W. Samuel Patten is an American political consultant and lobbyist who received international attention in spring 2018 in relation to the Special Counsel investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller. This was due to Patten's relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik, a subject of the investigation.[2] In summer 2018, attention intensified due to Patten's emergence as a subject of the investigation in his own right, followed by his guilty plea, after being charged in August 2018 with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act for failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department when he represented the Opposition Bloc, a Ukrainian political party, from 2014 through 2018.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Early life and family
Patten's father is Bill Patten Jr., whose mother was the Washington, D.C., socialite Susan Mary Alsop; Patten Jr.'s father was later alleged to have been the British politician Duff Cooper, with whom his mother had an affair while married to her first husband Bill Patten.[10][11][12] Patten Jr. moved to Maine, where he published a small-town weekly newspaper in Camden and became a prison minister.[10][12]
Patten grew up in Maine and went to school there. He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1993. While at Georgetown he became close to his famous grandmother Susan Mary Alsop, and was once wounded while defending her from muggers. He married in 2013.[12]
Patten and Kilimnik founded Begemot Ventures International (BVI) in February 2015.[1] Based in Washington, D.C.,[1] BVI is "a strategic and political advisory firm"[16] that Patten claims only has clients outside the United States.[2][1]
Guilty plea
In August 2018, Patten was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act for failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department when he represented the Opposition Bloc, a Ukrainian political party, from 2014 through 2018.[3][4][6][7] In the statement of the offense, Kilimnik is identified as "Foreigner A", Begemot Ventures International as "Company A",[9] and Serhiy Lyovochkin as "Foreigner B".[5]
As part of his guilty plea, Patten admitted that he laundered a $50,000 contribution from Kilimnik to the Trump inauguration committee, by having the money transferred from a Cypriot bank to his company and from there to an unnamed American who sent it to the committee. According to the charge, Patten knew that it was illegal for a foreign national to give money to the committee. He also admitted that he lied to a Congressional committee about the inauguration donation and about his foreign lobbying work, and that he intentionally destroyed documents about that work.[18][19][17]
On April 12, 2019, Patten was sentenced to three years' probation, 500 hours of community service and a $5000 fine.[20]
^ abcHarris, Andrew M.; Martin, Andrew; Schoenberg, Tom; Farrell, Greg; Baker, Stephanie; Larson, Erik; Wadhams, Nick; Allison, Bill (August 31, 2018). "Manafort Ally to Cooperate With U.S. After Guilty Plea". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on August 31, 2018. Retrieved September 1, 2018.