Thread by @AliAdair22

🤔“I think that’s an incredible offer,” Trump asserted about an offer from Vladimir Putin to invite Robert Mueller to witness the Russian authorities question the 12 GRU Russians who allegedly hacked into the DNC computers that altered the election.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/globa…

👁️👁️🦷🦷But in return, Putin wanted similar access to Americans “who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of Russia.”

time.com/5340167/donald…

💰💰Not only that: Vladimir Putin singled out Bill Browder in his tirade in Helsinki on July 16, claiming Browder earned $1.5 billion in Russia and didn’t pay taxes—either in Russia or the U.S.

💸Putin claims the money was transferred to the U.S. and $400 million of it was donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. [Nothing illegal about a political campaign donation if it was true, but Putin claims it was essentially dirty money.]

🗣️In Browder’s words:
“For the last ten years, I’ve been trying to avoid getting killed by Putin’s regime, and there already exists a trail of dead bodies connected to its desire to see me dead.”

📺By the way, if you didn’t see the 60 Minutes interview with Bill Browder in 2014, it is worth signing up with cbs.com to watch the entire interview, but here’s a preview of it:

👤Who is Bill Browder? Bill Browder is responsible for getting Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012, a bipartisan bill officially called the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act—introduced by Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and John McCain (R-AZ)—(cont'd)

(cont'd) which "authorizes governments to sanction human rights offenders in Russia, freeze their foreign assets, and ban them from entering the signing country." This was the list of individuals sanctioned and banned in 2013:

🗽But that’s not all.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky…

💯In December 2016, Congress enlarged the scope of the Magnitsky Act, currently called the Global Magnitsky Act (GMA)—again Senator Ben Cardin (R-MD)—to enable the U.S. Government to sanction corrupt government officials implicated in abuses anywhere in the world.

🇬🇧🇨🇦🇪🇪🇱🇹🇱🇻🇬🇮Not only was the bill passed in the U.S., it was also passed in 6 additional countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Gibraltar.

🇸🇪🇫🇷🇩🇪🇳🇱🇩🇰🦘🇿🇦🇺🇦And eight more “on deck” according to Browder:
Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, South Africa and Ukraine. The Ukraine, according to Browder, may be the next country to pass Magnitsky act:

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/984173458992123904

💰💸According to Browder, Putin has made it “perhaps his largest foreign policy priority to have the Magnitsky Act repealed. Why is Putin so scared of Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act?

In Bill Browder’s own words:

time.com/5340545/bill-b…

⚡️“Magnitsky” is not an arbitrary name for an Act of Congress.

💥Magnitsky is a real person who was refused medical treatment of any kind, tortured and beaten to death in a Russian prison. For doing nothing, except taking up Bill Browder’s case.

billbrowder.com/sergei-magnits…

⁉️What was Bill Browder’s case?

🤔Sometimes, even those of us who know his name, forget the harrowing details. Some of us think we know, but we don’t. And others never knew. So here’s the history. It’s important.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ma…

💵💰💳Bill Browder founded a very successful company with Edmond Safra called Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund and asset management company, specializing in Russian markets. It was based in Moscow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage…

🕵️‍♂️Hermitage was created in 1996 and one of its main strategies was to expose corruption in the companies that they invested in—conducting forensic audits—hoping these companies would change their ways and the investors would get a better return on their money.

🇷🇺Between 1998-2000, Hermitage helped expose several noteworthy corruption cases involving Russia’s largest company, Gazprom, a natural gas company.

🔥Hermitage had a problem with Gazprom’s business valuation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom

What is a business valuation? Business valuation is a process & a set of procedures used to estimate the economic value of an owner's interest in a business. For instance Spotify, a company that recently went public in 4/2018, was given a valuation of $26 billion on the 1st day.

😖So Bill Browder’s company Hermitage charged that Gazprom was representing their valuation as about 1% of what it was really worth. (Using the Spotify analogy it would be as if the CEO of Spotify said the company was only worth $260 million—not $26 billion—quite a difference.)

Bill Browder was originally a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin (he said he thought Russia needed an authoritarian leader to restore order), but these charges against Gazprom caused the Russian government to blacklist Heritage in November 2005.
nytimes.com/2008/07/24/wor…

🇷🇺The Russian government said Hermitage Capital Management was a “threat to national security” and its executives were not allowed into the country. Browder’s visa was taken.

