Politics
Out of context: Reply #27137
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- yuekit1
The backstory on all this is pretty interesting...it has to do with an American investor named Bill Browder who made a lot of money in Russia during the 90s and early 2000s. At one point he was a major shareholder in Gazprom and other big companies.
Apparently he got on the wrong side of some powerful people and in 2013 he was banned from Russia. He claims that his company, which at the time was the largest investment fund in Russia, was taken over by criminals in the Russian government who extracted hundreds of millions using a fraudulent tax refund scheme.
Sergei Magnitsky who was Browder's lawyer investigated all of this and drew up a case against the people who did it. But instead they prosecuted Magnitsky himself for tax fraud and he was thrown in jail and reportedly tortured and eventually beaten to death.
In response Browder started waging a campaign against the people he said were responsible. He has a whole series of videos like these for instance:
Eventually he was able to convince the U.S. Congress to impose financial sanctions against 18 people in Russia that he said were responsible for Magnitsky's death. The law froze their assets in the U.S. and prohibited them from flying to the U.S.
And in response to that, Russia banned adoptions of Russian children by Americans.
That's what the Russian lawyer was talking to Don Jr. about...not getting sanctions against the Russian economy lifted, but sanctions against these 18 people.
- but that narrative doesn't sell papers. and less emotional shares********
- but that narrative doesn't sell papers. and less emotional shares