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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"I'm Bill Browder. Here's the Biggest Mistake Putin Made When Trying to Get Access to Me Through
I'm Bill Browder. Here's the Biggest Mistake Putin Made When Trying to Get Access to Me Through TrumpEven though the U.S. President called it 'an incredible offer'
BILL BROWDER
July 17th, 2018
Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005. Since 2009 when his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials, Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia's endemic corruption and human rights abuses.
http://amp.timeinc.net/time/5340545/bill-browder-vladimir-putin-magnitsky-act-donald-trump
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I wasnt watching the Donald TrumpVladimir Putin press conference from Helsinki. But when my phone started burning up with messages, I knew something was going on. I quickly discovered that Putin had mentioned me by name. No journalist had asked about me. He just brought me up out of the blue.
Putin offered to allow American investigators to interview the 12 Russian intelligence agents just indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in exchange for allowing Russians to have access to me and those close to me. This is no idle threat. For the last ten years, Ive been trying to avoid getting killed by Putins regime, and there already exists a trail of dead bodies connected to its desire to see me dead. Amazingly, Trump stood next to him, appearing to nod approvingly. He even later said that he considered it an incredible offer.
Im lodged so firmly under Putins skin because Im the person responsible for getting the Magnitsky Act passed in the United States in 2012. This is a law that allows the U.S. government to freeze assets and ban visas of human-rights violators around the world. Some of these human-rights violators had killed Sergei Magnitsky, my Russian lawyer who was murdered in a Moscow jail for uncovering a massive $230 million government-corruption scheme that weve since traced to known Putin cronies. In essence, Putin received some of the proceeds of this crime, and he is terrified that the Magnitsky Act could be applied to his offshore fortune, which is probably one of the largest amassed in modern times.
<snip>
Since 2012, Putin has made it perhaps his largest foreign policy priority to have the Magnitsky Act repealed. But none of his efforts have worked. Not only has it not been repealed, its spread to six additional countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the Baltic states and Gibraltar. There are eight other countries with Magnitsky Acts on deck: Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, South Africa and Ukraine. The Magnitsky Act is going viral, and countries that have Magnitsky Acts are sanctioning Putins cronies, who I imagine soon will be sanctioned by other countries as well.
In addition, the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign has investigated and found the $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed and was killed over. There are now a number of live law-enforcement investigations around the world determining just who benefited from this crime. These have resulted in tens of millions of dollars of frozen assets. Furthermore, these investigations dont only put at risk the beneficiaries of this crime, but the benificiaries of many other similar crimes. These people are ready to kill to keep their money. Losing it would be devastating.
Much more at link ...
hlthe2b
(102,561 posts)Hekate
(91,039 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,672 posts)he allows Putin to have access to him.
VMA131Marine
(4,159 posts)He is a citizen of the UK. Trump cannot give Putin access no matter how much he might try unless the UK gov't agrees. Even then, the UK courts would have their say.
BigmanPigman
(51,672 posts)I don't trust our own govt anymore.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)DBoon
(22,430 posts)FTFY
This is an administration who tried to kidnap Fethullah Gulen at the behest of Turkey
Thekaspervote
(32,823 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,830 posts)He provides more info on Putin and this is stuff people need to know.
Stay alive, Bill Browder!
FSogol
(45,595 posts)Laffy Kat
(16,393 posts)Leghorn21
(13,527 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)kleptocrat-wrecking ball he's helped get rolling. F
Fortunately, Browder is now a British citizen, and they'd never extradite him into the hands of the Kremlin. For the same reason, I hope Browder is not in America.
whathehell
(29,111 posts)Trump be damned.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)referenced. An expert discussing this used the word extradition; perhaps another would be more correct if not any more legal. Putin has a huge grudge against Browder for encouraging passage of the Magnitsky Act in our country and other actions in other nations. He's now claiming Browder, Ambassador McFaul and the others were involved in criminal conspiracy. Putin doesn't want to question, but to imprison and to cause great uproar here.
Trump is already far, far over the line toward committing this atrocity even by saying he's considering it. If Trump ordered arrests and and we learned these people had been flown to Russia, whereabouts unknown, what would we do?