🇷🇺A few months later, The Economist wrote that the company was blacklisted because it interrupted the flow of money to “corrupt bureaucrats and their businessmen accomplices” in Russia.

economist.com/business/2006/…

(Link to Spotify valuation)

fool.com/investing/2018…

Excerpt from The Economist article "An enemy of the people"

⏳Two years later, Browder asked a mutual friend of Vladimir Putin’s to help him get back into the country.

👌He was assured that his problems would “go away” if he cooperated.

💥Things escalated from there.

🇷🇺The Russians pursued the investigation with the ultimate goal of seizing Browder's company’s entire earnings ($4 billion at its height in 2005). All this to teach him a lesson and prevent anyone else from doing the same thing.

💵Oh, and to get the money.

👮‍♂️🚔🚨The Russian police seized vital documents from Bill Browder’s attorney’s office in Moscow. His holding companies had been stolen from him and registered in the name of a convicted murderer, then used to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury.

🇷🇺“They” got control of most of Browder’s corporate structure, but were not able to access his investors’ money.

👮‍♂️🚔🚨Any complaints or requests to investigate these crimes that Browder made to the police were ignored.

🙈🙉🙊Putin always denied even knowing Browder.

🇷🇺In 2005, Putin had seized complete control of the natural gas company Gazprom, citing a plan to nationalize central energy assets.

😡Bill Browder’s charges of mismanagement and corruption was an overzealous attempt at humiliation, in Putin’s eyes.

👮‍♂️🚔🚨In 2007, dozens of police officers raided the Hermitage Moscow office and seized more documents and computers.

🏥One member of the firm protested and was beaten by officers and put in the hospital for two weeks.

⚡️Along the way, several of Browder’s business associates, lawyers and relatives were victims of crimes, including severe beatings and robberies.

📄The criminals took documents and the crimes were never solved.

💲The Department of Tax Crime and Interior Ministry (with approval by the FSB) said he was looking for evidence into whether Hermitage’s company called Kameya had underpaid taxes by $44 million.

👩‍⚖️👨‍⚖️Hermitage was the victim of Russian corporate raiding: companies and assets were stolen with the aid of corrupt Russian officials and judges.

🇷🇺Corporate raiding was rampant under Vladimir Putin.

👨‍⚖️👩‍⚖️The Russians had three holding companies and used a classic process to drain them all of money: they filed a bogus sloppy lawsuit, asserting the holding companies had defrauded other companies.

👩‍⚖️Lawyers with no connection to Browder showed up in court and admitted wrongdoing so the judge ruled against Hermitage.

👨‍⚖️In the end there were 15 claims and $1.26 billion in judgments against Hermitage.

😲Browder found out 3 months later.

⚖️The corporate raiders then used the legal judgments to alter the balance sheets and wiped away their earnings for 2006.

💰Then the corporate raiders applied for tax refunds.

‼️💸💸💸The Russian Treasury handed over $230 million: the largest tax rebate in Russian history.

🧮Bill Browder hired Sergei Magnitsky, at the time a 35-year old tax accountant—who specialized in anti corruption activities—to investigate.

👮‍♂️🚔🚨He helped file criminal complaints against the police officers involved in the raids and even testified against them.

👮‍♂️Because of his testimony, he was arrested in 2008 by two of the Interior Ministry officers he testified against.

He was held in custody for 358 days—7⃣ days short of the limit he could be held without trial—and tortured in an effort to get him to recant his testimony.

🦸‍♂️Sergei Magnitsky wouldn’t give in.

They then chained him to a bed and eight riot guards beat him to death with rubber batons.

⚰️Date of Mr. Magnitsky's death: November 16, 2009.

Bill Browder felt deep physical pain when he heard about Magnitsky’s death. He made a vow to Sergei, his family and himself not to let those responsible get away with their crimes.

While in custody, Magnitsky wrote 450 complaints, detailing the torture.

politico.com/magazine/story…

📄📄Bill Browder & his allies received copies of these complaints—which he used to document the horrific human rights abuse case against Russian authorities.

⚖️Browder assumed the perpetrators would be brought to justice, but the government exonerated everyone connected with the case—some even got promotions and honors.🎖️

🇺🇸Since Browder could not get justice in Russia, he turned to the United States.

🗽He discovered an executive order called Proclamation 7750, which allows the State Department to impose visa sanctions on corrupt foreign officials.

🇺🇸His plan was to convince the United States government that the people who killed Magnitsky should have Proclamation 7750 imposed on them.

🇷🇺“Corrupt Russians loved to travel and throw around their money, and if America were off-limits for them, it would be devastating.”

