Max Blumenthal reports on thethink tank’s shady arrangement with Burisma, the gas company at the center of “Ukrainegate.”

By Max Blumenthal

The Grayzone

With its relentless focus on corruption in Russia and Ukraine, theAtlantic Councilhas distinguished itself from other top-flight think tanks in Washington. Over the past several years, it has held innumerable conferences and panel discussions, issued a string of reports, and published literally hundreds of essays on Russia’s “kleptocracy” and the scourge of Kremlin disinformation.

At the same time, this institution has posed as a faithful partner to Ukraine’s imperiled democracy, organizing countless programs on the urgency of economic reforms to tamp down on corruption in the country.

But behind the curtain, the Atlantic Council has initiated a lucrative relationship with a corruption-tainted Ukrainian gas company, theBurisma Group, that is worth as much as $250,000 a year. The partnership has paid for lavish conferences in Monaco and helped bring Burisma’s oligarchic founder out of the cold.

This alliance has remained stable even as official Washington goes to war over allegations by President Donald Trump and his allies that former Vice President Joseph Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor to defend his son’s handsomely compensated position on Burisma’s board.

As Biden parries Trump’s accusations, some of the former vice president’s most ardent defenders are emerging from the halls of the Atlantic Council, which featured Biden as a star speaker at its awards ceremonies over the years. These advocates include Michael Carpenter, Biden’s longtime foreign policy advisor and specialist on Ukraine, who has taken to the national media to support his embattled boss.

Even as Burisma’s trail of influence-buying finds its way into front page headlines, the Atlantic Council’s partnership with the company is scarcely mentioned. Homing in on the partisan theater of “Ukrainegate” and tuning out the wider landscape of corruption, the Beltway press routinely runs quotes from Atlantic Council experts on the scandal without acknowledging their employer’s relationship with Hunter Biden’s former employer.

This case of obvious cronyism has not been overlooked because the Atlantic Council is a bit player, but because of its success in leveraging millions from foreign governments, the arms and energy industries, and Western-friendly oligarchs to bring its influence to bear in the nation’s capital.

NATO’s Think Tank in Washington

The Atlantic Council functions as the semi-official think tank of NATO in Washington. As such, it cultivates relationships with well-established policymakers who take a hard line against Russia and support the treaty organization’s perpetual expansion.

Biden has been among the think tank’s most enthusiastic and well-placed allies.

In 2011, then-Vice President Biden delivered the keynote address at the Atlantic Council’s distinguished leadership awards. He returned to the think tank again in 2014 for another keynote at its “Toward A Europe Whole and Free” conference, which was dedicated to expanding NATO’s influence and countering “Russian aggression.” Throughout the event, speakers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser, sniped at President Barack Obama for his insufficiently bellicose posture toward Russia, while former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fretted over polls showing low public support for U.S. interventionism overseas

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/14/dcs-atlantic-council-raked-in-funding-from-hunter-bidens-corruption-stained-ukrainian-employer-while-courting-his-vp-father/

Like anon said earlier, we fund all these fuckers to destroy us

Massive Amount of Biden Corruption articleswith Ukraine with Consortium News

https://consortiumnews.com/?s=Biden+corruption+Ukraine

The Hushed-Up Hitler Factor in Ukraine

August 16, 2014

Behind the Ukraine crisis is a revision of World War II history that seeks to honor eastern European collaborators with Hitler and the Holocaust by repackaging these rightists as anti-Soviet heroes, a reality shielded from the U.S. public, as Dovid Katz explains.

By Dovid Katz

Would America support any type of Hitlerism in the course of the State Department’s effort to turn the anti-Russian political classes of Eastern Europe into paragons of PR perfection that may not be criticized, howsoever mildly?

It was frankly disconcerting to see Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, embracing the leader of Ukraine’s far right, anti-Semitic, pro-fascist Svoboda party last December. It was disturbing to learn of the neo-Nazi elements that provided the “muscle” for the actual Maidan takeover last February (BBC’s Newsnight was among the few major Western outlets to dare cover that openly)……

That is not to say that America’s allies among the western Ukrainian nationalists are all pro-fascist. They are not. But there are two salient issues that go beyond Ukraine and cover all of “anti-Russian” Eastern Europe, particularly the new member states of NATO and the EU.

The first is casual acceptance of neo-Nazi elements, symbolism and ideology as part of any kind of supposedly centrist mainstream. In Latvia and Estonia, this is exemplified by tacit (or not so tacit) state support for honors for those countries’ Waffen SS divisions. In Lithuania, it can be manifest in state-sponsored shrines to the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) killers who unleashed the Holocaust on Jewish neighbors before the first German soldiers had quite arrived.

But there is a second issue that is much deeper, and has nothing to do with these more ostentatious kinds of Nazi worship. That issue is history.

