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After the Senate meeting with Parubiy, I challenged Carpenter over bringing the far-right politician to Capitol Hill. "Andriy Parubiy is a conservative nationalist who is also a patriot who cares about his country," Carpenter remarked to me. "I don't think he has any neo-Nazi inclinations, nor background." He went on to dismiss the basis of my question as "mostly Russian propaganda."
Months later, Carpenter staged a meltdown on Twitter over the incident, fabricating quotes by me, branding me as a "sleeze" [sic] and "pro-Asad and pro-Putin scumbag," while falsely and baselessly claiming I "enlist[ed] RT," the Russian-backed news network, "to do an expose' on him."
Asked by The Grayzone about Carpenter's work for a think tank funded by Burisma while simultaneously involving himself in Biden's political machine, Atlantic Council media relations deputy director Alex Kisling stated, "Council staff and fellows are free to participate in election activity as individuals and on their own time, provided they do so in a way that could not be seen as acting as a representative of the Council or implying Council endorsement of their activity or views. Michael's affiliations and previous service are on our website. (He is not part of our full time staff)."
The Penn Biden Center did not respond to a question on whether it supported Carpenter's work at the Burisma-backed Atlantic Council.
The Beltway press scrubs Burisma's ongoing influence-buyingAs the scrutiny of Biden's dealings in Ukraine intensifies, Carpenter has thrust himself into the media limelight to defend his longtime boss.
In an October 7 Washington Post op-ed denouncing Trump's "smear campaign" against Biden, Carpenter insisted that Biden had gone to great lengths to remove the Ukrainian prosecutor, Shokin, for his failure to take action against Burisma. That evening, Carpenter took to Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC to reinforce the message that Biden moved against "corrupt players" in Ukraine, presumably referring to Burisma.
At no point did he mention that Burisma was funding the think tank that hosted him as a senior fellow.
In publishing an "explainer" purporting to debunk the charges against Biden, the Atlantic Council also failed to mention its ongoing relationship with Burisma. Atlantic Council media relations deputy director Kisling dismissed the non-disclosure, telling The Grayzone, "The Council discloses its funding from Burisma on its website and whenever asked." (Ironically, the Atlantic Council has pushed for greater transparency in political advertising on Facebook, one of the top donors to the think tank).
Perhaps the most absurd omission took place in a GQ article about Ukrainegate by reporter and Russia-watcher Julia Ioffe. In painting Ukraine the largest nation entirely located in Europe as a "small country" drowning in corruption, Ioffe noted, "the best way to launder one's shady reputation and shine for international investors is to hire big-name Western consultants as Burisma did."
In the very next paragraph, Ioffe quoted Daniel Fried, a former State Department official now serving as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "It's a country where there's a lot of freelance money and a lot of competing interests," Fried remarked.
Revealingly, Ioffe failed to acknowledge that Fried was one of those "big-named Western consultants" helping to launder Zlochevsky and Burisma's "shady reputation" through the Atlantic Council.
In fact, Fried was photographed in a one-on-one meeting with Burisma advisor Vadim Pozharskyi at a September 2018 Atlantic Council conference in New York City.
As the furor over "Ukrainegate" continues, Biden and his allies are soldiering ahead, insisting that scrutiny of his activities in Ukraine constitute nothing more than a vast right-wing conspiracy.
Meanwhile, the Beltway press shrugs at Burisma's buying of influence at a powerful think tank intertwined with Biden's political operation.
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