Remember, Trump very publicly broke what have to be a bunch of laws thousands of times in arresting people claiming refugee status and kidnapping their children, putting them in detention facilities, immediately trafficking some of them into a foster-care-to-adoption pipeline. He believed the right would continue to support him, and he was very right.
He plans to double down on atrocities against immigrants using other excuses. Detention camps for over 100,000 are in the works.
I now believe the only personal limits to what this wannabe dictator would do are those actions he fears could come back and hurt him and crimes so big that he's lacked the guts to proceed, such as using our nukes or bizarrely invading Venezuela. So far.
He's given us strong reason to believe that only considerations of political fallout to him would keep him from obligingly arresting former government officials and turning them over to Putin. And the right might be initially a little shaken but would form back up and support it. Putin even helped this along by personally claiming Browder donated $400 million (!) to Hillary's campaign.
whathehell
(29,111 posts)but I retain a certain faith in American institutions, and I refuse to become paranoid.
The Moron in Chief is certainly "over the line" in his comments, but in addition to the Secretary of State'd calling out Russia:s allegations as "absurd", one needs to remember that words are not actions, especially given that the Moron is now walking back his every day.
I see the entire country as being on "alert" since the Putin summit According too many, the even more recent NYT expose of his early knowledge of Russian hacking makes him particularly vulnerable to charges of Collusion and/ or Cover-up.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and thousands of kidnapped children are still held in detention camps and their relatives in prison camps or deported, with our government claiming they're now officially "abandoned."
These vicious atrocities meet my criteria for crimes against humanity and also surpass my notion of what would once have been paranoid imaginings. This government has already brought us where what would once have been paranoid fears are very real.
lapislzi
(5,762 posts)If I were him, I'd be ensconced in an undisclosed British protectorate, maybe in the South Pacific.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to have done what he has, and a real hero. I hope he lives to not bother spitting on Putin's grave and many years after.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)spanone
(135,950 posts)Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)BSdetect
(8,999 posts)Nodding approval is sickening.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)something out of sheer ignorance of fact, history, or consequence.
Because Don don't need no experts because every fuckup is forgiven by his braindead base and the calls for his resignation never seem to come...as they should have long ago.
Get some guts, my leaders..if Democratic leaders can call for the elimination of ICE, a real political risk, why not say this.
RESIGN, MOTHERFUCKER.
The World would immortalize you.
lastlib
(23,388 posts)"double negatives," right?
Cha
(298,074 posts)2naSalit
(86,963 posts)OliverQ
(3,363 posts)kstewart33
(6,551 posts)I hope that Mr. Browder and Ambassador McFaul hire some security.
bdamomma
(63,974 posts)hmmm.... trump is playing with fire and he get burnt to a crisp. keep fucking around with a ex-KGB'er.
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,804 posts)Bookmarked for later study.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Does anyone know if Mueller has interviewed either Browder or McFaul?
Native
(5,943 posts)Excerpt:
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)Trump with Putin conspiring against McFaul & Browder, this is just so hostile to everything America and our Democracy stands for.
Midnight Writer
(21,856 posts)stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)My suspicion is that way more than the NRA but actually the whole GOP Koch/Fundie/international petrofascist donor infrastructure that has been funding the GOPs in Congress for a long time is swimming in dark Putin money. To me they are all cut from the same cloth from their plantation ideology & to their totalitarian goals.
I think there are years of correspondence & emails that Putin holds from and to those in the GOP Congress & heirarchy. When McCarthy & Ryan made the mike "slip" about "Rohrbacher & Trump being THE ONLY ONES paid by Russia" it was intentional, a smokescreen feigning innocence to protect the rest of them from being investigated.
We know that Putin hacked the Dem side to get incriminating info and steal strategic election data to defeat Hillary & elect Trump.
What nobody is mentioning is that Putin most certainly hacked the RNC & the GOP Machine too. But instead of exposing GOP truths, it was to update his long standing, incriminating GOP archive, to further hold their secrets in exchange for their continuing submission & protections in the Trump/Putin Presidency
That's where my thinking is with this right now.
DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)The Hostage Congress cares about two things:
- money from billionaires
- votes from the GOP base
The GOP base is controlled by Fox and Limbaugh.
As long as Fox and Limbaugh are propagandizing for Trump, the GOP Congress will NEVER ditch him.
They are going to put party and power before country. Nothing matters except the base and what Fox says to them.
Look at Mark Sanford - primaried because he opposed Trump. Because Fox lies to Sanford's constituents.
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)That credible dangle of Rosnet 19% deal to Trump, the bottomless pockets of the RW/Koch's" Prava" infrastructure, the extensive
web of non disclosure required "social welfare" RW & Fundie funnels for dark money (the NRA is just the tip of this evil iceberg ) into not just the GOP campaigns but also all of their sado populist groups like the Tea Party & alt right machinery.
Our democracy has hit peak occupation by a unified (foreign and domestic) hostile power masquerading as a political party.. IMHO
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Old Crow
(2,212 posts)yonder
(9,686 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)To vote against both Russian sanctions AND the Magnitsky Act is quite a twofer. I cant think of another member of Congress who voted no on both bills. Maybe Rohrabacher?
oberliner
(58,724 posts)And 3 other Democrats voted no as well (Levin, Whitehouse, and Reed).
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Also, did those same folks you mentioned also vote against Russian Election Sanctions?
Finally, why do Bernie supporters act like Trump and try to blame Hillary Clinton all the time? Whenever a question is raised about Trump/Bernie, the response is what about Hillary Clinton?
Who cares? She was not a U.S. senator then, and she is not President now.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)She was opposed to it, not as a senator, but as the US Secretary of State (check the op-ed she wrote at the time entitled "Trade with Russia is a Win-Win" ).
I'm not blaming Hillary Clinton for anything - I am just saying that there was opposition from both her and Bernie Sanders, and the several Democratic senators that I listed (no Republicans voted against it, only Democrats and Sanders).
I am a big fan of Hillary Clinton and supported her whole-heartedly in the primary and, of course, the general election (I also like Bernie Sanders a lot too).
In terms of the other "no" vote you reference from Bernie - that was on a bill that included giving Trump discretion with respect to sanctions against Iran - which was why Bernie said he opposed it.
Here is his statement from that time:
I am strongly supportive of sanctions on Russia and North Korea. However, I worry very much about President Trumps approach to Iran. Following Trumps comments that he wont re-certify Irans compliance with the nuclear agreement, I worry new sanctions could endanger it.
This seems pretty reasonable.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)This is not Fox News. Neither Bernie nor Trump get a free pass by blaming Hillary or bringing up Hillary.
Bernie is the only Senator who voted no on both the Magnitsky Act and Russian sanctions. He is the only one. That is not reasonable that on the two most consequential bills involving Putin's corruption and meddling that Bernie voted no.
Hillary did not vote no on either bill. She was not a Senator.
That being said. What about you? Were you against the Russian sanctions bill and the Magnitsky Act? I can understand your defense of Bernie if you were opposed to both bills.
gademocrat7
(10,688 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Pluvious
(4,348 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)This is a good article and it's written by Browder.
But going forward, for future Time articles, remember: the Koches bought Time to use as a propaganda instrument. Be wary.
bdamomma
(63,974 posts)nt
SunSeeker
(51,811 posts)blue-wave
(4,375 posts)FakeNoose
(32,917 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 19, 2018, 02:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Pertinent quote from the OP:
The biggest mistake that Putin made in his offer today to effectively swap me for the 12 Russian agents is that he went to the wrong head of state. Although I was born in America, I emigrated to the United Kingdom 29 years ago and am a British citizen. If he really wants me, he better go talk to Theresa May, who might have a few choice words for him after Russian agents spread the military-grade nerve agent Novichok across the cathedral town of Salisbury, England.
Does anybody believe that Trump even knows that Mr. Browder is a British subject?
Good luck to you Mr. Browder! I hope you have a few fake IDs in your possession.
Gothmog
(145,965 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Thanks for sharing this!