Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska responded Wednesday morning to the FBI searches that took places at properties linked to him in Washington D.C. and New York City, saying that he hoped federal agents enjoyed rotten jars of jam and bottles of vodka left behind in the “abandoned houses.”
FBI agents appeared at a D.C. home connected to Deripaska on Tuesday, with a spokesperson for the bureau telling TPM that agents were conducting “court-authorized law enforcement activity” at the address.
Deripaska addressed the searches in a Wednesday, Russian-language message posted to his Telegram channel, saying “observing everything that’s taking place in America, I don’t stop being surprised at the transcendental stupidity of a segment of the American establishment.”
He added that that part of that establishment continues “stubbornly to unspool this yarn about the supposedly colossal role of the Russians in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.”
“It’s time to admit the obvious: Trump won, of course, not by himself!” Deripaska wrote. “These morons from Washington helped him, having so pissed off their electorate that people were willing to vote for whomever (albeit for an operatic character, but not for the dirty-with-bribes clan representative Clinton).”
Towards the end of the message, Deripaska mentioned the searches directly.
“I want to ask: did they find a fuckton of Putin’s money yesterday in these abandoned homes?” he asked. “Did they manage to grab a bite of the long-soured jam in jars with a pair of vodka bottles, stolen in the best traditions of Bolshevik bean-counters during a search?”
