Comment by xlm1717 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xlm1717 | Hacker News Reader

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They don't just have ties, John Podesta is Clinton's campaign chairman. And the Podestas aren't just lobbying for Russia's biggest bank. As the article states, the majority shareholder in Sberbank is the Russian Central Bank. From the Wikipedia page on Sberbank of Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia#Ownership):

"The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, owning 50%+1 voting share of Sberbank's voting shares."

Effectively, the Russian Central Bank controls Sberbank, but ostensibly Sberbank is a private institution. The Podesta Group registered as a lobbyist for Sberbank, which effectively gives the Russian Central Bank a lobbyist in Washington. If the Russian Central Bank had registered directly with the Podesta Group, as the article states the Podesta Group would have to register as agents of the Russian government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The wikipedia page on the Foreign Agents Registration Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...) states:

"...[requires] that agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. The purpose is to facilitate "evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons.""

Arguably, the Podesta Group is not facilitating evaluation of statements its making on behalf of Sberbank, and by extension the Russian Central Bank, because it registered as a lobbyist for a bank controlled by a state-owned bank. The Russians suffered heavy sanctions recently. It doesn't stretch the imagination that the Podesta Group received money from Russia to lobby Washington to drop those sanctions.

As the article states towards the end, if Clinton wins the election, John Podesta stands to gain a position of power in a Clinton administration. If John Podesta benefited from money provided by a foreign government (again, Sberbank is controlled by the Russian Central Bank), then that's a relationship the Clinton campaign needs to explain.

What is the revelation here though? It seems to me that there are two primary data points in this article:

  - Podesta group lobbies for Sberbank
  - Sberbank is owned by the Russian government

Neither of these things were revealed by the Panama papers, and neither of these things were hidden by any of the parties involved. Sberbank is transparent about its ownership by the Russian government, and the Podesta Group registered as its agent of its own accord prior to the leak.

If this were going on in the shadows, maybe there'd be something here, and I grant you that it's slightly unsettling that they have access to such a powerful lobbying firm. But isn't that sort of the point of running a lobbying firm? You lobby for who hires you, and the politicians you lobby are aware of that and take what you have to say with the appropriate grains of salt.

> Neither of these things were revealed by the Panama papers

are you sure? The article says that

  Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s
  biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

so I wonder if you have a reference to back your statement?

Also, you say

> Sberbank is owned by the Russian government

but this is not the point of the article. They are saying that Sberbank is controlled by the Russian government, which is subtly different.

From the article: "As reported at the end of March, the Podesta Group registered with the U.S. Government as a lobbyist for Sberbank, as required by law"

And are those things different? Maybe Russian corporate law is different than it is in the US, but owning 51% of a company generally gives you control of that company, unless there are weird share structures like non-voting shares a la Google. But generally speaking, majority ownership and control are synonymous.

Sberbank is owned by the Russian government.

It's not the fact that Sberbank is simply "owned" by the Russian government that should be of interest; its what Sberbank does for the Russian government.

And it is these activities that the recent leaks have shed significant light on.

I agree that what it does for the Russian government is very shady, but it doesn't seem like much of that was revealed by the Panama Papers. This article makes a lot of accusations, but almost all of them are things that preceded this leak.

The only thing actually revealed by the Panama Papers in this article, as far as I can tell is this:

"As reported this week by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of journalists exploring the Panama Papers leak, Sberbank and Troika Dialog are used by members of Mr. Putin’s inner circle to shift public funds into sometimes questionable private investments"

Which isn't great, but is hardly groundbreaking news.

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