Just over a month ago, we found out that RusAl, the largest aluminum manufacturer in Russia, was planning to invest more than $200 million in an aluminum rolling mill in Kentucky — the largest new such plant in America in four decades. In fact,
we reported on it here at
Political State and told you exactly what seemed suspicious about the whole deal.
...
In a letter sent to the Treasury Department and signed by Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters, the chairs of the House Intelligence and House Financial Services Committees, and by Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden, the ranking members on the Senate Finance and Senate Banking Committees, Democrats requested that Treasury look into the investment by RusAl. After all, Deripaska himself is still under sanction, and the legal finagling that was done to make it appear as though he's not profiting off the deal fell through when observers found that while his RusAl share would be proportionately lower and restricted only to final profits as they made their way back to Russia, he actually
owns the bank that would make all the interest too.
...
It remains to be seen whether Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, will actually open an investigation of any kind. But at the very least, everyone involved now knows that lawmakers are on to their scheme.