Ronn Torossian’s Ties to Turkey and #TrumpRussia Part I:
Turkey FARA
On May 25, 2017, Ronn Torossian filed Exibhit A and B to Registration Statement stating his firm, 5W Public Relations, LLC, would be representing The Republic of Turkey, ℅ Amsterdam & Partners, LLP. A contract addendum was included at the end of the filing. The contract had the following language as its first two paragraphs. I am not an attorney and am therefore not qualified to interpret this contract, but the dates struck me as interesting.
“This addendum will serve as Addendum B to thc original contract dated August 10, 2016 between Amsterdam & Partners, MP (the “Client”) and 5WPublic Relations (“5W PR”) and their subsequent Addendum A. By signing this addendum. Client and 5W PR agree as follows:
In addition to those fees outlined in thc original contract dated August 10,2016 and those of Addendum A, Client agrees to pay 5W PR an additional fee of $10,000 per month for the period of May 16,2017 — November15,2017, for a total additional fee of $60,000 for the six (6) month period, plus expenses as detailed in the original contract.”
Note the addendum to the filing shows the contract begain in August 2016, yet the FARA paperwork was filed May 2017.
Amsterdam & Partners filed to represent the Executive Branch of the Republic of Turkey in October 2015. The Exhibit AB to Registration Statement was dated October 26, 2015 and signed by Andrew J. Durkovic. It was stamped “Received by NSD/FARA Registration Unit 10/26/15.” A contract between Durkovic and Serdar Kilic of the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey is at the end of the filing, and is dated August 28, 2015.
This may not be related to the FARA, but I find it interesting that 13 days prior to filing the FARA paperwork for his representation of Turkey, Torossian was seen dining with Petro Zinkovetsky, a Ukrainian born real estate attorney, who has worked on deals for oligarchs in New York City.
Fetullah Gulen
Turkish President Erdogan watched his employees beat up protesters on American soil on May 16, 2017, nine days prior to Torossian’s Turkey FARA filing. That same day, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators asked Trump to “to rebuke Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his authoritarian policies.”
On May 19, 2017, Torossian published a piece about Gulen on the website of The Algemeiner, Deport Radical Islamist Preacher to Turkey and Maintain American Interests. Though this piece was published three days after protesters were beaten by Erdogan’s guards, Torossian made no mention of the violence suffered by American protestors. Six days after the piece was published, Torossian’s Turkey FARA paperwork was filed.
In June of 2017, I only found one story online that mentioned Torossian’s FARA filing. It stated Robert Amsterdam had “made the rounds” in May “in conjunction with President Recep Erdogan’s visit with Donald Trump in Washington.” The article mentioned Trump and Erdogan had discussed “Turkey’s demand for the extradition of cleric Fethullah Gulen.” The article also stated “Torossian had declined to comment about his firm’s work for A&P.”
Louise Mensch has since published a piece on her Patribotics blog, PIMPOTUS — Trump Models and Russia’s Human Traffickers, which mentions Torossian’s connection to “uber for planes” company, Jetsmarter, and my Twitter research on Torossian and Jetsmarter.
Since Former CIA Director Woolsey had said Michael Flynn had discussed Gulen with Turkish officials in late summer 2016, I decided to dig a little deeper. I found an opinion piece Torossian wrote on Feb 17, 2017 criticizing the media’s coverage of Michael Flynn’s resignation in Newsmax (whose CEO, by the way, is a member of the Council for National Policy). I found another Newsmax piece by Torossian from May 20, 2015, critical of PR Firm Levick Communications’ work for the Embassy of Qatar. The last paragraph of that column states,
“There are those who feel it is OK to spin for dictators and terrorists. Yet, this writer agrees with the owner of the world’s largest PR firm, Richard Edelman, who said, “PR is not like the law — Not everyone deserves representation.”
I found more pieces by Torossian in other news outlets, including The Observer, which is owned by Jared Kushner. In an opinion piece published January 27, 2015, Torossian writes about a think tank report on how European PR firms “whitewash repressive regimes.” This part in particular struck me:
“While parts of the report detail nations that no one with a moral code should ever help spin for, there were less clear countries such as the Ukraine and Kazakhstan (both are countries where my firm has represented oligarch interests). Sometimes, the spin done by PR folks can be compared to the role of a doctor helping heal a person who is not of the best moral fiber. Surely they should still live, right? A more apropos metaphor could also be a lawyer representing an established criminal in court. There’s a point that one can approach but should not pass.
Similar to the limits regarding shouting fire in a crowded theatre, dictators and terrorists don’t deserve any PR help.”
My interaction with Torossian on Twitter:
I first tweeted about Ronn Torossian’s FARA filing for Turkey on June 2, 2017. Since then, I’ve tweeted links about what I’ve found on him and his connections to Turkey and Trump associates.
At 3:36PM EDT on June 14, 2017, Ronn Torossian tweeted the following at me:
“@ninaandtito: I shot #jfk! My ex wife is russian!!!! I even ate caviar this week!”
I responded 8 minutes later, “I care about your FARA filing. Care to share?”
As of September 4 at 3PM EDT, he has not responded. I took a screenshot in case he deletes the tweet.
Other FARA Filings
I decided to dig deeper into Torossian’s FARA filings, since he had written that his firm had represented “oligarch interests” in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. I found three additional FARA filings with Torossian’s name on them, and none were for Ukraine or Kazakhstan. The earliest filing, by MWW Group, does not have full documents available on the fara.gov site, but the dates shown for Torossian’s short form are 3/19/02–7/31/02. There is a supplemental statement which shows Torossian was terminated from the firm on July 31, 2002, and states the firm’s clients were Israel Ministry of Tourism and Invest UK. Torossian’s firm, 5W Public Relations, LLC filed 5/19/03 for the Israel Ministry of Tourism, termination date 11/30/04. 5W Public Relations, LLC filed 6/13/12 to represent Travel Alberta (Canada), terminated 9/8/12.
The FARA filings seemed to be a dead end, but since Torossian had written for Jared Kushner’s Observer, and represented Turkey around the same time as Flynn, I decided to see if he had any other connections to Trump associates and/or Russia. I found several.
The Taxi King and Trump’s personal lawyer
I found a May 2015 article in USA Today about taxi medallions. The article mentions Evgeny (Gene) Freidman, then an owner of 900 taxi medallions, who owed Citibank “some $31 million after some medallion loans matured.” In the article, Torossian is quoted discussing the medallion industry. He is credited as “a spokesman for Freidman,” who is known in New York as the ‘Taxi King.’
Torossian has tweeted about his friendship with Freidman, once on December 12, 2013, and again on Feb 5, 2014. I linked my tweets of screenshots in case he deletes those tweets. Page Six reported he attended Freidman’s baby-naming ceremony in December 2013.
Freidman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2016. In December 2016, Freidman was ordered by a US Bankruptcy Judge to give up 46 taxi medallions to pay off creditors. Freidman was arrested June 7, 2017 on charges that he stole $5 million in state fees/taxes from the MTA.
Evgeny Freidman and Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, have a friendship that goes back to the 1990s. They were business partners in the taxi business as well. Cohen was involved in delivering the Russia-Ukraine peace plan to Mike Flynn a week before Flynn was fired. Another supporter of the peace plan was Felix Sater.
Next up: Part II: Torossian’s connections to Felix Sater, Roger Stone, an additional connection to Jared Kushner, and more stars in the #TrumpRussia constellation.
