marisa: for all of us. here s a story. or here s at least a series of events that may or may not be connected but i m trying to wrap my head around them. it starts a little over a year ago. the u.s. government puts sanctions on a kremlin connected russian oligarch, a close ally of russian president vladimir putin, a guy by the name of oleg deripaska. used to do a bunch of work with paul manafort. ever heard of him? anyway, the new sanctions on oleg deripaska were punishment by the u.s. government in part o for russia s attack on our 2016 election. those sanctions on him also included sanctions on deripaska s giant aluminum company, which is called rusal.
because in the end we know why these companies these countries often come in. this is more complicated because deripaska, oleg deripaska, as you pointed out, was an oligarch that we sanctioned because of the elections, his closeness to putin and all that. and he s had significant interest in rusal. that s why the house overwhelmingly did what you talked about and the senate would have if mcconnell hadn t worked his imagine wik a bunch of republican senators. i want to ask you about that part in particular. watching from the outside, seeing that huge vote in the house, i mean that was a remarkable thing. 70% of republicans in the house voted to defy the trump administration and tell them, no, you shouldn t lift these sanctions on deripaska and his company. those sanctions are there for a reason. you don t see house republicans sort of flout the trump administration very often. but it was an overwhelming vote in the house. you re saying that in the senate it would have the vote wou
well, after the sanctions were put on deripaska there followed a robust and very expensive campaign by lobbyists for deripaska. deripaska got what he paid for in that lobbying campaign. the treasury department soon announced that actually, second thoughts, they were going to lift the sanctions on deripaska s company. they were going to lift the sanctions on rusal. and then something kind of remarkable happened. a big bipartisan majority in the house of representatives said, actually, no. the u.s. government should not lift those sanctions. are you kidding? oleg deripaska was sanctioned for a reason, for a good reason. why is the trump treasury department lifting those sanctions? it wasn t just democrats in the house, it was 70% of republicans in the house who voted with democrats to block the trump administration from getting rid of those sanctions on deripaska s aluminum company. so big bipartisan vote in the house to tell the trump administration, no, don t lift those sanctions. thos
rusal s lobbyists was dispatched to give mitch mcconnell a heads-up about this big present he was getting from oleg. this heads-up that they d be building a brand spanking new plant in his state after all the good work mitch mcconnell did to make sure rusal would have its sanctions lifted. the lobbyist who delivered that good news to mitch mcconnell, the guy who personally made the call is a man named david vitter. you may have recognized him. used to be a republican senator from louisiana. kind of famous for a sex scandal that never really resolved cleanly. what we ve since learned is that within five weeks of david vitter calling mitch mcconnell to tell him that rusal was going to put this plant in kentucky, was going to dump hundreds of millions of dollars in mitch mcconnell s state, within five weeks of that call the nomination of david vitter s wife to be a federal judge, a nomination that had been languishing for a year and a half because she was so
humiliatingly and embarrassingly and obviously unqualified for the job, whose confirmation hearing went so badly it went viral and got her nomination buried, turns out within five weeks of mitch mcconnell getting that call from david vitter saying hey, i got an aluminum plant we re going to put in your home state, thanks from oleg, within five weeks of that call wendy vitter s nomination got pulled off the trash heap by mitch mcconnell and mitch mcconnell expedited it, put it on the top of the list, and now she is a federal judge. for life. must be nice. we contacted david vitter s very fancy lobbying firm today. they dop not dispute that david vitter is the one who gave mcconnell that heads-up about rusal putting the plant in kentucky after mitch mcconnell did what he did for rusal and oleg deripaska. when we asked david vitter tonight whether there was any connection between that and his wife s subsequent surprise confirmation to a lifetime federal judgeship, he told us through a spo