Is the Kazakhstan government secretly funding members of Congress?
source: http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/06/kazakhstan-family-feud-engtagles-members-of-congres...
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- cosmicsmudge
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It has all the twists of a Hollywood blockbuster: shadowy international figures, a plot to overthrow an oil-rich Central Asian country, an attempted assassination, allegations of kidnapping and murder, and a battle in an American courtroom for control of billions of dollars in seized assets.
At the center of this saga is a bitter family feud that pits Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev--a strongman who has ruled the obscure former Soviet republic for more than 20 years--against his former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev.
And if that was where the story ended, it might have stayed an inconspicuous foreign squabble with no relevance to the American public.
Instead, the melodrama has entangled members of the U.S. Congress who, at the least, were unwittingly used as pawns in an international game of one-upmanship and, at worst, knowingly received illegal foreign campaign contributions from the Kazakh government in exchange for taking part in the fight.
The dispute spilled into The New York Times last week and was detailed by POGO in a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. POGO asked Holder for an investigation into the allegations of illegal campaign contributions.
The Times article, which was initiated by documents provided by POGO, revealed the extent to which both sides have gone to shape American opinion on Kazakhstan, a country known to Americans mostly by way of the fictional Kazakh newsman Borat.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/06/kazakhstan-family-feud-engtagles-member...
At the center of this saga is a bitter family feud that pits Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev--a strongman who has ruled the obscure former Soviet republic for more than 20 years--against his former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev.
And if that was where the story ended, it might have stayed an inconspicuous foreign squabble with no relevance to the American public.
Instead, the melodrama has entangled members of the U.S. Congress who, at the least, were unwittingly used as pawns in an international game of one-upmanship and, at worst, knowingly received illegal foreign campaign contributions from the Kazakh government in exchange for taking part in the fight.
The dispute spilled into The New York Times last week and was detailed by POGO in a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. POGO asked Holder for an investigation into the allegations of illegal campaign contributions.
The Times article, which was initiated by documents provided by POGO, revealed the extent to which both sides have gone to shape American opinion on Kazakhstan, a country known to Americans mostly by way of the fictional Kazakh newsman Borat.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/06/kazakhstan-family-feud-engtagles-member...
