From The Atlantic:
Paul Behrends, a top aide to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, has been ousted from his role as staff director for the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Rohrabacher chairs, after stories appeared in the press highlighting his relationships with pro-Russia lobbyists.
“Paul Behrends no longer works at the committee,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesperson said on Wednesday evening.
Behrends accompanied Rohrabacher on a 2016 trip to Moscow in which Rohrabacher said he received anti-Magnitsky Act materials from prosecutors. The Magnitsky Act is a 2012 bill that imposes sanctions on Russian officials associated with the 2009 death in prison of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been investigating tax fraud. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney and lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last year, reportedly brought up the Magintsky Act during the meeting.
www.theatlantic.com/…
Paul Behrends is a longtime buddy of Erik Prince, and was, for many years, the chief lobbyist for Blackwater.
According to the Daily Beast, Behrends sent out the invitations to Veselnitskaya’s gala D.C. screening of an anti-Magnitsky Act propaganda film. And now he is blaming an intern for sending them. (www.thedailybeast.com/...)
Mueller and Schiff might want to talk to this guy.
Update: As per the same Daily Beast article, Behrends and Rohrabacher had dinner with...Rinat Akhmetshin, the shadow-lurking ex-Russian Intelligence fixer/hacker guy who was also at Donnie Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016.