WALL STREET JOURNAL

For­mer Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion direc­tor William Ses­sions once con­demned Russia’s ris­ing mafia. “We can beat orga­nized crime,” he told a Moscow secu­rity con­fer­ence in 1997.

Today, Mr. Ses­sions is a lawyer for one of the FBI’s “Most Wanted”: Semyon Mogile­vich, a Ukraine-born Russ­ian whom the FBI says is one of Russia’s most pow­er­ful organized-crime figures.

Mr. Ses­sions is try­ing to nego­ti­ate a deal with the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice for his client, who is charged with rack­e­teer­ing and is a key fig­ure in a sep­a­rate Jus­tice Depart­ment probe of energy deals between Rus­sia and Ukraine.

A num­ber of notable Wash­ing­ton insid­ers are earn­ing big fees these days by rep­re­sent­ing con­tro­ver­sial clients from the for­mer Soviet Union.

From promi­nent busi­ness­men — some fac­ing crim­i­nal alle­ga­tions — to top politi­cians, well-known ex-Soviets are lin­ing up to hire help with crim­i­nal cases, lob­by­ing and con­sult­ing. These fig­ures, many of whom made for­tunes in the wide-open 1990s amid the Soviet Union’s dis­in­te­gra­tion, hire Wash­ing­ton insid­ers to help reha­bil­i­tate their rep­u­ta­tions in the West or to per­suade investors and reg­u­la­tors they are com­mit­ted to good cor­po­rate governance.

Sen­si­tive for­eign clients are noth­ing new for Washington’s lob­by­ing indus­try. Among oth­ers, Jack Abramoff — con­victed of fraud and bribery last year — rep­re­sented clients in Pak­istan and Rus­sia, while for­mer Liber­ian Pres­i­dent Charles Tay­lor, await­ing trial on war-crimes alle­ga­tions, once employed his own Wash­ing­ton lobbyist.

But recent years have seen a grow­ing num­ber of for­mer Soviet offi­cials and indus­tri­al­ists seek­ing assis­tance in the U.S. cap­i­tal. Many are play­ing an increas­ingly impor­tant role in the global econ­omy, as they wrest ever-greater con­trol of Eurasia’s vast energy reserves and other nat­ural resources. All have become polit­i­cally pow­er­ful in their home coun­tries as well, mak­ing them — and by exten­sion their U.S. advis­ers — key play­ers in West­ern efforts to pro­mote regional stability.

Among recent examples:

Below, a selec­tion of doc­u­ments relat­ing to the Wash­ing­ton deal­ings of fig­ures from the for­mer Soviet Union.

The FBI has placed Semyon Mogile­vich on its “Most Wanted” list; the Jus­tice Depart­ment has charged him with con­spir­acy, fraud and money laun­der­ing. For­mer FBI direc­tor William Ses­sions is rep­re­sent­ing the Ukrainian-born Russ­ian in hopes of get­ting a deal with Jus­tice.
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Bob Dole was hand­somely com­pen­sated for get­ting a U.S. visa for con­tro­ver­sial Russ­ian alu­minum mag­nate Oleg Deri­paska. But some lob­by­ists don’t make clear who their clients are or where they get their fees. Bar­bour Grif­fith & Rogers said it worked for Friends of Ukraine, but tax records show the group was oper­ated out of the lobby firm’s own office.
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A group called the Repub­li­can Party of the Ukraine, headed by Energy Min­is­ter Yuri Boyko, also used a Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ist but the bills were ulti­mately paid by a com­pany reg­is­tered on the Caribbean island of Nevis. Mr. Boyko is a key player in con­tro­ver­sial energy deals involv­ing another Ukrain­ian busi­ness­man named Dimytro Fir­tash, who accord­ing to a fed­eral law­suit also hired Wash­ing­ton firms.

For a $560,000 fee, Bob Dole, the for­mer Sen­ate major­ity leader and 1996 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, helped a Russ­ian bil­lion­aire accused by rivals of bribery obtain a visa to visit the U.S. in 2005, among other things.

Leonid Reiman, a pow­er­ful mem­ber of Russia’s cab­i­net and close ally of Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, uses a Wash­ing­ton public-relations con­sul­tant. Mr. Reiman is under fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tion in the U.S. over money laun­der­ing and is locked in a high-stakes bat­tle with Moscow con­glom­er­ate Alfa for con­trol of a Russ­ian telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions empire. Alfa has paid Bar­bour Grif­fith & Rogers — the influ­en­tial lob­by­ing firm co-founded by Mis­sis­sippi Gov. Haley Bar­bour — nearly $2 mil­lion in lob­by­ing fees.

