Free Republic

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Speaker Paul Ryan joined Brett Baier last night on Special Report. Ryan told Baier the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower. Brett Baier: There’s a report that June 2016 there’s a FISA request b the Obama administration from a communications court to monitor communications to monitor Donald Trump and several campaign officials. They get turned down. Then in October they renew it. And they do start a wiretap at Trump Tower with some computer and Russian banks and it doesn’t show up anything. Have you heard that? Paul Ryan: Again as I said none of us in Congress or anybody I...

As the United States attempts to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine, the Treasury Department is deploying an economic weapon that could prove more costly than sanctions: the Internal Revenue Service. This summer, the U.S. plans to start using a new law that will make it more expensive for Russian banks to do business in America. […] Long before the Ukraine crisis, Congress approved the law in 2010 to curb tax evasion that relies on overseas accounts. Now, beginning in July, U.S. banks will be required to start withholding a 30 percent tax on certain payments to financial institutions...