‘History’ Alive

While World War II is indeed “history” for the West, it is very much part of Now in Eastern Europe. State-sponsored institutions in the three Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, especially, and also at times in Croatia, Romania and elsewhere have invested a fortune in a kind of Holocaust revisionism that would whitewash their own nationalists’ collaboration with Hitler and turn the Soviet Union into the real Hitler.

Known as “Double Genocide,” it posits the absolute theoretical equality of Nazi and Soviet crimes. Its constitution is the 2008 “Prague Declaration,” which most Americans have never heard of, that sports the word “same” five times in reference to Nazi and Soviet crimes. Even fewer Americans know that one of its demands, that the world accept a unitary mix-and-match day of remembrance for Nazi and Soviet victims, was snuck under the radar into last June’s congressional military appropriations bill.

The issue across the board is the choice made by nationalist elites in Eastern Europe to construct national myths not on the merits of a country’s great artists, poets, thinkers and genuine freedom fighters, but all too often, on the basis of Nazi collaborators whose claim to fame is that they were also “anti-Soviet patriots.”

The fact of the matter is that virtually all of Hitler’s collaborators in Eastern Europe were “anti-Soviet.” In fact, the Soviet Union was the only power putting up resistance to Hitler in Eastern Europe. If the Soviets had not pushed the Nazi armies back by the spring of 1944, at huge sacrifice to all the Soviet peoples, there would have been no D-Day or opening of a Western front.

Whether it is hero-worship of Hungary’s Miklós Horthy, leaders of Croatia’s Hitlerist Ustasha, the Nazis’ Waffen SS divisions in Latvia and Estonia, or the likes of Ukraine’s Bandera and his OUN and UPA, and the Waffen SS, it is an offense to Western values that a NATO or EU state, or NATO/EU-aspiring state, would disburse state funds on the distortion of history, obfuscation of the Holocaust and construction of societies that admire the worst of history’s racists.

To do so quite simply implies that all the minority citizens they butchered, or whose butchering they supported, were quite unworthy of continued existence. Incidentally, all these countries have real heroes from that darkest moment in their history: those (often the simplest of people) who just did the right thing and risked all to rescue a neighbor from the Nazist establishment collaborationist leadership of their own nationalists…..more

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/16/the-hushed-up-hitler-factor-in-ukraine/

>>15709668

So is this why he has at least 4 parody accounts on twitter? I think so

>>15709668

Hey remember that article that mentioned Trump used SS guys phone to call Melania after Comey came to see him…kek.

Did they figure out a way to make it safe?

Kinda funny thinking about all the ways he communicates

>>15709662

Why is Zeldin repeating garbage? Chavetz on Fox was losing his mind. They surely must know more than we do? Kek

>>15709658

Oh man, anons said it yesterday theyll bring Russian nuclear war rumors into this…and they did

>>15709614

Please take this guy out now

>>15709637

Yeah I was wondering about that, but how did he end up on Consortium, highly rated as far as truth goes. But a lot of leftists flooded the place when Robert Parry died and son took over 4 years ago. Older articles much better than now

>>15709617

Kerry’s stepson was involved with Hunter but parted ways when they went on Burisma Board. The stepson is still deep in shit in Ukraine he didnt want to be so obvious, that’s all

>>15709604

Kerry’s stepson was partnered with Hunter (different business think Bohai). He didnt think it was cool to be on the board of Burisma, so he separated from at least one partnership. Kerry has to have assets involved in Ukraine, so theres probably something the stepson is involved in Ukraine. Kerry wouldnt miss out on that corruption

>>15709581

Neither the US or NATO can go in, Congress made it clear to Bidan he cannot enter war without congress approval

Damn, this might be the event that brings NATO down! Original idea of Trump when he to WH, instead he had to pivot until 2nd term because of the outrage. But he got billions from them.

Doesnt seem like Germany is concerned about Ukraine, none of EU sent weapons to Ukraine, theres a reason for that. Cant have everyday Ukrainians taking out the cabal.

>>15709568

Pompeo war mongerer. He opposed Trump as much as he helped. He should never be president

Once CIA always CIA. But hes got an impressive record

>>15709544

He got that from Trump

>>15710018

Golly they are ALL freaking because they are losing billions as we speak

Makes me wonder about Zelden now

>>15709539

>>15710013

Agreed his history is fascinating

>>15710070

So true, I’ve met a lot at the building I work in. Mainly people are exhausted from the lies when they see our economy and country suffering while admin pounds for war. Even my oldest brother is questioning just a little bit.

>>15710058

You could be right but the article was anti nazi not anti soviet, it was old though from 2014

>>15710139

Agreed, some very upset shillys here today

>>15710118

I think when the dust settles we’ll see trillions laundered through Ukraine, they’ve diverted the money from every peacekeeping effort WW. Remember Q said about Afghanistan no one audits themselves

>>15710106

Kinda funny since Russia is making billions from LNG to EU, those sanctions are BS

>>15710106

>>15710091

I bet they are going in and getting the“Servers Too”. All those servers will be the final straw.

God this is fun