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As proclaimed in this highly-rated post:
… Browder’s testimony is jaw-dropping astounding.
Here are some more of those “Official-record” details to back that up ...
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The financier Bill Browder has emerged as an unlikely central player in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney Browder hired to investigate official corruption, died in Russian custody in 2009. Congress subsequently imposed sanctions on the officials it held responsible for his death, passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government retaliated, among other ways, by suspending American adoptions of Russian children.
Here are some details that seemed on-point to me, from the Browder testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on FARA violations, connected to the anti-Magnitsky Campaign by Russian government interests — July 26, 2017
[...]
When I began the campaign for justice with this evidence, I thought that the Russian authorities would have no choice but to prosecute at least some of the officials involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and murder. It turns out I could not have been more wrong. Instead of prosecuting, the Russian authorities circled the wagons and exonerated everybody involved. They even went so far as to offer promotions and state honors to those most complicit in Sergei’s persecution.
It became obvious that if I was going to get any justice for Sergei Magnitsky, I was going to have to find it outside of Russia.
[...]
In 2010, I traveled to Washington and told Sergei Magnitsky’s story to Senators Benjamin Cardin and John McCain. They were both shocked and appalled and proposed a new piece of legislation called The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. This would freeze assets and ban visas for those who killed Sergei as well as other Russians involved in serious human rights abuse.
[...]
Putin was furious. Looking for ways to retaliate against American interests, he settled on the most sadistic and evil option of all: banning the adoption of Russian orphans by American families.
This was particularly heinous because of the effect it had on the orphans. Russia did not allow the adoption of healthy children, just sick ones. In spite of this, American families came with big hearts and open arms, taking in children with HIV, Down syndrome, Spina Bifida and other serious ailments. They brought them to America, nursed them, cared for them and loved them. Since the Russian orphanage system did not have the resources to look after these children, many of those unlucky enough to remain in Russia would die before their 18th birthday. In practical terms, this meant that Vladimir Putin sentenced his own, most vulnerable and sick Russian orphans to death in order to protect corrupt officials in his regime.
Why did Vladimir Putin take such a drastic and malicious step?
For two reasons. First, since 2012 it’s emerged that Vladimir Putin was a beneficiary of the stolen $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed. Recent revelations from the Panama Papers have shown that Putin’s closest childhood friend, Sergei Roldugin, a famous cellist, received $2 billion of funds from Russian oligarchs and the Russian state. It’s commonly understood that Mr. Roldugin received this money as an agent of Vladimir Putin. Information from the Panama Papers also links some money from the crime that Sergei Magnitsky discovered and exposed to Sergei Roldugin. Based on the language of the Magnitsky Act, this would make Putin personally subject to Magnitsky sanctions.
This is particularly worrying for Putin, because he is one of the richest men in the world. I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his 17 years in power. He keeps his money in the West and all of his money in the West is potentially exposed to asset freezes and confiscation. Therefore, he has a significant and very personal interest in finding a way to get rid of the Magnitsky sanctions.
The second reason why Putin reacted so badly to the passage of the Magnitsky Act is that it destroys the promise of impunity he’s given to all of his corrupt officials.
There are approximately ten thousand officials in Russia working for Putin who are given instructions to kill, torture, kidnap, extort money from people, and seize their property. Before the Magnitsky Act, Putin could guarantee them impunity and this system of illegal wealth accumulation worked smoothly. However, after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, Putin’s guarantee disappeared. The Magnitsky Act created real consequences outside of Russia and this created a real problem for Putin and his system of kleptocracy.
For these reasons, Putin has stated publicly that it was among his top foreign policy priorities to repeal the Magnitsky Act and to prevent it from spreading to other countries. Since its passage in 2012, the Putin regime has gone after everybody who has been advocating for the Magnitsky Act.
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[emphasis added]
As the 2016 Investigation (aka the Panama Papers) by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows, Putin has a lot of money at stake in offshore shell companies, also known as Oligarchs’ Secret Stash:
The Panama Papers revealed Russian President Vladimir Putin is linked to $2 billion in transactions funneled through banks and shadow companies. The leak reportedly reveals how Putin helped make members of his circle wealthy.
— huffingtonpost.com
[emphasis added]
$2,000,000,000.00 — that a hellvua Retirement “nest-egg” to accumulate on a President’s “salary” ($200 Billion, according to Browder).
In either case, 2 Billion is also a LOT of incentive to pull out all the stops, to end the primary external threat of its seizure — aka the Magnitsky Act … you know all that “silly talk” about ending Putin’s Adoption bans, according to Donald Trump Jr. assessment of his June 2016 secret meeting with Kremlin representatives.
As Browder continued to explain to the Senate Committee yesterday:
[...] “there is no doubt” the Kremlin was behind the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.
[...]
“These two individuals, Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin, were acting on behalf of Vladimir Putin in initiating a potential agreement, legally probably a conspiracy, involving the Russian government and Donald Trump Jr. and the other participants in that meeting, correct?” Blumenthal asked. Browder said in response, “That was the intention of the Russians.” He added that he believes Putin would have had knowledge of the meeting before and after it took place, and he agreed with Blumenthal when the senator said that the participation of Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin meant that “the Russian government and Vladimir Putin were in effect coming to this meeting.”
— newsweek.com
[emphasis added]
Donald Trump Jr. and company should start taking the titles (and the content) of those email invitations, promising Dirt in exchange for your cooperation — just a bit more seriously.
Hopefully the Senate Committee, unchained from Trump’s bullying antics, soon will be.
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PS. for some short-format clips of the Bill Browder Testimony, check out this page:
DailyKos -- Videos — or as posted in the comments below.