The Hill Staffer at the Center of the Russia Intrigue
In the spring of 2016, a longtime Washington operative pulled aside French Hill during a trip to Moscow and introduced the conservative Arkansas congressman to two Russians who are now at the center of a firestorm over the activities of Donald Trump Jr.
In the brief encounter, which took place two months before their now-infamous meeting with the president’s son in Trump Tower, the jet-setting pair proposed the same trade they would soon be pitching all over Washington: Lift the sanctions on Russia, and we’ll make sure Americans can adopt Russian babies once again.
Paul Behrends, the operative who set up that previously unreported Moscow meeting, has worked in security and foreign policy circles in Washington for decades while keeping a low profile, but he has never been far from intrigue.
Long before he took up his most recent post as an aide to California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Behrends worked alongside the Afghan mujahideen, helped the future Blackwater founder Erik Prince get an internship on Capitol Hill (later, he navigated the security firm through the political fallout from a 2007 massacre of civilians in Iraq) and served as chief lobbyist for a firm at the heart of the Jack Abramoff scandal. More recently, he has become a confidant of the pro-Trump Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel and served as the Capitol Hill point-man for the right-wing government of Hungary..............................................
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/20/the-hill-staffer-at-the-center-of-the-russia-intrigue-215396
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