Paul Man­afort, a for­mer adviser to Mr. Dole’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, has advised a Ukrain­ian met­als bil­lion­aire and his close polit­i­cal ally, Ukrain­ian Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Yanukovich. Mr. Yanukovich, who favors closer ties with Mr. Putin’s admin­is­tra­tion, is embroiled in a power strug­gle with pro-Western Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yushchenko.

In some cases, the details of how these ex-Soviet clients made their for­tunes are murky — and the source, amount and pur­pose of the fees they pay Wash­ing­ton con­sul­tants can be as well. In 2005, for exam­ple, Ukrain­ian politi­cian Yuri Boyko used a Caribbean shell com­pany to pay a Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ist for help arrang­ing meet­ings with top Republicans.

Mr. Boyko, cur­rently Ukraine’s min­is­ter of energy, was the archi­tect of gas deals between Rus­sia and Ukraine now being inves­ti­gated by the U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment for pos­si­ble ties to the alleged mafia client of Mr. Ses­sions. Mr. Boyko said the $98,000 in fees was paid by a small polit­i­cal party he heads. Annex Hold­ings, the Caribbean firm that paid Mr. Boyko’s lob­by­ist, also had a stake in the gas deals, cor­po­rate records show.

At times, even clients’ names are cam­ou­flaged by lob­by­ists — despite fed­eral laws mak­ing clear that they aren’t allowed to dis­guise iden­ti­ties by tak­ing fees from inter­me­di­aries. With­out such rules, says promi­nent Wash­ing­ton ethics lawyer Jan Baran, “you would just have a bunch of shell orga­ni­za­tions iden­ti­fied as clients of lob­by­ists and lob­by­ing firms.”

In 2004, for instance, a United King­dom shell com­pany called Foru­per Ltd., which had no assets or employ­ees, paid Bar­bour Grif­fith $820,000. Foru­per was estab­lished by an attor­ney who struc­tured the natural-gas deals being inves­ti­gated by the U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment. Pros­e­cu­tors are inves­ti­gat­ing whether there are ties between the attor­ney who set up Foru­per and Mr. Mogile­vich, Mr. Sessions’s client.

In its fil­ings, Bar­bour Grif­fith said the fees were for “pro­mo­tion of greater coop­er­a­tion and finan­cial ties between East­ern Europe and the West.”

In 2002 and 2003, a group called “Friends of Ukraine” paid Bar­bour Grif­fith $320,000. Tax records show that Friends of Ukraine, which no longer exists, was head­quar­tered at Bar­bour Griffith’s own office in Wash­ing­ton. The group’s chair­man was firm part­ner Lanny Grif­fith. Mr. Grif­fith said in an email that the firm as a pol­icy doesn’t dis­cuss client mat­ters but added that Bar­bour Grif­fith “has been scrupu­lous in our com­pli­ance” with laws gov­ern­ing the dis­clo­sure of lob­by­ing clients.

Bar­bour Grif­fith is locked in a legal bat­tle with asso­ciates of Mr. Reiman, the Russ­ian min­is­ter, whose Wash­ing­ton adviser is a for­mer Wall Street Jour­nal reporter named Mark D’Anastasio. Mr. D’Anastasio said he once helped Mr. Reiman as a favor to a friend but doesn’t work for him.

Long­stand­ing fed­eral laws require Amer­i­cans to reg­is­ter with the fed­eral gov­ern­ment if they do lob­by­ing or public-relations work for for­eign clients. But details in those fil­ings often offer only a vague sense of the work being done.

Mr. Dole, for instance, dis­closed in lobby fil­ings with the U.S. Sen­ate his work for Russ­ian bil­lion­aire Oleg Deri­paska. He described it as involv­ing “U.S. Depart­ment of State visa poli­cies and procedures.”

Mr. Deri­paska, who has close ties to the Krem­lin, emerged from Russia’s “alu­minum wars” of the 1990s with a vir­tual monop­oly on the nation’s alu­minum pro­duc­tion.
Mr. Deri­paska has long been dogged by alle­ga­tions from busi­ness rivals in courts in the U.S. and U.K. that he used bribery, intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence to amass his for­tune. Those accu­sa­tions, which he denies, have never been sub­stan­ti­ated and no crim­i­nal charges have been filed. But for years they helped keep the State Depart­ment from grant­ing him a visa.

In 2003, the Russ­ian indus­tri­al­ist paid $300,000 to Mr. Dole’s law firm, Alston & Bird, accord­ing to lob­byi
ng reports. After that, Mr. Dole worked to per­suade U.S. offi­cials his client isn’t a crim­i­nal and that his busi­ness oper­a­tions are trans­par­ent, said peo­ple with knowl­edge of the mat­ter. In 2005, the State Depart­ment reversed itself and granted the visa. Mr. Deri­paska then paid Mr. Dole and his firm an addi­tional $260,000, fil­ings show.

