same entrenched global interests who have held sway in Washington during the
> seven-plus years of the George W. Bush administration.
>  
> Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
> Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based
> investigative journalist and
> nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne
> Madsen Report.
>  
>  
>  
> 
> > 
> 

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