You are компромаT—compromised. You should recuse yourself from decisions and vacate your chair for discussions relating to Ukraine.
According to Federal Election Commission records, on Nov. 13, 2013, you met with three lobbyists from Mercury Public Affairs—Vin Weber, Ed Kutler and Michael McSherry. They were lobbying on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a “think tank” set up by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to front for Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russia Party of Regions.
On December 4, 2013, Weber, Kutler and McSherry each contributed $1,000 to the Jim Risch for U.S. Senate Committee. These funds came from Ukraine/Russian oligarchs laundered through Manafort’s ECFMU. Weber, Kutler, and McSherry operated as unregistered foreign agents.
U.S. law prohibits your receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals or contributions made by one person in the name of another. As a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, you must have been particularly aware of these restrictions, yet you accepted the tainted money.
While the lobbyists have tried retroactively to update their foreign lobbying disclosures, there is no record of your campaign having returned the unlawful $3,000 donation that helped finance your 2014 reelection.
I’ve forwarded the above letter to every print-media editor in Idaho for whom I could find an email address. Feel free to share it with friends and online media, blogs, etc.
The renewed focus on Ukraine (and Russia—but more about that later) makes it critical people that like Risch in positions of power come clean. I’ve also been asked for sources of the information upon which the letter is based. Here’s some of the story:
The story broke last year when Massachusetts attorney J. Whitfield Larrabee filed an election-law-violations complaint with the Dept. of Justice and, I believe, with Mueller’s investigation team. While working a case to revoke Paul Manafort’s Connecticut law license, Larrabee discovered that Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce, and Sen. Jim Risch received payments from the European Centre For a Modern Ukraine, a front that Manafort had set up to run his straw-donor scheme. No surprise that Rohrabacher, widely known as Putin’s Congressman, would take money from pro-Russian sources in Ukraine. After 20 years in the House, Rohrabacher lost his seat last year as did Royce; they both represented Orange County.
FEC records are not easy to search. I can’t find the link but have print-outs of the campaign’s Form 3’s for the Dec. 4, 2013, $1,000 contributions of Weber, Kutler and McSherry (Images #14020124372 & …76).
Here’s a link to “Manafort lobbyists met with Idaho’s Jim Risch, leading to claim of illegal donations,” by Cynthia Sewell, Idaho Statesman (online), June 14, 2018: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article213135899.html I also have a clip of the print version: “Mueller probe eyes meeting between lobbyists, Risch” by Cynthia Sewell, Idaho Statesman, Vol.153, no. 325, Friday, June 15, 2018 (print)
It’s been more than a year since I researched this stuff, and there appear to have been some more recent developments. I understand that Risch was questioned by Mueller’s investigators; apparently, nothing came of it.
In late August this year, former Congressman Vin Weber resigned from Mercury Public Affairs, the lobbying group he helped found, because of his association with Paul Manafort and his failure to register as a foreign agent, which was still being investigated:
Given the growing importance of Ukraine in current events, I think it’s important that his constituents be reminded that Mr. Risch does not have a clean plate in matters involving Ukraine, Russia, Vin Weber, or Paul Manafort.
While most of the focus is currently on Trump’s pressuring Zelenskyy about Biden, Trump was also pushing another right-wing agenda item when he told Zelenskyy,
I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people … The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like to get to the bottom of it.
Trump betrayed both his obsession with the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and his feeble grasp of the technology involved in the DNC hack that set it in motion:
https://fortune.com/2019/09/28/crowdstrike-conspiracy-theories-trump-ukraine/
Richardson's rummage 