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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Magnitsky Act was the opening salvo of the new cold war with Russia<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>David J.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Guardians of the Magnitsky Myth<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>July 21, 2018 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>FROM THE ARCHIVES:</span></b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'> In pursuit of Russia-gate, U.S. mainstream media embraces any attack on Russia and works to ensure Americans don’t hear the other side of the story, as with the Magnitsky myth, reported Robert Parry on Oct. 28, 2017.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>By Robert Parry<br></span></b><i><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Special to Consortium News</span></i><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/robert-parry-306x264.jpg"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=84 height=84 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D4218E.5E533110" alt="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/robert-parry-306x264-130x130.jpg"></span></a><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>As Russia-gate becomes the go-to excuse to marginalize and suppress independent and dissident media in the United States, a warning of what the future holds is the blacklisting of a documentary that debunks the so-called Magnitsky case.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The emerging outlines of the broader suppression are now apparent in moves by major technology companies – under intense political pressure – to <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/26/russia-gate-breeds-establishment-mccarthyism/"><span style='color:#333333'>unleash algorithms</span></a> that will hunt down what major media outlets and mainstream “fact-checkers” (with their own checkered histories of getting facts wrong) deem to be “false” and then <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/25/nyts-assault-of-press-freedom/"><span style='color:#333333'>stigmatize that information</span></a> with pop-up “warnings” or simply make finding it difficult for readers using major search engines.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>For those who believe in a meaningful democracy, those tactics may be troubling enough, but the Magnitsky case, an opening shot in the New Cold War with Russia, has demonstrated how aggressively the Western powers-that-be behave toward even well-reported investigative projects that unearth inconvenient truth.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Throughout the U.S. and Europe, there has been determined effort to prevent the American and European publics from seeing this detailed documentary that dissects the fraudulent claims at the heart of the Magnitsky story.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The documentary – “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes” – was produced by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who is known as a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin but who in this instance found the West’s widely accepted, anti-Russian Magnitsky storyline to be a lie.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>However, instead of welcoming Nekrasov’s discoveries as an important part of the debate over the West’s policies toward Russia, the European Parliament pulled the plug on a premiere in Brussels and – except for a one-time showing at the Newseum in Washington – very few Americans have been allowed to see the documentary.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Instead, we’re fed a steady diet of the frothy myth whipped up by hedge-fund investor William</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Browder-from-Twitter.jpg"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=400 height=400 id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D4218E.5E533110" alt="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Browder-from-Twitter.jpg"></span></a><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Browder: Buys silence.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Browder and sold to the U.S. and European governments as the basis for sanctioning Russian officials. For years now, Browder has been given a free hand to spin his dog-ate-my-homework explanation about how some of his firms got involved a $230 million tax fraud in Russia.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Browder insists that some “corrupt” Russian police officers stole his companies’ corporate seals and masterminded a convoluted conspiracy. But why anyone would trust a hedge-fund operator who got rich exploiting Russia’s loose business standards is hard to comprehend.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The answer is that Browder has used his money and political influence to scare off and silence anyone who dares point to the glaring contradictions and logical gaps in his elaborate confection.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>So, the hedge-fund guy who renounced his U.S. citizenship in favor of a British passport gets the royal treatment whenever he runs to Congress. His narrative just fits so neatly into the demonization of Russia and the frenzy over stopping “Russian propaganda and disinformation” by whatever means necessary.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>This summer, Browder <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-browders-testimony-to-the-senate-judiciary-committee/534864/"><span style='color:#333333'>testified</span></a> before the Senate Judiciary Committee and argued that people involved in arranging the one-time showing of Nekrasov’s documentary should be prosecuted for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which carries a five-year prison term.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Meanwhile, the U.S. mainstream media helps reinforce Browder’s dubious tale by smearing anyone who dares question it as a “Moscow stooge” or a “useful idiot.”