For the Ukrainians, that changed the political equation be-
hind the deal. “If Biden is elected, I’d say Biden’s [team] would
be pretty curious, to say the least,” about how the deal with
LNGE came together, says the official involved in Ukraine’s
deliberations. “In terms of relationships, that would be very
damaging,” adds the official. “Given the latest [poll] numbers,
that’s simply a stupid thing to do,” he says.
Perry’s allies found themselves getting the cold shoulder.
Six months after the Zelensky government named Bensh to
the board of Naftogaz, he has yet to officially take up that post.
Bleyzer, Perry’s friend from Texas, hasn’t fared much better.
Soon after he won the licenses to develop oil and gas fields
in Ukraine in June 2019, Naftogaz challenged the awarding
of those licenses in court. Ukraine’s government, which owns
100% of Naftogaz, has declined to interfere in the litigation,
which has prevented Bleyzer’s oil and gas projects from get-
ting off the ground.
As for Energy Transfer, during the heat of the impeachment
investigation in October 2019, the Ukrainian parliament de-
cided that selling the country’s gas pipelines wasn’t such a great
idea, and it voted to ban foreign ownership of those pipelines.
The global collapse in gas prices during the COVID-19 pan-
demic, meanwhile, hit Energy Transfer hard. Its plans to build
an LNG-export terminal in Louisiana took a blow at the end of
March 2020, when Shell, its 50-50 partner in the project, de-
cided to pull out, citing adverse market conditions.
Some of the executives in Louisiana are furious over the
foot-dragging in Kyiv, and they put the blame on Naftogaz.
In emails obtained by our reporting team, Miller, the direc-
tor and co-founder of the Louisiana company, lashed out
at Naftogaz for telling the government in Kyiv about Mill-
er’s overturned conviction on corruption charges. “This
is the guy who went to the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY?”
Miller wrote indignantly to his colleagues, referring to An-
driy Kobolyev, the Naftogaz CEO. Indeed, the U.S. attorney’s
office for New York’s Southern District had contacted Ko-
bolyev in the fall of 2019, and he says he agreed to speak to
its investigators. Those investigators have since questioned
at least three other people about Perry’s efforts to secure gas
deals in Ukraine, according to the people familiar with what
they told the investigators.
But earlier this year, prosecutors dropped that line of ques-
tioning, according to two people familiar with the questions
they have posed since April. Noah Bookbinder, a former anti-
corruption prosecutor with whom we shared our findings,
says U.S. laws make prosecuting conflicts of interest difficult.
“Criminal conflicts of interest are not charged all that fre-
quently, because they can be hard to prove,” he says. “It’s got
a relatively modest sentence. So often prosecutors will look
at that and say, ‘It’s a lot of hard work to prove
that, and it’s not the biggest offense. So we’re not
going to take the time to go down that path.’”
Two years ago, some Democrats called for
tighter restrictions on potential conflicts of in-
terest, and they have pointed to Perry’s relation-
ship with Energy Transfer to justify new legisla-
tion. Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill
in 2018, known as the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity
Act, that would ban corporations from hiring or paying for-
mer heads of agencies they have lobbied. In a letter to Perry
and Energy Transfer last January, Warren urged Perry to re-
sign from Energy Transfer’s board. “This is exactly the kind
of unethical, revolving- door corruption that has made Ameri-
cans cynical and distrustful of the federal government,” War-
ren wrote. In a curt reply, the company told Warren it was
“fully aware of our legal and ethical standards related to Sec-
retary Perry rejoining our board.”
So is the $20 billion deal dead? Not necessarily. The
Ukrainians appear to be waiting to see which way the
political winds turn in November. Should Trump win another
term, some Ukrainians assume Perry’s deal might come back
to life. “Wait three months, and then see what happens,”
says the official involved in the deliberations in Kyiv. “This
is obvious political stuff. You don’t have to be a genius to
understand this logic.”
But for all the Ukrainian efforts to seduce the Americans, some
at least are disappointed with the entire process. They had hoped,
on some level, that the U.S. agenda was still driven by a shared
set of goals and values, like strengthening alliances and pushing
back against the influence of Russia. But over time, says Vitrenko,
the energy negotiator, it became clear that the overarching aims
were simpler and, to the Ukrainians, more familiar. “It was about
making deals,” he says. And making money. —With reporting
by Doris Burke/ProPuBlica, BarBara MaDDux/TiMe and
kaTherine sullivan/WnYc Perry held
energy talks
with Zelensky,
left, in Kyiv on
May 20, 2019