Lewandowski’s firm quietly inked deal with Venezuela-owned company

Source: Politico | May 3, 2017 | Kenneth P. Vogel

Contract to lobby for Citgo comes amid rising tensions.

A firm co-founded by Donald Trump’s initial campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, quietly agreed to lobby for the oil company Citgo as the company, which is owned by the leftist government of Venezuela, was becoming increasingly embroiled in tensions involving the United States, Venezuela and Russia.

Officials with Lewandowski’s firm, Avenue Strategies, confirmed that last month it formalized a $25,000-a-month lobbying contract with Citgo.

The officials initially told POLITICO that the firm had filed legally required paperwork revealing the contract to the U.S. government on Feb. 20. But Lewandowski’s co-founder in the firm, fellow Trump campaign aide Barry Bennett, subsequently clarified that it “was just an origination date,” and the firm was working to file the paperwork Wednesday.

As of Wednesday evening, that paperwork was not posted on the website of the Senate Office of Public Records, which processes and automatically posts such filings almost instantaneously.

Bennett said Avenue has yet to begin lobbying for Citgo and that “it’s not entirely clear” on what issues it will lobby. He stressed, though, that he will be the only firm employee who registers to lobby on the contract, and that Lewandowski “doesn’t really have a role” in it.

Sources familiar with the contract say that Avenue Strategies was brought on by Citgo to help provide access to the Trump administration amid calls for the U.S. to seize the company’s assets as a way to expand the impact of sanctions against Venezuela.

But the revelation of Avenue’s previously unreported contract with Citgo comes at an awkward moment for the company, Lewandowski and the Trump White House.

Trump ran on a promise to “drain the swamp” of special interest influence in Washington, and the increasing attention on the lobbying firm co-founded soon after the election by Lewandowski, who remains a close Trump confidant, threatens to undermine the president’s efforts to make the case he’s fulfilling that promise.

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Complicating matters further, there are rising concerns that the Russian government-owned oil company Rosneft could be on the verge of taking control of Citgo. That’s because Venezuela’s national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, took out a loan from Rosneft in December, offering as collateral 49.9 percent of Citgo’s shares. International energy market analysts have predicted that the economic crisis in Venezuela could lead PDVSA to default on its debt, which would put Rosneft on the cusp of controlling three of the largest and most sophisticated refineries in the U.S., plus three major pipelines and dozens of fuel terminals.

The involvement of Russia is fraught for Trump’s administration. The president’s team is under scrutiny from law enforcement and congressional investigators examining Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, including by stealing and disseminating emails from allies of Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

A bipartisan group of senators wrote a letter last month to Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, linking the election hacking and Russia’s alleged violations of arms control agreements with Rosneft’s position in Citgo.

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Citgo attracted attention last month, when it was revealed in a Federal Election Commission filing that the company donated $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, despite not having donated to recent presidential inaugurations.

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