As the current administration flirts with weaponizing the government under the guise of de-weaponizing the government, consider how easy it is for powerful institutions to wreck havoc. There are a lot of ways for the powerful to hurt someone. Generally speaking, institutions constrain the damage they can cause to people who actually, you know, try to kidnap people. But what happens when power jumps the guardrails?
Targeted, a new show hosted by occasional Above the Law columnist Zach Abramowitz, endeavors to tell the stories of people who end up on the wrong end of organs of power — whether law enforcement, regulators, or media. One two-part episode focused on Gaurav Srivastava, a business investor. When Srivastava’s former business partner Niels Troost got sanctioned by the EU for trading in Russian oil, Troost claimed that he actually wound up his dealings before the war imposed controls. But he also claimed that Srivastava posed as a CIA operative promising special exceptions to the rules.
Most sophisticated parties represented by sophisticated lawyers in an arms-length transaction don’t make decisions based on promises that it’s part of a covert spy operation, but whatever.
It’s a crazy story though. Crazy enough to get picked up, first by a lot of fringe publications and then ending up in the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Yet… despite the eagerness to fight the battle in the media and then use that to make his case to get his own sanctions lifted, Troost never took these allegations against Srivastava to court.
Above the Law even gets featured in the show, though our coverage differed from the other outlets. While they picked up on coverage from overseas content mills or credulously repeated Troost’s out-of-court allegations, our article addressed an actually filed lawsuit specifically alleging an undisclosed conflict between Baker Hostetler, representing Troost’s company, and Srivastava. According to that suit, the partner on the matter had an unrelated business relationship with Srivastava. The docket suggests that case ended up going nowhere.
However the deal between them went down, it seems like this should be put up or shut up time for the underlying allegations. If there’s any actual evidence that this guy pretended to be a spy or otherwise misrepresented himself… file that lawsuit.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
