issued on Jan. 6, 2017, about Russia’s efforts to influence the political debate in the United States. That report noted that RT, the Russian news channel, “runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health.”In other words, concerns about apparent Russian efforts to use nongovernmental groups in Europe to undermine fracking were leveraged to suggest that the same problem existed in the United States.
“I wish to clarify that press reports speculating that Klein has received funding from outside sources are factually incorrect and have no basis,” Nat Simons said in a 2018 statement to. “Neither Klein nor Sea Change Foundation has ever solicited or accepted contributions from non-family related sources.” Simons said that the name of the Bermuda funding vehicle had been changed from Klein Ltd. to Sea Change Foundation International.
Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, in a statement to The Fact Checker, said: “We are disappointed to see false allegations of foreign influence through Sea Change Foundation resurface after this untrue assertion was fully refuted in a statement released in 2018. To state clearly, neither Klein nor Sea Change Foundation has or had any connection to Russia or Russian funds.
“This story is completely false and has been put to rest for years,” said David Willett, a League of Conservation Voters spokesman. “We have no connections to Russia, or China, and have been an effective advocate for environmental protection for over 50 years. These false and poorly-researched allegations are rooted in a nearly 10-year-old right-wing think tank and fossil fuel industry-funded smear campaign that gets revived every few years to serve as a distraction.
And why should that matter? Republicans LOVE Putin. Dont they?