On Sept. 3, Lanny J. Davis, an attorney representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, published a PR piece on the internet site “Real Clear Defense” in which he hoped to show that “Dmytro Firtash Is Innocent – and He Can Help Improve Ukraine-U.S. Relations.” Unfortunately, that PR balloon huffed, puffed, fizzled and flopped. He failed to make a case for Firtash’s “innocence” and he did not even attempt to explain how Firtash could “improve Ukraine-U.S. Relations.”
The next day Daryna Antoniuk was chosen by Kyiv Post staff to respond to the PR piece by showing its flaws and naming Davis as “Ukraine’s foe of the week” for whitewashing Firtash and making him look like a “victimized choir boy rather than the shady, Kremlin-connected businessman” that both the Ukrainian and American governments find him to be.
Davis then wrote a scathing “letter” to the Post objecting to his new moniker as “foe of Ukraine” and “challenging” Antoniuk to “cite a single factual error” in his column. He doubled down in supporting Firtash, and accused her of a “hit piece” by making a “defamatory, baseless accusation against (Firtash),” questioned her journalistic integrity, and her “innuendo.” He ended his diatribe by calling on the Kyiv Post editor to “correct the record” and sign up to fact-checking principles.
In the remainder of this op-ed, I will show how Davis’s PR piece and his letter to the editor is so full of fluff, innuendoes, non-sequiturs, and misinformation that he must be playing his readers for fools. I will address five of his key points. Undoubtedly, Davis will disagree, but he is obliged to do so because he is paid to represent his client in the best possible light, and to extricate him from the position in which he now finds himself – that of a fugitive from justice.
- Firtash’s business connections with mobsters and organized crime
Davis’s dismissive attitude to an eight-page cable of a meeting with U.S. Ambassador William Taylor, and his allegation that a business rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, is the sole source for spreading “lies” about mob connections is remarkable because the cable contains Firtash’s own several admissions of association with mobsters, especially Seymon Mogilevich. (Taylor is famed for a small notebook he carries with him, in which he takes copious notes on meetings and conversations, and the cable reveals his specific interest in Firtash’s mob connections). Firtash acknowledged ties to Russian organized crime kingpin Mogilevich, stating he needed, and received, permission from him to establish various businesses. He justified that he would not have been able to build a business if he did not deal with organized crime members.
A column (Married to the Ukrainian Mob) in the March 19, 2014, highly respected “Foreign Policy” publication revealed that those early business connections did not consist simply in seeking permission from the crime boss. When he and his wife expanded their business into “High Rock Holdings,” in the late 1990s, Igor Fisherman, reputed to be Mogilevich’s right-hand man, became the company’s financial director. The column also disclosed a number of 3rd party links to both Mogilevich and Firtash, including the sharing of an Israeli attorney, Zeev Gordon. There was even one (u-named) company where “both men were directors at the same time.”
2. U.S. grand jury indictment – “as easy as a ham sandwich?”
Davis breezily sweeps away the credibility to be given to a federal grand jury indictment with a lawyer’s bar-room joke that it is as easy to get an indictment as it is to indict a ham sandwich.
A federal grand jury proceeding consists of 16-23 jurors who may meet over a period of many months to review the evidence, listen to witnesses and government attorneys, ask questions, and request additional investigation before deciding that they heard enough to warrant a finding that the government has “probable cause” (by a preponderance of the evidence) to charge the accused with the crime and proceed to trial. Although the government is required to provide evidence that simply supports its position, and defense attorneys are not permitted to be present, the accused parties may be allowed to testify on their behalf. However, this is not relevant here because all of them headed for the tall grass.
The point is that a grand jury proceeding takes lots of preparation, and is taken seriously by prosecutors and jurors even if not by Davis or courthouse wags. This fact is further borne out by recent findings of the Pew Research Center showing that of nearly 80,000 federal criminal defendants more than 91% pled guilty and 8% of the cases were dismissed. Less than 1% went to trial and won. The odds that an indictment would fail to result in a guilty pleading or verdict (“beyond all reasonable doubt”) are very, very small.
3. Firtash involvement with Giuliani in digging up dirt on Biden and son.
Time magazine (4/29/21) reported that “Firtash developed close ties with Giuliani’s associates in the summer of 2019, hiring several of them to work on his legal team.”
Reuters (10/11/19): “Lev Parnas, one of two associates of Rudy Giuliani, served as a translator for lawyers representing oligarch Dmytro Firtash…Parnas said the oligarch’s involvement stemmed from an explicit quid pro quo. In exchange for Firtash’s help in their effort to damage Joe Biden, he assured the oligarch they would make his U.S. legal troubles disappear.
NBC News (1/25/20): Parnas’s wife received wire transfers totaling $1 million from Russia sent by one of Dmytro Firtash’s lawyers.
These are merely a few of the numerous disclosures by very credible sources that Firtash was neck-deep in helping Giuliani find dirt against Biden…even if they never met directly.
4. Charge of bribery of Indian officials to obtain mining license?
Davis is right in stating that Firtash and his merry band are not charged with bribery. They are charged with several more serious crimes: engaging in an international racketeering conspiracy (involving a scheme of $18.5 million in bribes for Indian officials); conspiring to commit money laundering; interstate travel in aid of racketeering activity; and violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to the indictment, Firtash was the leader of this “enterprise.”
As regards Davis’s assertion of his client’s innocence and the several challenges he lists to the legal basis for the charges — that is mere hokum. Firtash had the opportunity, by way of a motion, to challenge the indictment on all the grounds that Davis put forward in his PR piece. The government provided a 115-page response and the court ruled in its favor.
5. Is the arrest and extradition request politically motivated?
Davis relies exclusively, on “innuendo” to support his position that Firtash’s arrest and request for extradition is politically motivated. It appears that the only basis that Davis and the Austrian court have in supporting their entirely speculative allegation is the timing of State Department requests. However, the more important question is “so what”? Since when does the government’s motivation in bringing a charge against a party accused of the crime invalidate the crime itself? This decision by the Austrian lower court merely raises the question of that court’s motivation. The appropriate venue in which those claims should be determined, if they are to have any validity at all on the outcome, is in a jury trial in a U.S. court.
In conclusion, we can expect Davis to do the best for his client.
He is a gifted attorney, a lobbyist, a commentator, a “crisis manager” and even has a PR team at his disposal – a veritable “one-stop-shop” for anyone who ends up on the wrong side of the law or needs a new, synthetic identity of respectability.
But he should not expect that those – like Antoniuk or Brian Bonner or Ukrainians in general – who have followed Firtash’s sullied activities over a quarter-century, and who now see him using his huge wealth to resist having his day in court, to welcome those who enable fugitives from justice to continue running. Nor should Davis expect Ukrainians to take him seriously when he makes such incongruous, “fact-free” declarations that Firtash is innocent and can help improve Ukraine-U.S. relations. It is Davis who owes Antoniuk, Bonner, and Post readers an apology.
