Crowley registers as foreign agent for Ukrainian billionaire

Monica Crowley — who bowed out of a Trump administration post after a plagiarism scandal — is now working as a foreign agent for Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

New forms filed with the Justice Department this month show Crowley is teaming up with Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who has been registered to work for Pinchuk, a former member of Ukrainian parliament, since 2011.

Crowley “will be providing outreach services on behalf of Mr. Victor Pinchuk,” according to disclosure documents signed on March 10. 

“Outreach services will include inviting government officials and other policy makers to attend conferences and meetings, such as the annual Munich Security Conference, to engage in learning and dialogue regarding issues of concern to Mr. Pinchuk,” the forms say.

Crowley was previously set to be spokesperson for the National Security Council, but backed out in January after reports revealed multiple instances of plagiarism in her Ph.D. dissertation, her new book and newspaper columns.

Crowley decried the plagiarism reports as a “political hit job” on her last month, insisting they were “debunked” even though they have not been.

The disclosures, which are filed to the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, indicate that she will be working on Schoen’s existing contract. She did not return a request for comment by The Hill.

Schoen has earned $473,000 from the relationship since 2011, according to a tally of federal documents by The Hill, but more recent disclosures show that he has primarily been working on philanthropic work for Pinchuk.

After a three-year hiatus from performing lobbying work on Pinchuk’s behalf, however, Schoen organized meetings between Olga Bielkova, a Ukrainian politician, and U.S. government and think tank contacts. Schoen arranged four meetings for Bielkova last April, including with a State Department official and two individuals on the White House’s National Security Council.

He reached out to several dozen additional people — including Crowley — in an attempt to have them meet with Bielkova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament. 

An oligarch worth $1.07 billion, Pinchuk is the fourth richest person in Ukraine, according to Forbes. A businessman and a philanthropist, he has a foundation boasting his own name, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

Pinchuk made his fortune with his company Interpipe, which manufactures steel tubes, and also runs an investment advisory firm called EastOne.

The Pinchuk Foundation gave $150,000 to the Trump Foundation in 2015 as a speaking fee, according to Buzzfeed. In September of that year, then-candidate Donald Trump gave a speech over video feed at a conference organized by the charity.

The foundation had previously backed the Clintons and their philanthropic efforts, including giving millions to the Clinton Foundation and hosting both Bill and Hillary Clinton at the same conference in previous years. 

Pinchuk penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed in December that, among other things, suggests Ukraine stop its quest to be included in the European Union and NATO coalition in exchange for peace with Russia. 

Schoen began working for Pinchuk in the fall of 2011, forms say, to work on “Democratization in Ukraine and European integration.” He sat on the board of Pinchuk’s foundation for more than a decade and now serves as a senior adviser.

The pollster is known as one of the architects of Bill Clinton’s presidential reelection campaign in 1996. However, he wrote in an op-ed in The Hill during the 2016 election that he would not support Hillary Clinton.