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Russian Mafia meeting with Clinton & Gore -
Loutchansky - Rabinovich -
WashTimes

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Stefan Lemieszewski
Jun 24 2000, 12:00 am show options

Russian mob figure met with Clinton, Gore

By Jerry Seper

The Washington Times
21Dec97

President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore met at a 1995 Miami fund- raiser with the Ukrainian partner of a Vienna-based firm tied to Russian organized crime, although his visa had been revoked by the State Department a month earlier.

House investigators said Vadim Rabinovich, a millionaire who
spent eight years in a Soviet prison for theft, later used a photo of himself with Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore at the fund-raiser - prominently displayed in his Kiev office - to impress clients for a second company, whose activities also have been questioned by U.S. authorities.

State Department records show that Mr. Rabinovich attended the Sept. 19, 1995, fund-raiser at the Sheraton Bal Harbor Hotel even though his visa had been revoked Aug. 23, 1995, and his name placed on the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service "lookout" list, meaning he was ineligible for U.S. entry.

The records show that he was a partner from 1993 to 1995 with Grigori Loutchansky, head of Nordex, a commodities firm. He served as its representative to Ukraine until his departure for a Swiss firm known as Ostex, owned by Nordex. By the end of that year, Nordex had sold all its Ostex shares to Mr. Rabinovich.

Mr. Loutchansky, listed in a 1995 State Department "watch list" as a "suspected criminal," dined with the president at the White House in October 1993 and got a private, two-minute meeting with Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore. He also was invited by the Democratic National Committee to a fund-raising dinner with Mr. Clinton at the Hay-Adams Hotel in July 1995 but did not attend.

Two former CIA directors, John Deutch and R. James Woolsey,
have identified Nordex as tied to Russian criminal activity. Mr. Woolsey said an invitation to Mr. Loutchansky to meet with the president "would show a severe lack of scrutiny and appalling bad judgment."

U.S. intelligence reports said Nordex was founded by the KGB and was suspected of involvement in nuclear materials reaching North Korea and Iran.

In July 1996, Time magazine linked Nordex to nuclear smuggling, drug trafficking and money laundering, saying it was established to "earn hard currency for the KGB."

Mr. Loutchansky told The Washington Times that U.S. officials had wrongly accused him and his firm of criminal activity. He said "charges should be brought against me or my name should be cleared." Mr. Rabinovich, jailed from 1982 to 1990 for theft from the state, was not available for comment, but he previously denied wrongdoing.