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In honor of “Mother Russia” … here’s an insider’s perspective on just what we’re up against, when so-called “leaders” start using historically-charged words, like …
Enemy of the State
by Emily Tamkin, FP — Jan 26, 2018
[...]
[Bill] Browder publicly and frequently defended Putin in those early years [2000-2002]. [...]
The situation began to change in 2003, when Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then thought to be the richest man in Russia, challenged Putin on camera on the issue of corruption. Later that year, Khodorkovsky was arrested for fraud. Putin and company seized the shares of Khodorkovsky’s company, Yukos, and sent him to prison.
In Browder’s later telling, Khodorkovsky’s arrest was a turning point. Browder said that after Khodorkovsky was sent to prison in Siberia, the Russian oligarchs went to Putin and asked what needed to be done so that they did not end up in a similar position. Putin’s answer was “50 percent,” Browder said.
“The oligarchs became his business partners,” Browder said.
[...]
No wonder Putin is among the richest, if not THE Richest man in the world. A 50% tribute from all his nation’s Oligarch’s so that they can stay in business (and out of Jail) — is quite the operation. Must make some other wantabee strongmen millionaires, green with envy.
Bill Browder continues his story, on how he went from Russian Investor, to being on Putin’s Enemies List:
Yet Browder’s time as Putin’s champion ended in 2005. In November of that year, Browder was taken from the VIP section of the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow and locked up in a detention center for 15 hours. He was deported to London the next day. “After I was expelled, I said to myself, ‘When the Russians turn on you, they don’t turn on you mildly,’” Browder said.
In Browder’s telling, in 2007, his office was raided and police officers stole the documents needed to own an investment company. His companies were “fraudulently re-registered into the name of a man convicted of murder and let out of jail early by the police, presumably to put his name on these documents.” The men who had stolen the companies applied for a tax refund of $230 million — the amount Hermitage had paid in capital gains tax — on Dec. 23. It was approved the next day.
[Sergei] Magnitsky, who worked for the law firm Firestone Duncan and served as a sort of occasional outside counsel for Hermitage, looked into the matter. Magnitsky testified that he went to the authorities in June 2008 and said he had discovered evidence of theft of the Hermitage Fund companies.
[...]
In November, Magnitsky was detained on suspicion of aiding tax evasion. [...]
A few months after that hearing, 37-year-old Magnitsky died in prison. He had developed pancreatitis and gallstones but was denied requested medical attention after the diagnosis. Browder said Magnitsky was beaten and murdered.
Putin the thug who demands 50 percent from ALL the Oligarchs in his country, is also the “leader” that Trump ‘pays homage’ to every chance he gets. Trump is selling out America to Vladimir, at every opportunity. (Otherwise there would be cameras, and advisors, and print-outs of their meetings’ agreements.)
Perhaps the most notable of the these Trump Tributes took place at the Helsinki “Surrender Summit”, where on the ‘world stage’ Trump fell captive to Putin’s “strong and powerful greatness” …
"I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said. "Dan Coats [the director of national intelligence] came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."
… But the Trump surrender to 50% Putin wasn’t done yet. Besides that treasonous moment there were also these Trump-delivered national embarrassments, for all the world to see ...
The 21 most disturbing lines from Donald Trump's press conference with Vladimir Putin
7. [Trump:] "I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish. ... And I think we're all to blame."
This is a line that will live in infamy. Trump, asked directly, "Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular," responded with this there's-plenty-of-blame-to-go-around response. It's a stunning response to what should be a very straightforward answer: Yes, I believe our intelligence community and the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia actively meddled in the election to help me, hurt Clinton and sow chaos. It's hard to properly contextualize what it means when the American president, standing beside the Russian president, says that he can't say whether Putin or the US intelligence apparatus is to be believed.
In other words, “It’s everyone’s fault, Russia hacked us — and spread lies about Hillary’s failing health, and her hatred for blacks, etc.” Why didn’t the DNC have stronger defenses? Why didn’t our Intelligence groups do something about it? "I hold both countries responsible. I think we're all to blame."
