John Houghtaling II was a wealthy, dashing New Orleans attorney in 2012 when he married Russian pop star and model Julia Timonina. They live in the historic, palatial Brown Mansion in New Orleans. In 2014, he founded the American Ethane Company, the largest ethane company in the U.S. (Ethane is extracted from natural gas deposits and is used primarily as a feedstock in the petrochemical industry to produce ethylene, a key building block for various plastics and chemical products.) It’s a privately owned company but Houghtaling doesn’t own it— Russian billionaires, closely tied to the Kremlin do.
You may remember Konstantin Yuryevich Nikolaev, a close associate of Putin’s and the financier of Russian spy Maria Butina. He seems to be the real owner, along with the notorious and sanctioned Russian-Israeli oligarch Roman Abramovich (former owner of the Chelsea Football Club and a major Putin-adjacent international villain); Andrey Kunatbaev; sanctioned Russian steel oligarch Alexander Grigoryevich Abramov; and former Putin chief of staff Alexander Voloshin— and, at one time, with Mikhail Yuriev, a former deputy chairman of the Russian Duma (now dead). Abramovich is one of the “Navalny 35,” a group of Russian human rights abusers and kleptocrats involved in poisoning and imprisoning the recently murdered Alexei Navalny.
American Ethane spends lavishly on well-connected Republican lobbyists and contributes generously to Republican politicians, including House majority leader Steve Scalise and Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson. Virtually the whole Louisiana GOP establishment has been greased by the Kremlin through American Ethane.
Today, there is talk that those generous contributions by the Kremlin went into MAGA Mike’s and Scalise’s decision to tank aid to Ukraine. Newsweek, reported that “A number of social media users have now brought up the campaign money amid Johnson's opposition to the long-debated foreign aid bill, which would send $60 billion to Ukraine as the country continues to fight off Russia's invasion. In a press conference on February 14, Johnson said he would not bring the bill recently passed by the Senate back from a House vote and that the ‘Republican-led House will not be jammed or forced into passing’ the foreign aid bill. The same day, Ukraine-based blog Fake Off posted on Twitter: ‘US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson received campaign contributions from American Ethane, a company 88% owned by three Russians. Now, do you understand why he was categorically against the aid to Ukraine?’ Another social media user added, while sharing a clip of Johnson's press conference: ‘Astonishing that the Speaker of the House for the United States Government accepts money from Russia. Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev own 88 percent of American Ethane.’”
Perhaps when the Democrats take back the House in November, there will be an investigation into how MAGA Mike and Scalise allowed a Russian agent to plant fake “evidence” with committee chairs James Comer and Gym Jordan to smear the president of the United States and start a bogus impeachment frenzy in Congress and right-wing media. But whether that ever happens or not— doubtful— Americans must look at MAGA Mike’s role in undermining Ukraine and in bringing the country to the brink— at least so far— of a government shutdown.
