A public-relations executive who set up meetings between associates of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin has been lobbying on behalf of a fugitive Russian billionaire.
Josh Nass, a young public relations executive in New York who is fluent in Russian, recently disclosed his work to exclude Boris Mints from U.S. sanctions. The Treasury Department included Mints on its "Putin list" in 2018 and does not appear to have removed him in any subsequent Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act updates.
A year ago, Russia issued an arrest warrant against Mints and his two sons for allegedly embezzling 34 billion rubles, then worth $533 million USD. Mints now lives in the U.K.
Nass reportedly helped to arrange a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Jason Greenblatt, then a Trump Organization attorney, and Berel Lazar, Russia's chief rabbi and a close friend and confidant of Putin.
Nass, who had never before registered as a lobbyist, has so far reported making $50,000 for his work for Mints. He also disclosed that he spent the end of Trump's presidency trying to secure pardons for four clients, none of whom made the 11th-hour pardon list.
