Is Bill Browder The
Most Dangerous Man In The World? By Tyler Durden, 7/25/18. Authored by Philip Giraldi via
Unz.com,
The darling of the war
party needs to answer some questions.
At the press
conference following their summit meeting in Helsinki, Russian
President Vladimir Putin and American President Donald Trump discussed the
possibility of resolving potential criminal cases involving citizens of the two
countries by permitting interrogators from Washington and Moscow to participate
in joint questioning of the individuals named in indictments prepared by the
respective judiciaries.
The predictable
response by the American nomenklatura was that it was a horrible idea as it would
potentially require U.S. officials to answer questions from Russians about
their activities.
Putin argued, not unreasonably, that if Washington wants to
extradite and talk to any of the twelve recently indicted GRU
officers the Justice Department has named then reciprocity is in
order for Americans and
other identified individuals who are wanted by the Russian authorities for
illegal activity while in Russia. And if Russian officials are fair game, so
are American officials.
A prime target for
such an interrogation would be President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to Russia
Michael McFaul, who was widely criticized while in Moscow for being on an
apparent mission to cultivate ties with the Russian political opposition and
other “pro-democracy” groups. But McFaul was not specifically identified in the
press conference, though Russian prosecutors have asked him to answer questions
related to the ongoing investigation of another leading critic,
Bill Browder was named
by Putin during the question and answer session. Browder is a major hedge fund
figure who, inter alia, is an American by birth. He renounced his U.S.
citizenship in 1997 in exchange for British citizenship to avoid paying federal
taxes on his worldwide income.
Bill Browder is what
used to be referred to as an oligarch, having set up shop in 1999 as Hermitage
Capital Management Fund, a hedge fund registered in tax havens Guernsey and the
Cayman Islands. It focused on “investing” in Russia, taking advantage initially
of the loans-for-shares scheme under Russia’s drunkard President Boris Yeltsin,
and then continuing to profit greatly during the early years of Vladimir Putin.
By 2005 Hermitage was the largest foreign investor in Russia.
Yeltsin had won a
fraudulent election in 1996 supported by the oligarch-controlled media and by
President Bill Clinton, who secured a $20.2 billion IMF loan that enabled him
to buy support. Today we would refer to Clinton’s action as “interference in
the 1996 election,” but at that time a helpless and bankrupt Russia was not
well placed to object to what was being done to it. Yeltsin proved keen to
follow oligarchical advice regarding how to strip the former Soviet Union of
its vast state-owned assets. Browder’s Hermitage Investments profited hugely
from the commodities deals that were struck at that time.
Browder and his
apologists portray him as an honest and honorable Western businessman
attempting to operate in a corrupt Russian business world. Nevertheless, the
loans-for-shares scheme that made him his initial fortune has been correctly
characterized as the epitome of corruption by all parties involved, an
arrangement whereby foreign investors worked with local oligarchs to strip the
former Soviet economy of its assets paying pennies on each dollar of value.
Along the way, Browder was reportedly involved in money laundering, making
false representations on official documents and bribery.
Browder was eventually
charged by the Russian authorities for fraud and tax evasion. He was banned
from re-entering Russia in 2005 and began to withdraw his assets from the country,
but three companies controlled by Hermitage were eventually seized by the
authorities. Browder himself was convicted of tax evasion in absentia in 2013
and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Browder, who refers to
himself as Putin’s “public enemy #1,” has notably been able to sell his tale of
innocence to leading American politicians like Senators John McCain, Lindsay
Graham, Ben Cardin and ex-Senator Joe Lieberman, all of whom are always
receptive when criticizing Russia, as well as to a number of European
parliamentarians and media outlets. In the wake of the Helsinki press
conference he has, for example, claimed that Putin named him personally because
he is a threat to continue to expose the crimes of the mafia that he claims is
currently running Russia, but there is, inevitably, another less discussed
alternative view of his self-serving narrative.
Central to the tale of
what Browder really represents is the Magnitsky Act, which the U.S. Congress
passed into law to sanction individual Kremlin officials for their treatment of
alleged whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, arrested and imprisoned in Russia.
Browder has sold a narrative which basically says that he and his “lawyer”
Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive tax fraud and, when they attempted to report
it, were punished by a corrupt police force and magistracy, which had actually
stolen the money. Magnitsky was arrested and died in prison, allegedly murdered
by the police to silence him.
