Russia probe finds Vin Weber, a D.C insider with deep Minnesota roots

Of all those caught up in the investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, Vin Weber may be the most unlikely.

Weber is reportedly under scrutiny by a grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller for his involvement in an influence campaign on behalf of Ukrainian interests tied to Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chair.

Unlike Manafort, Weber actively opposed Trump, telling MPR News in 2016 that "the party made a mistake ... I can't simply back somebody that I think is bad for the country, and I think a lot of Republicans feel the same way."

But Weber's presence in Manafort's orbit has pushed Weber's career as a top Washington lobbyist and Republican insider back into the news.

Born in the southwestern Minnesota town of Slayton, Weber, 65, was co-publisher of a Murray County newspaper when he began working his way through the ranks of the Minnesota Republican Party. He managed Rudy Boschwitz's successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1978 and worked as a top aide to Boschwitz in Washington.

He launched his own campaign for Congress and was elected in 1980 to represent southwestern Minnesota. He was 28 years old.

Weber found his way into the House leadership, becoming secretary of the House Republican Conference. He soon developed an alliance with another relatively new GOP House member, Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

Together with a handful of other GOP legislators they pushed a conservative agenda in opposition to the Democrats who controlled the House and sometimes against the wishes of their own leadership.

"I understood immediately what he wanted to do," Weber would later tell the PBS investigative show "Frontline." "We started talking through who we would want to try to bring into a room of people that could challenge the minority mindset within our own party while challenging the Democrats at the same time."

Gingrich's hardball tactics eventually led to his election as Speaker of the House in 1995. But Weber -- always quotable and often available to the media -- was not there to see the results of his work.

In 1992 the House was caught up in a scandal involving its own bank, when members were found to be writing checks without sufficient funds to back them up. Weber apologized for having written 125 checks worth nearly $48,000.

Facing the stiff political headwinds, Weber shocked his supporters by announcing he would not seek reelection. "The prize is no longer worth the price," he said of the political environment. "It's an invitation to drag every candidate through the mud."

Out of power in the House, Weber stayed in Washington and became a high-powered lobbyist, opening the D.C. office of Clark and Weinstock in 1994. The firm later merged with and took the name of Mercury, with Weber as a partner. Weber also was a top adviser on GOP presidential campaigns for Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2008.

In Minnesota, he continued to keep a high profile at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of School of Public Affairs where he serves as a member of the dean's advisory council.

In August 2016, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that between 2012 and 2014, Weber was paid almost $700,000 to lobby for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, an organization that advocated for the country to join the European Union. Weber received the contract from Manafort and Trump strategist, Rick Gates, who were both indicted this week.

Weber told the newspaper Manafort may have misled him about the group's goals and that he believed the work did not require him to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent and that he had registered for work he did for other governments. He added that he did nothing designed to help Russia.

"Our purpose was to keep [the Ukrainians] away from Moscow," said Weber. "Our goal as Americans and Westerners was to bring Ukraine into the E.U. Our explicit work was anti-Russian."