The Washington Post: State Oil Company of Azerbaijan secretly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on US Congressmen
The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, in May 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the event, The Washington Post writes.
The newspaper writes that lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.
Some congressional staff members told the investigators they thought that the rugs were worth about $300 — $50 below the reporting threshold — and that they didn’t need to disclose them on their forms filed with the Ethics Committee. Only one lawmaker, Bridenstine, disclosed the rugs on his financial forms. He had them appraised: the smaller rug at $2,500 and the larger at $3,500. Bridenstine was the only lawmaker to offer to pay for the rugs out of his own pocket, telling the committee that he would like to purchase the smaller rug “at fair market value.”
It is noted in the material that according to the 70-page report by the Office of Congressional Ethics the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in Azerbaijan.
The investigation said that Houston-based Azerbaijani lobbying organizations AFAZ and TCAE did not conceal the true source of financing for travel and other costs of US Congressmen.
Evidence revealed that SOCAR founded AFAZ in the month prior to the Convention and transferred $750,000 to an AFAZ bank account prior to the Convention. Three days later, AFAZ made its first money transfer to pay for the plane tickets for the conference attendees.
Although lawmakers told investigators that they were unaware that the Azerbaijani government had underwritten the trip through its oil company, investigators noted that SOCAR organized much of the conference in plain sight. The oil company issued invitations, hung banners and placards emblazoned with SOCAR’s logo throughout the conference halls in Baku. On April 16, 2013, Kemal Oksuz, an executive in charge of AFAZ, pledged that SOCAR’s will be recognized as the Main Sponsor of the Convention.
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