Mr. Deri­paska trav­eled to Wash­ing­ton in 2005 and also made trips to the U.S. last year, said peo­ple with knowl­edge of the situation.

Mr. Dole and a State Depart­ment spokes­woman declined to comment.

Simon Moyse, a London-based spokesman for Mr. Deri­paska, said the busi­ness­man cur­rently pos­sesses a multiple-entry U.S. visa. He declined to com­ment fur­ther or pro­vide doc­u­men­ta­tion of Mr. Deripaska’s visa status.

The for­mer Dole strate­gist Mr. Man­afort and a for­mer Dole fund raiser, Bruce Jack­son, have received fees and dona­tions from Ukrain­ian bil­lion­aire Rinat Akhme­tov, the polit­i­cal patron of Ukrain­ian Prime Min­is­ter Yanukovich.

Messrs. Man­afort and Jack­son played promi­nent roles in the Ukrainian’s recent visit to Wash­ing­ton. The visit included meet­ings with U.S. offi­cials, includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney. A com­pany con­trolled by Mr. Akhme­tov donated $300,000 in 2005 to a human-rights char­ity run by Mr. Jack­son and his wife, an Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice doc­u­ment reviewed by The Wall Street Jour­nal shows. Mr. Jack­son said he was grate­ful for the support.

Mr. Man­afort, who isn’t reg­is­tered as a con­sul­tant to the Ukrain­ian leader, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Sessions’s client, Mr. Mogile­vich, is accused in a 45-count rack­e­teer­ing and money-laundering indict­ment in Philadel­phia of mas­ter­mind­ing an elab­o­rate stock fraud using a web of shell com­pa­nies in Europe. The Jus­tice Depart­ment also is inves­ti­gat­ing whether there are any ties between Mr. Mogile­vich and a recent series of billion-dollar natural-gas deals between Russ­ian gas giant OAO Gazprom and Ukraine, peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter said. The probe is being led by the Jus­tice Department’s Orga­nized Crime and Rack­e­teer­ing Section.

Accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter, Mr. Ses­sions recently approached for­mer col­leagues at Jus­tice with an unusual offer: Mr. Mogile­vich would pro­vide the U.S. with intel­li­gence on Islamist ter­ror­ism if pros­e­cu­tors opened nego­ti­a­tions to resolve his legal prob­lems in the U.S. Fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors rejected that offer, lawyers and oth­ers famil­iar with the mat­ter said.

Mr. Sessions’s firm and a Jus­tice Depart­ment spokesman declined to comment.

The Mogile­vich talks were bro­kered by a promi­nent Wash­ing­ton secu­rity expert named Neil C. Liv­ing­stone, who was briefly in the news dur­ing the 1980s Iran-Contra scan­dal for his work on ter­ror­ism issues with White House aide Oliver North.

He declined to dis­cuss the Mogile­vich talks, other than to say they involved “very sen­si­tive issues.”

Until recently, Mr. Liv­ing­stone was chief exec­u­tive of Glob­alOp­tions, a Wash­ing­ton corporate-intelligence firm he founded. Mr. Ses­sions sits on the firm’s advi­sory board. Most of its clients, the firm says, “oper­ate in Rus­sia and the Caribbean.”

Glob­alOp­tions has worked with for­mer Soviet busi­ness­men in the past. In 2004, Mr. Liv­ing­stone said, lob­by­ists at Bar­bour Grif­fith intro­duced Glob­alOp­tions to a Cyprus-based firm called High­rock Hold­ings. High­rock is con­trolled by Dimytro Fir­tash, a Ukrain­ian busi­ness­man who acknowl­edges the company’s major share­hold­ers once included Mr. Mogilevich’s wife.

In 2003–2005, Mr. Fir­tash bro­kered sev­eral billion-dollar deals between Gazprom and the gov­ern­ment of Ukraine. They net­ted big prof­its for High­rock — and crit­i­cism from the U.S. ambas­sador to the Ukraine at the time for the deals’ lack of transparency.

Mr. Liv­ing­stone said High­rock hired Glob­alOp­tions in 2004 to help it win fed­eral safety cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for pas­sen­ger jets it hoped to export to Cen­tral Asia.

How­ever, in a recent law­suit filed by Glob­alOp­tions against High­rock claim­ing unpaid bills, the secu­rity firm alleged that Mr. Fir­tash hired Glob­alOp­tions for an unspec­i­fied “spe­cial oper­a­tion” on behalf of a Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial. The two sides ceased lit­i­gat­ing the suit, which was filed in U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, after the bill was paid, but the suit was never withdrawn.

“We have no knowl­edge of a com­pany called Glob­alOp­tions,” a spokesman for Mr. Fir­tash said, adding that he sev­ered his ties to Mr. Mogile­vich sev­eral years ago.