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John Podesta Getty Images/Justin Sullivan

EXCLUSIVE: Podesta Was Board Member Of Firms Linked To

Russian Investors
KCOLLOP DRAHCIR
Reporter
10:14 PM 03/21/2017

Rep. Louie Gohmert, an outspoken House Republican from Texas, is calling for a congressional
investigation of John Podestas role with Rusnano, a state-run company founded by Russian President
Vladimir Putin, The Daily Caller News Foundations Investigative Group has learned.
Podesta Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign chairman and former President Bill Clintons White
House chief of sta rst made contact with the Russian rm in 2011, when he joined the boards and
executive committees of three related entities: Boston-based Joule Unlimited; Rotterdam-based Joule Global
Holdings; Joule Global Stichting, the companys controlling interest. All are high-tech renewable energy
enterprises.
Three months after Podestas arrival, Joule Unlimited accepted a 1 billion ruble investment from Rusnano,
amounting to $35 million in U.S. currency. The rm also awarded a Joule board seat in February 2012 to
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Anatoly Chubais, Rusnanos CEO, who has been depicted as a corrupt gure.

Chairman of the Executive Board of RUSNANO Corporation Anatoly Chubais (L) and Russian journalist Alexei Venediktov
attend a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016 in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 16, 2016.
REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Podesta has attempted to downplay his relationship with Joule and Rusnano, but it could come to haunt
him.

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One potential legal problem for him relates to the time he joined former President Barack Obamas White
House sta in 2014 as a senior counselor and failed to reveal his 2011 Joule stock vesting agreement in his
government nancial disclosure form.

Further, he failed to disclose 75,000 common shares of Joule stock he received, as disclosed in a WikiLeaks
email.

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After Podesta began working at the White House, his lawyer indicated in a Jan. 6, 2014 email that he had not
yet nished the legal work on the private transfer of the stock to a family-owned entity called Leonido
Holdings, LLC.

Gohmerts call for an examination of Podestas Russian ties comes as Washington is in the grips of a set of
allegations about Russian ties to President Donald Trump and his aides, as well as charges of Russian
inuence during the presidential election.

Gohmert is troubled about the Podesta-Russia connection, telling TheDCNF, this certainly needs to be
reviewed to see if there really is something nefarious going on with these activities. Gohmert sits on the
House Judiciary Committee and is vice chair of its subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland
security.

Campaign chairman John Podesta watches from the edge of the stage during a campaign rally with Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (not pictured) at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2016.
REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The Podesta-Russia connection also could rekindle a new round of questions about Clinton relationships
with foreign gures in this case, Chubais.

Chubais, Russias deputy prime minister in the 1990s, owed his personal fortunes to Bill Clinton, who
embraced him as a reformer in former President Boris Yeltsins government. Clintons ally instead created
a new generation of tycoons who today rule Russia.

Podestas role at Joule was largely unknown until last year when the nonprot Government Accountability
Institute (GAI) published a highly-detailed report on Russian ties to Podesta and the Clintons.
An ongoing federal lawsuit, Neas Ltd, v. Rusnano, which is now before the U.S. District Court for Northern
California, suggests Podesta and others at Joule may have unwittingly assisted Rusnano in a scheme
hatched to move billions of weak rubles into valuable U.S. dollars by parking them as investments in high-
tech companies in Boston and in Silicon Valley.
A deposition by Ilya Ponomarev, an architect of Russias innovation enterprises and the former chairman of

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innovations subcommittee in the Russian Parliament, shed light on Rusnanos plans in the United States. He
says its primary objective was the transformation of Rusnano from a state-owned corporation to an
enterprise suitable for operations in the United States. Ponomarev now lives in exile in the United States.

Shortly after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pursued her reset with Russia, state-owned Russian
companies began targeting American companies in Boston and Silicon Valley as investment opportunities.

In May 2010, under Hillary Clintons leadership, the Department of State facilitated a visit by 22 American hi-
tech and venture capital rms to Skolkovo, Russias version of Silicon Valley, according to GAI.

Rusnano appears to have been a leader in the Russian investment move into the United States. Chubais
created a Rusnano investment fund and set up a so-called Russian Innovation Center in tony Silicon
Valley, according to the Neas lawsuit.

The company opened shop in Palo Alto called DJF Venture Fund, a venture capital fund advised the Russian
company.
Rusnano targeted Boston where Joules U.S. operations were centered. In 2010, Chubais joined a Rusnano
road show and gave a presentation at MIT. A Rusnano managing director also addressed the Harvard
Faculty Club.

An Oct. 5, 2011 Rusnano PowerPoint presentation by Dmitry Akhanov, Rusnano USA president, promised
American businessmen cheap money. Rusnano dangled $4.6 billion in government contributions and $5.7
billion in state guarantees.

Lucia Ziobro, the special agent in charge at the FBIs Boston eld oce, issued an extraordinary warning to
Boston-area high-tech rms in 2014 about Russian investors to startups like Joule.

The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by their government, is to
gain access to classied, sensitive and emerging technology from the companies, she wrote in a Boston
Globe op-ed.

Podestas emails also show how in 2015 Podesta continued to help Rusnano even though he had left Joules
boards. Podestas lawyer told him he did legal work for the Rosnano president to get on the Joule board.

Rusnano was a special company formed by decree at the direction of Putin. A small group of Putin cronies
called the Kooperative Ozero masterminded the takeover of big swaths of the Russian economy.

The Ozero group are eight men including Putin who owned expensive dachas on a lake outside of St.
Petersburg. They now run state-owned banks, the news media and oil and gas companies.
This group Ozero turned to occupy all the ruling
positions in the country after Putin came to power,
Should The FBI Investigate John Ponomarev told TheDCNF. He said the group
Podesta's Russian Ties? represented former KGB, organized crime and their
associates.
Yes No
Your Email Address (Required) David Satter, a senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute and former Wall Street Journal reporter
Submit and See Results who covered Russia, called Chubais as a very
shady gure.

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 Chubais was in charge of the whole privatization
Completing this poll entitles you to Daily Caller news updates free of charge. You
may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of
Use .
process during the 1990s under Yeltsin which
was notoriously corrupt, he told TheDCNF.
Billions of dollars in property changed hands
under conditions that were unethical, illegal, criminal. He was in charge of that whole process, he said.

The DCNF contacted but received no replies from Joule Unlimited, Rusnano USA or Podesta.

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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large
audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags: Barack Obama, Investigative Group, John Podesta, Joule Unlimited, Louie Gohmert, President Bill Clinton,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Waste and Fraud

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