🇺🇸🇷🇺Unfortunately, the policy under Obama was to repair the broken relations between the U.S. and Russia, therefore the policy was to avoid mentioning human rights violations and in return Russia would cooperate on trade and nuclear disarmament.

🗽Browder then met with Senator Ben Cardin’s staff member Kyle Parker, who spoke perfect Russian and knew what was going on in the country.

🇫🇮 Cardin had heard Browder’s account of the torture Magnitsky had endured at the Helsinki Commission the previous summer before he died.

🗽Kyle Parker suggested that he talk to Senator Cardin and write a letter to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

🇫🇮Cardin wrote the letter and posted it on the U.S. Helsinki Commission website.

🏛️Per Senator Cardin’s letter:

🗽“I urge you to immediately cancel and permanently withdraw the U.S. visa privileges of all those involved in this crime. Doing so will provide some measure of justice for the late Mr. Magnitsky and his surviving family.”

🗽Cardin posted 60 names alongside it: all those responsible for Sergei’s false arrest, torture and death.

🇷🇺The story hit the Russian newswires as well as the Western press and became known as the “Cardin list.”

👦👧In retaliation, the Russian government denied Americans adoption of Russian children, issued a list of U.S. officials prohibited from entering Russia, and posthumously convicted Magnitsky as guilty.

reuters.com/article/us-rus…

😠Bill Browder was tried in absentia in a Russian court and convicted of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.

😡He was sentenced to nine years’ jail in the case.

😡That was 2013. In December 2017, Bill Browder was again found guilty of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion and sentenced to 9 years in prison.

reuters.com/article/us-rus…

👮‍♂️Interpol would not put Bill Browder on its international search list after deciding that the tax evasion case against him was “of a predominantly political nature."

⚖️Bill Browder founded the “Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign” in order to bring the facts to light.

🙌The campaign found the $230 million that Magnitsky had discovered before he died: the reason he was tortured and killed.

lawandorderinrussia.org

🌎This has triggered more investigations around the world connected to this crime.

🥶Assets have been frozen as a result.

💥Browder on .time.com: “These people are ready to kill to keep their money. Losing it would be devastating.”

🤣As to the allegation by Putin that Browder donated “illegal money” to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Browder calls it “ludicrous.”

time.com/5340545/bill-b…

🇷🇺Bill Browder notes other allegations against him in the past from the Russian government:

😳But Bill Browder notes that Putin made a bad mistake: he went to the wrong head of state. Browder's a British citizen so Donald Trump will not have any say in his fate, thank God.

🚫Even so, our president is dead wrong. It was not "an incredible offer."

🕸️Please visit Bill Browder's website:

billbrowder.com

📕Or read his book "Red Notice."

smile.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Fin…

PS1/ To clear up any confusion re: the alleged $400 million that Browder gave to Hillary Clinton's campaign, 1. Browder, whose credibility would be very difficult to impugn, claims he never made a donation to Hillary Clinton or ANY political candidate EVER.

2. Putin himself admits that if Browder did give a contribution to Hillary Clinton's political campaign that it "might have been legal." Putin's argument is that he believes Browder took money from Russia and that's why he would be classify it as a crime.

3. Therefore, Putin would think anything Browder did with his money was illegal. Bringing up Hillary Clinton just confuses and muddies the waters more. Purposefully. Plus it absolutely didn't happen, according to Browder and stated in #1.

4. Browder also notes that that the Russian government has accused him of being a serial killer, a CIA/MI6 agent determined to destroy the Russian government and stealing $4.8 billion of IMF money in the 1990s destined for the Russian Treasury.

PS2/ Browder's credibility: he testified in front of the U.S. Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2012. After his testimony, the House passed the bipartisan bill HB 6156, the "Magnitsky Act" on a 365-43 vote (25 did not vote); The Senate passed it 92-4 (4 did not vote)

📹PS2 (cont'd) Here's video of Bill Browder's 2012 testimony. In his opening remarks, Bill Browder said

❗️“Russian doesn’t function as a normal state as we know it, it functions more akin to a criminal enterprise.”

🗣️PS2 (cont'd) Bill Browder also made the following statement:

⚖️“It is my duty to his [Sergei Magnitsky's] memory and to his family to make sure that justice gets done in this case and that this story gets told widely across the world.”

PS3/ The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act did not have a vote per se; it passed as part of the 114th Congress National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2017 and became law on December 23, 2016.

PS4/ However, on July 27, 2017, Bill Browder was asked again to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Election.

c-span.org/video/?431852-…