Mueller reviewed Manafort testimony on Russian Deripaska

Bloomberg

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and FBI agents seized tens of thousands of items from the home of Paul Manafort and have also reviewed testimony that he gave in a civil lawsuit about a protracted business dispute with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, disclosed his review of the Deripaska-related testimony in a court filing that defended an FBI raid on the home of Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. The disclosure shows the depth of Mueller’s interest in the links between Manafort and Deripaska.
Manafort once worked as a political consultant for Deripaska, who was considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Deripaska then invested $18.9 million with Manafort in a cable-television venture in Ukraine, and paid him $7.35 million in management fees. The deal ultimately soured, and Deripaska sued to try to get an accounting of the money.
Deripaska, the billionaire founder and majority shareholder of En+ Group, was among the most prominent tycoons penalised with sanctions this month by the Trump administration. The move followed passage of a law last year to retaliate against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
Prosecutors have reviewed the 2015 testimony by Manafort and his former right-hand man, Rick Gates,
according to a December 1 letter attached to a filing late Monday in federal court in Washington. The letter broadly listed thousands of items handed over by prosecutors to lawyers for Manafort and Gates in the pre-trial exchange of evidence.
The testimony, which is sealed, wasn’t disclosed. It came in a lawsuit filed by two KPMG LLP partners, Kris Beighton and Alex Lawson, appointed to wind up a Cayman Islands partnership formed to invest in the Ukrainian venture.
Beighton and Lawson asked a federal judge in Virginia for permission to seek documents and testimony from Manafort, Gates and a third man, Richard Davis.
The ultimate resolution of the case is unclear from court filings. Early this year, Deripaska filed a fraud lawsuit against Manafort and Gates. Manafort now faces two indictments, but neither accuses him of crimes related to Russia.
In the Washington indictment, Manafort’s charged with laundering profits from tens of millions of dollars that he made as a political consultant to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and other politicians there, as well as of failing to register in the US as a lobbyist.
In Alexandria, Virginia, he’s accused of tax and bank fraud. Gates has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mueller.
In a court filing earlier this month, prosecutors said that any investigation of links between Russia and the Trump campaign “would naturally cover ties that a former Trump
campaign manager had to Russian-associated political operatives, Russian-backed politicians, and Russian oligarchs.” Prosecutors said they properly searched Manafort’s home after learning about its contents from an employee, according to the filing.
The letter showed that prosecutors gave Manafort and Gates search warrant applications, emails, bank accounts, computers and other devices. Both Gates and Manafort had been interviewed by US authorities in 2014.

Rusal nationalisation possible as Kremlin cautious on US move
Bloomberg

Russia’s government could take over United Co. Rusal temporarily to save the metals giant from the impact of US sanctions, a senior official said as the Kremlin struck a skeptical tone about Washington’s decision to ease some limits on the company. “That’s not being ruled out, but there haven’t been any concrete discussions about it,” Industry Minister Denis Manturov said in response to a question about the possibility of a temporary takeover by the state or a government-owned bank of the stake owned by sanctioned billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
Manturov’s comments came a day after the US Treasury announced that it was giving US and other companies another five months to wind down contracts with Rusal and would consider the Russian company’s appeal to be removed from the sanctions list. Rusal could get a reprieve if Deripaska, the main target of the sanctions, relinquishes control, according to the Treasury.
Russia’s government and business elite were shocked when Deripaska and Rusal were hit with the sanctions and have struggled to come up with ways to protect Rusal, which employs more than 60,000 people and is a major exporter.