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| Conservative writers get paid for favorable Ukraine stories |
| 2014-02-24 |
| Shades of Malaysia By Chris Covert Rantburg.com According to an internet media outlet report Sunday at least four writers associated with conservative websites and several websites identified with conservatism, denied taking money through a foreign agent to write favorable press about the now deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych two years ago. Although the story was filed Sunday by Buzzfeed writer Rosey Gray back in July of 2013, another website, Boing Boing reissued the story this weekend. Among the websites included in the Buzzfeed story were Breitbart, Red State and Pajamas Media, and four of the writers named in the story included Warner Todd Huston, Breeanne Howe, Ben Shapiro of Breitbart and Seton Motley. According to the story, money and public relations data had flowed from Ukraina through a Belgium conduit identified as the "European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-based group headed by Leonid Khazara, a former senior member of parliament from the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions", according to the Buzzfeed article. One of the reasons that foreign agent registry laws were not invoked were that two American lobbying firms, including the Podesta Group, Clark & Weinstock, were not required to disclose monetary transfers to writers from the foreign government. Because Belgium has far more relaxed disclosure laws, little was mentioned in any of the resulting stories and blog posts of the nexus. Nor were, apparently, direct payments to writers and bloggers who parroted Ukrainian talking points disclosed. According to a Reuters article published last December the Ukrainian front group paid since 2012, $1.46 million to the two firms, with $900,000 going to the Podesta group. The Podesta Group is headed by lobbyist Anthony Podesta, the brother of democratic political fixer John Podesta, who is now working with the White House of Barak Obama. Former Minnesota republican Congressman Vin Weber is the managing partner to Clark & Weinstock lobbying firm. At least one of the basic payments was for $500 for favorable blog posts, but no mention in the Buzzfeed article was made about other transfers for journalistic pieces. One of the American paymasters was identified as George Scoville, a Virginia based political consultant who has published columns about media with the Daily Caller news website. Scoville's name came up in the article when Ben Shapiro, a writer for Breitbart mentioned actually not receiving any money from Scoville for his articles, adding he has received no money from sources other than his employer. A less clear denial was issued by Warner Todd Huston who refused to disclose in the Buzzfeed article who was paying him for his work. While Huston admitted getting pitches for news articles from Scoville -- the only writer mentioned in the article who did admit receiving pitches for stories from Scoville -- he denied he was paid for his work. The Buzzfeed article goes on to mention that at least some Huston's work for the Ukrainians was nearly identical to Shapiro's. Huston's work, according to the Buzzfeed article appeared on "...Family Security Matters, a website that used to be run by the Center for Security Policy, operated by Frank Gaffney. Other [Huston] posts appeared on small sites like Right Wing News, Chicago Now's Publius Forum, and Canada Free Press." Another article which used data directly from Scoville appeared in Human Events, while a second article appeared in Pajamas Media. Both of those articles were written by Seton Motley. As with Huston and Shapiro, Motley denied he was paid anything by Scoville. However, Scoville refused to deny he was the paymaster to writers, but he failed to detail who and by what amounts, nor, according to the Buzzfeed article, would he mention the nature of his ties to the Ukrainians. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 Where did the larger share, the $900,000 that went to Podesta's firm, end up? |
| Posted by: djk 2014-02-24 17:04 |
| #1 Four conservative writers denied taking money. That's the story? Really? Sounds like a mud slinging piece pure and simple. Having the money filtered through Podesta is just baffling. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2014-02-24 15:37 |