Somnambulance in the Swamp
Somnambulance in the Swamp
Neil W. McCabe, one of the few reporters in Washington, D.C. who actually pays attention to things, shares an intriguing find in RedState this morning.
We wonder why this item, which was first reported in Politico’s FARA Friday column on March 15th didn’t seem to catch anyone’s attention (including Politico’s own reporters) before McCabe caught it nearly a month later. After all, one would think a report of a foreign national, recently busted in Great Britain for alleged massive sanctions violations, hiring a B-list democrat lobbyist / former Senate staffer (including a stint as a junior staffer in President Biden’s Senate office) and is paying him A-list cash ($100k per month for three months with an auto-renew clause) to keep him from getting on the US naughty list would be worth a closer look. Alas...
McCabe took a closer look. Excerpts from “Swamp Story”:
…one guy who seems to be doing well is Ankit Desai, a former Senate aide to Joseph R. Biden Jr. who was just hired by Niels Troost.
Desai, who also represents TikTok, also worked for Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the late New Jersey Democrat.
This being a Swamp story means it gets complicated.
Troost is a Dutch oil trader whose company, Paramount Energy and Commodities Group, was one of the top traders of Russian oil. Paramount contracts with 180 tankers to move 18 million metric tons of crude oil annually.
The bulk of his business is at the Russian Pacific port of Kozmino at the terminal port of the Eastern Siberian Pacific Ocean Pipeline.
After the G-7 capped the price of Russian oil at $60, Paramount shut down operations in Switzerland and opened up shop in the United Arab Emirates, which has no sanctions on Russian oil, let alone caps.
Before the Russian 2022 military entry into Ukraine, more than 50 percent of Russian oil was brokered by Swiss traders.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council’s “Farm to Fork” Food Security Forum, held in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 12, 2022, Troost presented himself as a man nearly forced to trade in oil so he could feed starving children and prevent civil wars.
“We see a clear correlation between energy prices and food prices,” he said. “We also see a clear correlation between increasing food prices and shortages of food and how that leads to uprisings and destabilization of our economies and our democracies.
The Dutchman says all the right things. He told Ghana News: “If a child in Africa does not have a meal a day, it makes me miss sleep every night.”
However, the oil trader’s world changed Feb. 22, when the Baron of Chipping Norton, British Foreign Minister David Cameron, sanctioned the Dutchman, along with 49 other individuals and entities.
These sanctions were timed to coincide with Cameron’s trip to the U.S.
“These new sanctions also target key sources of Russian revenue, clamping down on metals, diamonds, and energy trade, and cutting off funding for Putin’s illegal war from every angle,” the baron and former prime minister said.
In the report accompanying the sanctions, it stated:
Oil trader Niels Troost and his company Paramount Energy & Commodities S.A. Troost facilitates the unfettered trade of Russian oil outside the reach of U.K. and G7 sanctions, including through UAE-based Paramount Energy & Commodities DMCC, which the U.K. designated in November 2023.
Cameron sanctioned Troost Feb. 22. Troost hired Desai to advise him at $100,000 per month Feb. 26.
Then, it gets strange.
Desai is also involved with ABI Associates, along with political consultant James Carville and John Anzalone, Biden’s pollster…
…poor Mr. Troost, who only wanted to sell Russian oil above G-7 caps to feed the children and stave off war and instability…
What makes this a true Swamp Story is that…he decided to go legit in the true Washington fashion by hiring a Biden-connected lobbyist at $1.2 million per annum.
WHY ISN’T THE PRESS ASKING: Are get out of jail free cards for sanctions busters for sale? Biden sure acts like his administration takes sanctions violations awfully seriously…And what’s up with this Desai guy? That’s an awful lot of money for a lobbyist not named Podesta. Is he in touch with the Biden administration on behalf of his new foreign client, freshly busted by the Brits for what appear to be very clear and very serious violations? Is the White House cool with its private sector people running around offering up services such as this? Paging Peter Doocy!