20. [Trump:] "So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."
That was in case we didn’t hear him the first time, when every thinking American’s jaw hit the floor. Trump is telling us, in his estimation, that Putin is “extremely strong and powerful” — so back off people, with all this Election Interference stuff. As far as President Trump is concerned it never happened.
‘President Putin would never order such a thing,’ Trump chides us, at every opportunity.
According to those who’ve been expelled from Russia, those who are Putin’s “Enemies List” — that is exactly the kind of thing Putin would do.
Answers to Questions from Senator Dick Durbin
by William Browder — 17 August 2017
1. Mr. Browder, given what you have seen with the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime, can you discuss the methods that Putin and his allies use to pay off those who serve their interests? Do they often use proxies, such as oligarchs from former Soviet States, and shell company transactions to help transmit these corrupt funds?
Answer [Bill Browder]:
President Putin and his regime rely on a class of ‘dependent oligarchs’ and organized crime figures to use 'black funds' to further their foreign policy interests.
As an example, we discovered that some of the $230 million stolen from the Russian government, that Sergei Magnitsky exposed and was killed over, was wired through Switzerland to Cyprus to a company called Balec. This company was owned by a Syrian/Russian dual national identified by the US government as being involved in providing material support to the Assad regime.
“Adoptions” does not mean what Donnie Jr thinks it means; or what his alibi claimed was confusingly dirt-free.
2. When President Trump held a second, undisclosed private meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit, President Trump told the New York Times that he and Putin talked “about adoption.” What do you think President Trump meant when he said that he talked “about adoption” with Putin?
Answer [Bill Browder]:
In the context of this story, the word ‘adoption’ is code for the Magnitsky Act. Shortly after the Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012, Putin retaliated by banning the adoption of Russian orphans by American families. Putin was effectively taking his own orphans hostage and then offering to free the hostages if the US would repeal the Magnitsky Act. So when anyone from the Putin regime mentions adoptions, it is solely about repealing financial and travel sanctions imposed under the Magnitsky Act against some of the worst human rights abusers in the Putin regime.
Apparently Donald missed those Congressoinlal Transcripts, what with all his “Executive Time” planning, and all … Vladimir wants to “talk to” Browder and Ambassador McFaul — and Donald says: “No Problem!”
White House: Trump will consider letting Russia question investor, former ambassador
by ELEANOR MUELLER, politico.com — July 18, 2018
President Donald Trump will consider allowing Russian investigators to question U.S.-born investor Bill Browder, former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and others after President Vladimir Putin floated the idea, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday.
“He said it was an interesting idea. He didn’t commit to anything,” Sanders said at the daily press briefing. “He wants to work with his team and determine if there’s any validity that would be helpful to the process…It was an idea they threw out.”
For those unfamiliar with Bill Browder testimony — here’s a sampling what were up against (as “captives” of the richest oligarch in the world):
Just a small sampling what Donald Trump insists on keeping “secret” — to the point of destroying any meeting notes (which occurred in those earlier Putin-Trump meetings, when the press still cared.)
Something is VERY wrong with this picture. Both in terms of National Security and open transparency.
These secret meetings and Trump’s ass-kissing performance in Helsinki, should be enough to start Donald Trump’s Impeachment. Does the Congress want America to be taking marching orders from Putin?
If the answer is NO! then they need to get off their platitudes and do something about it — like Yesterday! Trump’s blatant usurping of the Congressional Oversight Authority must not stand.
Trump is not entitled to “blanket” claims of Privilege.
Trump is not entitled to “blanket” denials of Subpoenas.
Trump is not entitled to be Above the Law. No matter how much Putin and the Trump-enablers tell him, that he is so entitled. It is just not true.
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PS. there is no wiggle room in the Oath of Office they took. Their solemn duty is not optional:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."