The Magnitsky case is
of particular importance because both the European Union and the United States
have initiated sanctions against the identified Russian officials who were
allegedly involved. In the Magnitsky Act, sponsored by Russia-phobic Senator
Ben Cardin and signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the U.S. asserted its
willingness to punish foreign governments for human rights abuses. The Act,
initially limited to Russia, has now been expanded by virtue of 2016’s Global
Magnitsky Act, which enabled U.S. sanctions worldwide.
Russia reacted angrily
to the first iteration of the Act, noting that the actions taken by its
government internally, notably the operation of its judiciary, were being
subjected to outside interference, while other judicial authorities also
questioned Washington’s claimed right to respond to criminal acts committed
outside the United States. Moscow reciprocated with sanctions against U.S.
officials as well as by increasing pressure on foreign non-governmental
pro-democracy groups operating in Russia. Some have referred to the Magnitsky
Act as the start of the new Cold War.
The contrary narrative
to that provided by Browder concedes that there was indeed a huge fraud related
to as much as $230 million in unpaid Russian taxes on an estimated $1.5 billion
of income, but that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it
was deliberately ordered and engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, who was
actually an accountant, personally developing and implementing the scheme,
using multiple companies and tax avoidance schemes to carry out the deception.
Magnitsky, who was on cardiac medication, was indeed arrested and convicted,
but he, according to his own family, reportedly died due to his heart
condition, possibly exacerbated by negligent authorities who failed to medicate
him adequately when he became ill.
The two competing
Browder narratives have been explored in some detail by a Russian documentary
film maker Andrei Nekrasov, an outspoken anti-Putin activist, who was actually
initially engaged by Browder to do the film. An affable Browder appears
extensively in the beginning describing his career and the events surrounding
Magnitsky.
As Nekrasov worked on
the documentary, he discovered that the Browder supported narrative was full of
contradictions, omissions and fabrication of evidence. By the time he finished,
he realized that the more accurate account of what had occurred with Browder
and Magnitsky had been that provided by the Russian authorities.
When Nekrasov prepared
to air his work “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes,” he inevitably found
himself confronted by billionaire Browder and a battery of lawyers, who
together blocked the showing of the film in Europe and the United States.
Anyone subsequently attempting to promote the documentary has been immediately
confronted with 300 plus pages of supporting documents accompanying a letter
threatening a lawsuit if the film were to be shown to the public.
A single viewing of
“The Magnitsky Act” in Washington in June 2016 turned into a riot when Browder
supporters used tickets given to Congressional staffers to disrupt the
proceedings. At a subsequent hearing before Congress, where he was featured as
an expert witness on Russian corruption before a fawning Senate Judiciary
Committee, Bill Browder suggested that those who had challenged his narrative
and arranged the film’s viewing in Washington should be prosecuted under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which includes penalties of up
to five years in prison.
Because of the
pressure from Browder, there has never been a second public showing of “The
Magnitsky Act” but it is possible to see it online at this site.
Bill Browder, who
benefited enormously from Russian corruption, has expertly repackaged himself
as a paragon among businessmen, endearing himself to the Russia-haters in
Washington and the media. Curiously, however, he has proven reluctant to
testify in cases regarding his own business dealings. He has, for example,
repeatedly run away, literally, from attempts to subpoena him so he would have
to testify under oath.
When one gets past all
of his bluster and posturing, by one significant metric Bill Browder might well
be accounted the most dangerous man in the world. Driven by extreme hatred of
Putin and of Russia, he personally and his Magnitsky Myth have together done
more to launch and sustain a dangerous new Cold War between a nuclear armed
United States and a nuclear armed Russia. Blind to what he has accomplished, he
continues to pontificate about how Putin is out to get him when instead he is
the crook who quite likely stole $230 million dollars and should be facing the
consequences.
That the U.S. media
and Congress appear to be entranced by Browder and dismissive of Moscow’s
charges against him is symptomatic of just how far the Russia-phobia in the
West has robbed people of their ability to see what is right in front of them.
To suggest that what is taking place driven by Browder and his friends in high
places could well lead to tragedy for all of us would be an understatement.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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