Two days after Trump’s headline-grabbing Boy Scout speech …
And the same day Scaramucci called New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza and proceeded to enter a one-man profanity contest …
Bill Browder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests,” Browder writes.
An American, Browder is a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. For more than a decade he lived in Moscow, running the most successful investment fund in Russia.
He’s one link in the Russia chain, having hired Sergei Magnitsky, a 35-year-old tax lawyer, to investigate Russian oligarchs. Maginitsky would die in Russian custody in 2009. Congress commemorated his death in 2012 by imposing sanctions in the Magnitsky Act. Russia retaliated by suspending adoption of Russian children.
And yes, you’ve heard part of this song-and-dance, because Trump, Jr. et al and “the meeting” last summer.
What you probably haven’t heard is Browder’s story of how Putin became the world’s richest man.
Browder wrote a book about this: Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No.1 Enemy.
You owe it to yourself to read his testimony (or watch it on C-SPAN), which could be the template for a Hollywood screenplay, although getting it funded would require — like so much of what is happening in this Administration — a healthy dose of “suspension of disbelief.” Because life is stranger than fiction these days.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com