Vice President Pence Has Cause to Support Trumps Kremlin-Friendly Agenda
Two of his biggest Indiana corporate backers have significant business interests in Russia
The ongoing congressional and FBI investigations into the Trump administration’s entangling alliances with the Kremlin have so far left Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines.
Pence claims to be clueless about key moments in the still-unfolding scandal.
When President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, spoke clandestinely with Kremlin officials this past December about the status of US sanctions against that nation, Pence defended him initially — but claimed later that Flynn lied to him about the content of the conversations.
Despite the fact the Trump administration was informed by a member of Congress in November of last year that Flynn was working as a paid agent of the Turkish government while advising Trump on national security matters, Pence insists he only learned of Flynn’s Turkish lobbying pact through the media this past March.
snip>
In fact, one of Pence’s main corporate backers, Eli Lilly & Co., was charged by U.S. officials with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 2012 in relation to its business practices in Russia. That same year, Eli Lilly was a leading contributor to Pence’s bid to become governor of Indiana, a race he won by only 3 percentage points against his Democratic challenger.
While serving as a US congressman from 2001-2013, and thereafter as governor of Indiana until this past January, when he took on the vice president’s job, Pence also served the interests of another Indiana-based corporation that has deep business roots in Russia — Cummins Inc.
These two Indiana-based Fortune 500 companies with major business interests in Russia — diesel-engine manufacturer Cummins and drug-maker and distributor Eli Lilly — ranked as the No. 2 and No. 3 donors, respectively, to Pence’s federal campaign coffers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The leading donor, at $90,762, was the arch-conservative Club for Growth and its political action committee (PAC).
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2017/05/vice-president-pence-has-cause-support-trump-s-kremlin-friendly-agenda
