After negotiation of the START I treaty,Burt left government service and entered the private sector. He served as John McCain's top national security adviser during McCain's 2000 and 2008 Presidential campaigns.[8]
Private intelligence firm (2000–2007)
In 2000,he,Lord Powell of Bayswater and others founded the Washington,D.C.–based private intelligence and risk-assessment and management firm Diligence with Diligence Europe headed by Michael Howard.[9] While he chaired Diligence,Nathaniel Rothschild,a close friend of Oleg Deripaska,purchased a large stake in Diligence.[8] While Deripaska was banned from entering the United States from 1998 to 2010,[10] he hired Diligence for corporate intelligence gathering,visa lobbying through its considerable GOP connections and,crucially,helping to obtain a $150 million World Bank/European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loan for the Komi Aluminum Project at Sosnogorsk,Komi Republic,a Deripaska subsidiary of Rusal.[8][11] Through the support from Diligence,Deripaska received a multiple entry visa to the United States in December 2005.[8] From the spring to October 2005,Diligence performed Project Yucca for BGR[a] in which the auditing firm KPMG was infiltrated by Diligence in order to obtain KPMG's audit of the Jeffrey Galmond and Leonid Reiman associated firm IPOC International Growth Fund for the benefit of Alfa Group's telecom subsidiary Altimo.[15] During Project Yucca,the shareholders of Diligence were CEO Nick Day who was a former British agent,the Chairman of Diligence Richard Burt,the Exxel Group which is a Buenos Aires private equity firm,and Edward Mathias from The Carlyle Group which is a private equity company from Washington D.C.[13][14] The Bermuda government had accused the IPOC International Growth Fund,which is a Bermuda registered owner of Russian telecoms,[b] of money laundering and also accused Diligence of impersonating secret service personnel.[13][14] KPMG successfully sued Diligence for fraud and unjust enrichment and received a settlement of $1.7 million from Diligence on June 20,2006.[13]
In 2014 through early 2016,Burt served as an unpaid foreign policy advisor for Rand Paul's campaign for president.[29][30]
During the first two quarters of 2016,McLarty Associates received $365,000 to lobby for New European Pipeline AG,a firm owned by Russian oil company Gazprom.[6] Beginning in February 2016,he and a colleague represented the five European energy companies investing in Nord Stream 2,an expansion of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline which would allow Russian gas to reach Europe without going through Belarus or Ukraine. Since 2017,Burt and another lobbyist of a subsidiary of McLarty Associates have received $3.53 million from five Nord Stream 2 financing companies.[31]
Burt's simultaneous roles as a campaign adviser for Trump and a lobbyist for Russian interests first drew scrutiny in October 2016 following the release of the Steele dossier.[6] Burt is on both the senior advisory board of the Russian Alfa Bank and the Irina Krivosheeva headed Alfa Capital Partners Advisory Board in which Russia's Alfa-Bank is an investor.[34][38]
Supported Joe Biden for President
In 2020,Burt,along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials,signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term,and "To that end,we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States,and we will vote for him."[39]
↑Founded by Haley Barbour, BGR was hired by Alfa Group through its subsidiary Altimo. The IPOC International Growth Fund, which controls several Russian telecoms, is closely associated with Leonid Reiman.[12][13][14]
↑Vladimir Putin is very close to and has a very warm longtime relationship with Henry Kissinger.[21][22][23] Kissinger Associates does not disclose if it lobbies on behalf of Russian foreign policy interests.[21]
↑Jeff Sessions was the national security committee chairman for Trump's 2016 campaign.[6]
References
12345"Richard Burt". McLarty Associates website. Archived from the original on August 11, 2016. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
↑Schreckinger, Ben; Ioffe, Julia (October 7, 2016). "Lobbyist advised Trump campaign while promoting Russian pipeline". Archived from the original on October 7, 2016. "We have no knowledge of this," wrote Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks in an email. "In fact, our team cannot verify his self-proclaimed contributions to Mr. Trump's speech and, I don't believe Mr. Trump or our policy staff has ever met Mr. Burt. To our knowledge he had no input in the speech and has had no contact with our policy team."
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