</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Magnitsky and Russia-gate</span></b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The Magnitsky controversy now has <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/13/how-russia-gate-met-the-magnitsky-myth/"><span style='color:#333333'>merged with the Russia-gate affair</span></a> because Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who traveled to America to challenge Browder’s account, arranged a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign advisers in June 2016 to present this other side of the story.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Though nothing apparently came from that meeting, <i>The New York Times</i>, which always treats Browder’s account as flat fact, led its Saturday editions with a breathless story entitled, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-tower-veselnitskaya-russia.html?_r=0"><span style='color:#333333'>A Kremlin Link to a Memo Taken to Trump Tower</span></a>,” citing similarities between Veselnitskaya’s memo on the Magnitsky case and an account prepared by “one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general Yuri Y. Chaika.” Cue the spooky music as the <i>Times</i> challenges Veselnitskaya’s honesty.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left'><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/director.jpg"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=617 height=287 id="Picture_x0020_3" src="cid:image003.jpg@01D4218E.5E533110" alt="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/director-400x186.jpg"></span></a><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Film director Andrei Nekrasov, who produced “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Yet, the <i>Times</i> article bows to Browder as the ultimate truth-teller, including repetition of his assertion that Sergei Magnitsky was a whistleblowing “tax lawyer,” rather than one of Browder’s accountants implicated in the tax fraud.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>While Magnitsky’s profession may seem like a small detail, it gets to the heart of the mainstream media’s acceptance of Browder’s depiction of Magnitsky – as a crusading lawyer who died of medical neglect in a Russian prison – despite overwhelming evidence that Magnitsky was really a clever accountant caught up in the scheme.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The “lawyer” falsehood – so eagerly swallowed by the <i>Times</i> and other mainstream outlets – also bears on Browder’s overall credibility: If he is lying about Magnitsky’s profession, why should anyone believe his other self-serving claims?</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>As investigative reporter Lucy Komisar noted in <a href="https://100r.org/2017/10/master-of-reinvention/"><span style='color:#333333'>a recent article</span></a> on the case, Browder offered a different description when he testified under oath in a New York court deposition in a related federal civil case.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>In that adversarial setting, when Browder was asked if Magnitsky had a law degree, Browder said, “I’m not aware that he did.” When asked if Magnitsky had gone to law school, Browder answered: “No.”</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Yet, the Times and the rest of the mainstream media accept that Magnitsky was a “lawyer,” all the better to mislead the American public regarding his alleged role as a whistleblower.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The rest of Browder’s story stretches credulity even more as he offers a convoluted explanation of how he wasn’t responsible for bogus claims made by his companies to fraudulently sneak away with $230 million in refunded taxes.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Rather than show any skepticism toward this smarmy hedge-fund operator and his claims of victimhood, the U.S. Congress and mainstream media just take him at his word because, of course, his story fits the ever-present “Russia bad” narrative.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Plus, these influential people have repeated the falsehoods so often and suppressed contrary evidence with such arrogance that they apparently feel that they get to define reality, which – in many ways – is what they want to do in the future by exploiting the Russia-gate hysteria to restore their undisputed role as the “gatekeepers” on “approved” information.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Which is why Americans and Europeans should demand the right to see the Nekrasov documentary and make their own judgments, possibly with Browder given a chance after the show to rebut the overwhelming evidence of his deceptions.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>Instead, Browder has used his wealth and connections to make sure that almost no one gets to see the deconstruction of his fable. And <i>The New York Times</i> is okay with that.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>[<i>For details on the Nekrasov documentary, see Consortiumnews.com’s “<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/02/a-blacklisted-film-and-the-new-cold-war/"><span style='color:#333333'>A Blacklisted Film and the New Cold War.</span></a>”]</i></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=left style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:left'><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:#333333'>The late investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his last book, <i>America’s Stolen Narrative,</i> either in <a href="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1868/t/12126/shop/shop.jsp?storefront_KEY=1037"><span style='color:#333333'>print here</span></a> or as an e-book (from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Stolen-Narrative-Washington-ebook/dp/B009RXXOIG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350755575&sr=8-1&keywords=americas+stolen+narrative"><span style='color:#333333'>Amazon</span></a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/americas-stolen-narrative?keyword=americas+stolen+narrative&store=ebook&iehack=%E2%98%A0"><span style='color:#333333'>barnesandnoble.com</span></a>).</span></b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>