Oligarch Kenes Rakishev Named In New Trump Election Interference Case

Sater claims that the cam­paign against him­self and Trump was coor­di­nat­ed by Kenes Rakishev and Karim Massimov, who was arrest­ed for trea­son by the Kazakh author­i­ties in January.

Kenes Rakishev, one of Kazakhstan’s high­est-pro­file busi­ness­men, has been named in an explo­sive new legal case that alleges for­eign inter­fer­ence in the 2016 US Presidential election.

Rakishev is accused of act­ing as a “hench­man” and “wal­let” for Kazakhstan’s for­mer prime min­is­ter Karim Massimov in a plot to under­mine Donald Trump’s 2016 elec­tion campaign.

The alle­ga­tions are con­tained in a com­plaint brought by Felix Sater, a for­mer senior advi­sor to President Trump and a financier who helped bankroll the Trump Soho tower.

Sater is suing BTA Bank, which is owned by Rakishev, the City of Almaty in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh Government and a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tion firm called Arcanum.

According to the law­suit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York fed­er­al court, Sater was hired by the defen­dants to help recov­er bil­lions of dol­lars stolen from BTA Bank by its pre­vi­ous own­er Mukhtar Ablyazov.

However, Sater alleges that this arrange­ment was mere­ly a cov­er to hide the Kazakhs’ true intent, which was to dig dirt on Sater and then use it to harm Trump’s elec­tion bid.

The law­suit states: “Arcanum and the Kazakh Parties, under the guise of work­ing togeth­er with Sater pur­suant to a con­fi­den­tial assis­tance agree­ment signed in June 2015 for Sater to help recov­er assets belong­ing to fugi­tive Kazakh oli­garch Mukhtar Ablyazov and his asso­ciates, con­spired to leak false and defam­a­to­ry infor­ma­tion about Sater to media out­lets includ­ing ABC News. This was part of a con­cert­ed effort to false­ly (and absurd­ly) por­tray Sater, a long­time busi­ness part­ner of Donald Trump, as a Russian agent and Kremlin stooge.”

Sater was a key wit­ness in Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Russian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion. A leaked 2015 email writ­ten by Sater implied that he would arrange for Vladimir Putin to help Trump’s elec­tion bid as part of a scheme to build a Trump tow­er in Moscow.

Sater claims that rather than being a stooge for the Kremlin, his work for US intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment agen­cies meant that the Russians want­ed to exe­cute him for treason.

The law­suit states: “Felix Sater is a leg­endary fig­ure in the U.S. Intelligence Community. He is known for risk­ing his life con­duct­ing espi­onage oper­a­tions against North Korea, Taliban- con­trolled Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Russia and Russian hack­ing net­works, includ­ing oper­a­tions he exe­cut­ed on the ground in Russia and Afghanistan.”

Sater claims that the cam­paign against him­self and Trump was coor­di­nat­ed by Kenes Rakishev and Karim Massimov, who was arrest­ed for trea­son by the Kazakh author­i­ties in January.

“Massimov and Rakishev were active­ly seek­ing influ­ence with American politi­cians,” the law­suit states. “In 2016, they believed that they would be reward­ed for help­ing the Hillary Clinton cam­paign (who was con­sid­ered cer­tain to win the elec­tion) by smear­ing Sater and Trump. Massimov and Rakishev’s efforts to cur­ry favor with promi­nent American politi­cians includ­ed lav­ish­ing mon­ey on Hunter Biden, who called Rakishev a ‘close friend’.” 

According to a US Senate inves­ti­ga­tion, Rakishev paid $142,300 to a com­pa­ny run by a close friend of Hunter Biden. Rakishev also invest­ed in deals intro­duced by Biden.

The law­suit states: “Rakishev is reput­ed to have raped under­age girls in Russia and orga­nized “no holds barred” fight­ing con­tests involv­ing eight-year-old chil­dren. The Russian author­i­ties refused to inves­ti­gate these crimes because Rakishev was under Massimov’s pro­tec­tion and also because Rakishev’s father-in-law (Imangali Tasmagambetov), Kazakhstan’s ambas­sador to Russia, inter­vened to stop the investigation.”

Rakishev has also been linked to fig­ures involved in a January upris­ing in Kazakhstan and is report­ed­ly close friends with Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechnya who has been accused of human rights abuses.

Sater has brought his law­suit as a coun­ter­claim to a 2019 com­plaint filed by BTA Bank and the Kazakh author­i­ties. That claim alleges that Sater stole mon­ey from BTA.

Matthew Schwartz, a part­ner at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner and coun­sel for BTA Bank and the City of Almaty, said: “Felix Sater’s fil­ing is noth­ing more than con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and des­per­a­tion dressed up like a law­suit. We are con­fi­dent that the court will see through his tactics.”

Original source of arti­cle: www.legalreader.com