Oleg Deripaska - Russian Billionaire with Ties to the Trump Campaign?

UPDATE​: This article from Business Insider has additional information about Deripaska. The article, from 2009, explains that Deripaska was banned from traveling to the U.S. due to his suspected ties to organized crime, but was allowed in twice in 2009, "on trips arranged with the blessing of the Bureau (FBI). In addition to directly meeting with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, he also went to Detroit to talk cars."

The Business Insider article quotes a Wall Street Journal article, which is hidden behind a paywall.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fbi-let-a-banned-russian-oligarch-into-the-us-so-he-could-meet-with-goldman-2009-10

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125685578903317087

​On March 22 the Associated Press reported that before he became Donald Trump’s unpaid campaign advisor, Paul Manafort had secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to benefit the Putin government through public relations. Manafort developed a confidential strategy plan in 2005 to influence politics, business, and news coverage in the U.S., Europe, and former Soviet republics in favor of Vladimir Putin. During the time he was employed in this endeavor, relations between the U.S. and the Russian Federation were worsening under President George W. Bush.
 
Manafort is under investigation by the FBI for his activities before, during, and after the campaign.
 
Who is the Russian billionaire who hired Manafort to do public relations for Vladimir Putin?
 
Oleg Deripaska is a 49 year-old international aluminum business owner, with degrees in physics and economics. His wife’s parents are Boris Yeltsin’s top advisor and Yeltsin’s daughter. He is close friends with Vladimir Putin.
 
According to Forbes  his net worth was $28 billion in 2008, but he lost a great deal of it in the downturn of 2009. Forbes estimated his wealth in 2015 at $3.3 billion, and $4.9 billion in 2017.
 
In a 2005 memo to Deripaska, Manafort wrote that the model he created “can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success.” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The goal was to “re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government."
 
The New York Times reported in May that Deripaska offered to cooperate with Congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but that Congress had turned down his offer.
 
The increased scrutiny on Manafort’s relationship with Deripaska has brought Senator John McCain’s activities with Russian oligarchs representing Putin’s interests. According to a 2008 article in The Nation, Rick Davis, Senator McCain’s campaign manager and a partner with Manafort in the lobbying firm Davis Manafort, received several million dollars to help run the 2006 independence referendum in the Balkan country Montenegro. Top Montenegran officials told U.S. diplomats that Davis’s work was paid for by Russian business interests tied to the Kremlin and operating in Montenegro.
 
Deripaska has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Associated Press for their reporting on his purported relationship with Paul Manafort.
 
The Associated Press article can be found here.
https://apnews.com/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5a/manaforts-plan-greatly-benefit-putin-government
 
The New York Times article can be found here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-paul-manafort.html
 
The 2008 article from The Nation can be found here.
https://www.thenation.com/article/mccains-kremlin-ties/
 
The Politico article about Deripaska’s lawsuit against AP  can be found here.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/05/15/russian-oligarch-deripaska-manafort-238419

A very detailed Mother Jones article about Deripaska's ties to the Trump team, can be found here. The article was written by David Corn, the journalist who broke the story of the Steele dossier in October of 2016.
www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/paul-manafort-tried-help-russian-oligarch-oleg-deripaska-suspected-mob-ties-gain-us/

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