XPost: alt.culture.alaska, alt.global-warming   
   From: bksperman@outlook.com   
      
   Last week, Tony Podesta, an eminence in the annals of Washington   
   lobbying, threw one of his signature events, a big birthday bash   
   at his stately stone manse in Kalorama. His guests thought he   
   was on top of his world, one of the men who makes the city go.   
      
   On Monday, hours after the first indictments in the   
   investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and   
   the Russian government, Podesta abruptly quit his post atop the   
   Podesta Group, the capital’s eighth-wealthiest lobbying firm.   
      
   Podesta’s departure came as the indictments of former Trump   
   campaign chief Paul Manafort and his business partner, Rick   
   Gates, raised questions about the work Podesta’s firm did with   
   Manafort to buff the image of the Ukrainian government. Podesta,   
   74, said he was quitting because of the barrage of criticism   
   he’s been getting as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III   
   pursues the investigation.   
      
   “It is impossible to run a public affairs firm while you are   
   under attack by Fox News and the right wing media,” Podesta told   
   employees at the Podesta Group offices on Monday, according to a   
   person familiar with his remarks.   
      
   For decades, Tony and John Podesta — brothers who share a Jesuit   
   education, a devotion to liberal causes and a passion for   
   politics — have been central players in Washington. And in the   
   past year, both have been drawn into the orbit of scandals.   
      
   Tony’s Podesta Group is one of two firms described in Monday’s   
   indictment as having been recruited by Manafort and Gates to   
   lobby on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of   
   Ukraine who fled to Moscow in 2014, according to people familiar   
   with the company’s involvement. Federal prosecutors have accused   
   Manafort of creating a scheme to mislead the government about   
   his secret work for a Ukrainian political leader.   
      
   Both the Podesta Group and the other firm, Mercury Public   
   Affairs, have said they were hired to lobby for a European   
   nonprofit based in Brussels trying to polish Ukraine’s image in   
   the West. But behind the scenes, prosecutors allege, the real   
   client was a political party led by the former Ukraine   
   president, who was friendly with Russia.   
      
   John Podesta, a longtime Democratic adviser who led the   
   presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, has spent the past   
   year coping with the publication by Wikileaks of tens of   
   thousands of his emails, which were hacked by someone using a   
   computer with an address in Ukraine. The release of those emails   
   ensnared him in the ornate conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate,   
   in which some anti-Clinton activists came to believe, without   
   evidence, that sexually abused children were being hidden below   
   a pizza place in Northwest Washington — and that John Podesta   
   was involved with satanic rituals there, a notion that police   
   said was bogus.   
      
   In an emailed statement Monday, John Podesta said, “I view being   
   attacked by Donald Trump and right wing media as a badge of   
   honor.”   
      
   To their opponents, the Podestas are quintessential swamp rats,   
   exemplars of the permanent Washington establishment. Their   
   defenders, however, view them as the oil that makes the gears of   
   government turn.   
      
   “Advocacy is an important part of our process and it’s an   
   honorable profession,” said former senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.),   
   now a lobbyist. “Both Podestas have been enormously successful,   
   but we’re in as toxic an environment as anyone living today has   
   ever seen. The quality of governance has suffered immensely as a   
   result.”   
      
   The brothers, although close, are quite different.   
      
   “Tony is more gregarious and outgoing, and John is more   
   introspective and quiet, but they are brothers and they are   
   still close,” said Ron Klain, who was chief of staff to vice   
   presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore. “John is the eminence grise of   
   the Democratic Party, and all the efforts by Republicans and   
   completely crazy people to discredit him have not changed that.”   
      
   Tony Podesta has been a pivotal figure in the murky connections   
   between policy and politics, becoming wealthy on fees from   
   industries and foreign entities that want something from   
   Congress and the White House. He also bundles big donations and   
   dispenses them to politicians who might someday be helpful to   
   those lobbying clients.   
      
   He and his former wife, Heather Podesta, held lavish fundraisers   
   for Democratic candidates at their home, which boasted a world-   
   class art collection and a wine cellar with thousands of   
   bottles. The Podesta brothers’ mother made the pesto. Tony   
   dressed the part of a man in full; he sported eye-catching   
   neckties and red Prada loafers. “The pope wears Prada,” he once   
   told a reporter, “and so do I.”   
      
   (Heather and Tony split up several years ago; according to court   
   records and news reports, they spent 109 hours with a mediator   
   before coming to a settlement on how to divide their art and   
   other properties.)   
      
   Although the brothers created their lobbying firm together in   
   1988, John Podesta has spent most of his career inside   
   government. He had several jobs in Congress and was President   
   Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and counselor to President Barack   
   Obama.   
      
   “They’re brothers, but they chose different roads to go down to   
   craft good public policy,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who   
   knows both Podestas.   
      
   Tony Podesta worked on a string of losing Democratic   
   presidential campaigns — from Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 bid on   
   through Hubert Humphrey, Ed Muskie, George McGovern, Ted   
   Kennedy, Walter Mondale and finally Michael Dukakis in 1988.   
      
   That’s when the brothers created Podesta Associates, which   
   became the Podesta Group, representing some of the country’s   
   biggest and most powerful businesses, including Walmart, Bank of   
   America and BP. (The Washington Post employed the firm in the   
   early 2000s, when it was part of a public company controlled by   
   the Graham family, then-owners of The Post.)   
      
   The Podesta Group collected $252 million in fees over the past   
   two decades, according to data compiled by the Center for   
   Responsive Politics. This year, the firm’s top clients are   
   Mylan, a pharmaceutical company; Wells Fargo; Crawford Group,   
   the parent of Enterprise car rentals; and Lockheed Martin, the   
   defense contractor, according to federal records.   
      
   Along the way, the firm also represented a number of foreign   
   entities, including the government of Egypt under ex-dictator   
   Hosni Mubarak.   
      
   “More and more, foreign countries turn to lobbyists to do work   
   that diplomats once did themselves,” said James Thurber, a   
   government professor at American University who studies   
   lobbying. “Things have gotten so much more complex in the last   
   thirty years in the business that foreign companies and foreign   
   countries do in Washington.”   
      
   Monday’s indictments described a multitiered arrangement in   
   which Manafort and Gates are alleged to have pulled the strings   
   as the other firms, cited only as Company A and Company B, were   
   the publicly acknowledged lobbyists for the Brussels group.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)