47
^
Deripaska, founder of the Russian
aluminum giant Rusal, in a Moscow
hotel suite on March 27, 2019The man in charge of lobbying against
the sanctions was Lord Gregory Barker
of Battle, a British aristocrat. Even while
serving in the House of Lords, Barker
had agreed in 2017 to chair Deripaska’s
conglomerate. Soon it fell to the former
U.K. Minister for Energy and Climate
Change to draft a strategy to free Rusal
from sanctions by distancing the com-
pany from its owner. Dubbed the Barker
Plan, it enlisted the bipartisan U.S. lob-
bying firm Mercury Public Affairs to help
win over Washington, at a fee of $108,500
per month, according to filings.
Mercury handed the assignment to a
team of D.C. insiders that included for-
mer GOP Senator David Vitter and for-
mer Trump campaign aide Bryan Lanza.
(Barker, Lanza and Vitter declined inter-
view requests from TIME.) In marathon
talks with the Treasury Department, the
lobbyists argued the U.S. had made a mis-
take in going after Rusal, former Treasury
officials say. Allies in Europe agreed. Am-
bassadors from Germany, France, the U.K.
and other E.U. states urged U.S. officials to
ease the sanctions on Rusal and its parent
company. They argued in a January 2019
letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck
Schumer that “the livelihoods of 75,000workers across the European Union” de-
pend on it. “The sanctions hurt everyone,”
Deripaska wrote in an email to TIME on
Aug. 13.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
came around to this logic. Ahead of G-20
meetings in July 2018, he told Reuters the
goal was “not to put Rusal out of busi-
ness.” So Rusal dangled a deal, offering to
“permanently remove” Deripaska’s con-
trol over the firm by lowering his own-
ership stake to less than 50%, according
to documents reviewed by TIME. After
some discussions, Deripaska’s stake in
Rusal’s parent company was reduced from
70% to 45%, with some of the difference
going to family members and professional
associates. A few days before Christmas,
the Trump Administration announced it
intended to lift the sanctions.
To some experts, it was a logical end
to the face-off. “It was a reasonable deal,”
says Brian O’Toole, a former sanctions ex-
pert at the Treasury Department under
President Obama, “because the collateraldamage of keeping that company under
sanctions was so dramatic.” Under the
deal to lift sanctions on Rusal, Deripaska,
his family and his close associates are also
barred from using their shares to influ-
ence the company or to benefit from it.
But opponents of the deal say it’s
laughable to believe Deripaska’s influ-
ence is really gone. “Ownership is the
wrong test,” says Senator Mark Warner,
a Virginia Democrat, arguing that Deri-
paska maintains influence over Rusal. Led
by Schumer, Senators from both parties
moved to block Treasury from lifting the
sanctions. Yet Rusal had a powerful ally in
McConnell, who backed Treasury’s move.
In recent weeks, McConnell has been
taunted by protesters in Washington, on
social media and back home, who have la-
beled him “Moscow Mitch” for his refusal
to bring election- security legislation to a
vote. It’s a moniker that has stuck in Ken-
tucky, where Democrats started selling
JusT say nyeT To moscow miTch mer-
chandise, including Cossack hats. McCon-
nell has slammed critics and the media for
“modern-day McCarthyism” and says his
record proves he has been tough on Russia.
Critics also seized on McConnell’s links
to Blavatnik, a dual U.S. and U.K. citizen
who is one of Rusal’s biggest shareholders.
Born in the Soviet Union and naturalized
in the U.S. in 1984, he earned most of his
fortune, estimated by Forbes at $16.5 bil-
lion, as a partner to Deripaska and other
Russian oil and metals tycoons. His fam-
ily has donated to both Republicans and
Democrats. But in recent years, his compa-
nies have been especially generous to the
GOP. Those contributions have since in-
cluded a total of $3.5 million to the Senate
Leadership Fund, a super PAC run by Mc-
Connell’s former chief of staff, according
to Federal Election Commission data. The
money helped Republicans keep control
of the Senate in the 2018 elections, secur-
ing McConnell’s perch as majority leader.
In a Jan. 15 floor speech, McConnell
insisted the deal with Treasury “would
continue limiting” Deripaska’s influ-
ence over Rusal and noted that Treasury
could reimpose sanctions at any time.
The Senate vote on Rusal came the next
day. Eleven Republicans joined 46 Dem-
ocrats in voting to uphold the sanctions,
but it wasn’t enough. The critics needed
a 60-vote supermajority to override the
EMILE DUCKE—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX Trump Administration but fell short by