Parnas, Firtash, Samochornov and "Translators"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Paul_Oetken
https://www.wsj.com/articles/giuliani-associate-got-1-million-loan-from-lawyer-for-ukrainian-tycoon-11576620716

"U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken ruled Tuesday to keep the terms of Mr. Parnas’s release unchanged, saying it wasn’t clear that the inconsistencies in Mr. Parnas’s statements to authorities were intentional.

Mr. Parnas’s efforts to aid Mr. Giuliani in his push for investigations in Ukraine are a focus of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s interactions with Kyiv, but they have also figured in the Manhattan federal investigation.

In court on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebekah Donaleski described Mr. Firtash as Mr. Parnas’s “foreign benefactor.”

The September loan came from Ralph Oswald Isenegger, a Dubai-based attorney for Mr. Firtash, Mr. Parnas’ lawyer told the judge Tuesday. Mr. Isenegger didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph Bondy, told the judge the majority of the loan had been spent, including $200,000 that went to an escrow account to buy a home in Florida, a deal involving Mr. Parnas’s wife, Svetlana Parnas."
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A translator named Anatoli Samochornov was in the meeting between Donald Trump’s campaign team and two Russian lobbyists last year.

Samochornov was named on Friday by Rinat Akhmetshin, a lobbyist who also attended the Trump Tower meeting.

Samochornov, an American citizen, has worked as a translator for Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who led the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. on June 9, 2016. Samochornov translated for Veselnitskaya while she represented a Russian defendant in a money-laundering case in federal court last year and accompanied her to Belgium to promote a film critical of a U.S. anti-money laundering law.

Samochornov has a long track record of interpreting for governmental agencies and dignitaries, including Russia’s leading human rights activist and the U.S. State Department. He holds an M.A. in linguistics from the Institute of Foreign Languages in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and an MBA from the University of Washington.

Samochornov is bound by professional conduct not to talk publicly about discussions with clients. The American Translators Association lists in its code of ethics and professional practice that interpreters’ ethical and professional duty to “hold in confidence any privileged and/or confidential information entrusted to us in the course of our work.”


Samochornov’s work for Veselnitskaya extended outside of the courtroom. Veselnitskaya formed a nonprofit group called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, which employed Akhmetshin as a lobbyist. The group’s stated purpose is to restart the adoptions of Russian children to the U.S. by repealing the Magnitsky Act.

In April 2016, Samochornov interpreted for Veselnitskaya at an aborted screening of an anti-Magnitsky Act documentary in Belgium.

Federal prosecutors claimed in court that Samochornov was an “officer” of Veselnitskaya’s group. In one exchange from May 2017, prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred over whether Samochornov should be allowed to serve as an interpreter for Denis Katsyv, owner of Russian company Prevezon on trial for money laundering.

Defense attorneys argued that Katsyv would be more comfortable using a translator already familiar with his speech patterns, while prosecutors argued that Samochornov’s familiarity with Veselnitskaya made him more akin to “a member of the defense team.”

“He has apparently been engaged in lobbying efforts that seem to have some connection to at least the defendants’ lawyers in Washington,” assistant U.S. attorney Paul Monteleoni said, according to a court transcript. “We understand, he is the officer of a nongovernmental organization founded along with one of the defense lawyers. It’s a little different from our interpreters.”

The judge allowed Samochornov to interpret because he is certified to do so in the Southern District of New York. (The case was settled that same month.)

Samochornov slammed his door closed when The Daily Beast returned to his home on Thursday evening.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-joined-russians-in-trump-meeting-just-an-interpreter-says-mother-in-law