High-level Russian desperation over the impending passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Act is palpable, with the Kremlin threatening to sanction ‘corrupt’ American officials and sending a delegation of Russian senators to plead with their U.S. counterparts not to pass the Act. For Russia’s Svoboda News, Yuri Zhigalkin quizzes analysts as to why American lawmakers paid no mind to the pleas of Russian senators, who came to share the results of Russian investigations into lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s death. Magnitsky, after uncovering massive Kremlin corruption, was then charged by those he accused with the very crimes they appear to have committed.
For the Svoboda News, Yuri Zhigalkin questions one of America’s most experience Russia hands, David Satter. Explaining why he thinks the Russians were essentially given the back of the hand by their American counterparts, Satter responds in part:
They probably were counting on the fact that a majority of senators are unfamiliar with all the details of this complicated case. So when they presented the results of official investigations implicating Magnitsky in tax evasion, they thought Americans, brought up to respect the law, would consider it a powerful argument against the Magnitsky Act. The lack of attention that marked the Russians’ appearance in Congress shows, in my opinion, the extent of the preliminary work carried out by aides of American lawmakers who sponsored the bill. The Russians were unable to fool their American colleagues, which will certainly annoy Russian officials. This unexpected visit shows the seriousness of the concern Moscow feels over the fact that something akin to the Iron Curtain will soon block corrupt Russian politicians from the world and their favorite party destinations in the West.
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