What history tells us is about the way he operates and what he might want from this country should scare all of us. Thank you for being with us. Youre on cspan. Guest great to be here. Host is that a Fair Assessment . Guest is it a Fair Assessment of Vladimir Putins number one enemy . I think it is. Ive done a lot of things over the last decade to cause him very personal trouble in retaliation for reaction to the murder of my russian voyeur can assert a madness being a russian prison after myy lawyer uncoverd in r a public machine, so yes is an accurate description. Host which led to an act which congress explain specifically what this does. Guest sure. He was my lawyer and russia. I was running an Investment Fund out there. He uncovered a massive 230 million russian government corruption schemes involving officials among first in officers. He exposed instead of arresting the people who committed fraud against the russian government, and they arrested sergey mcnasty himself, tortured and then killed him in and horrific beating in 2009 at 37 years old. I got the news the next day and endedel about to his memory come into his family and myself that i was going to go after the People Killed in an make sure you do it justice. For the last eight years that ive been doing. The major tool to get justice in this case was created in a law. It was introduced by Benjamin Cardin a democrat from maryland, john mccain been introduced in 2010. It passed the senate 92 to four novemberer 2012, passed the houe with 89 and was signed into law Vladimir Putin reacted unbelievablyev angrily. He banned the adoption of russian orphans by american families. Many of you remember that. Having stated repealing the act was the single largest foreign priority. Weve seen numerous efforts bowling in all sorts of crazy stuff begin up to a Major Initiative launched by an agent of Vladimir Putin coming Vladimir Putin, woman Many Americans who know now is that talia bessel vizcaya who is famous because she was the person on june 9, 2016th who went to trump tower and met with donald trump junior, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort with a specific agenda of trying to repeal the magnitsky act on behalf of Vladimir Putin. Is a long and shocking story of how we affect what we found the achilles heel of the putin regime. Host as you connect the dots, let me take that one step further to one of the motivating is as it is confirmed he was involved with meddling 2016, was the fact in 2012 . Guest unfortunately this is the primary motivator to take sides in the election. He believed for good or bad reasons donald trump would be more likely than hillary clintot to repeal the magnitsky act. It was the single largest Foreign Policy priority. We know he sent an emissary to approach the Trump Campaign totr do this. And we know he was actively involved, putin was actively involved in manipulating our outcomes in america. We know that based on the hack of the dnc and all sorts of fake information for facebook and twitter. What we dont know, and this is very important, whether thiss ws just putin expressing his own preferences in a vacuum on his own or whether he was doing it with conjunction with anyone in the United States. That is to be investigated and proven one way or they other. Host how much is the earth . Guest she became the richest man inld the world for fast extortion and blackmail in russia and the estimate of his net worth is 200 billion. Poster were to get those figures from . Guest when he became president he had one group of people basically stealing power from him, the russian oligarchs. The russian oligarchs were taking away the power of the presidency and he decided at one point in time to rest the richest oligarchs in russia, the ownerr but is company. He arrested him, put him on trial, put them in jail the rest of the oligarchs and putin said what we have to do to make sure we dont suffer the same fate as michael orta koski and putin said 50 . The estimate of salt as young as 50 ia of the russian oligarchs n russia in the above approximately 400 billion which gets me to 200 billion for his net worth. Host William Browder is a a are you worried for her own personal safety or that of your family . Guest well, word is an emotional concept. I dont worry. I dont spend my time living in fear. However, there were very, very real direct threats from the to me. Governmentrn they have threatened to kill me, kidnap me. Theyre trying to haveve me arrested, extradited. There is a very real fear or risk that at some point they try to do something to me. Host the relationship between donald trump and russian president Latimer Pruden, how would you describe it . Guest its a strange relationship. First of all, difference between theth relationship between donad trump and the Trump Administration to Vladimir Putin. Donald trump says a bunch of things which i find unpleasant andd defensive. Vladimir putin is not a killer, not a good guy and we should respect him. The sentiments are notot true. Having said that, hes put together an administration of people executed in the Foreign Policy who are as tough and perhaps in some cases tougher than me on russia. Yessan general mattis, defense secretary is extremely tough on russia. Mcmaster and his National Security council, pompeo come ahead of the cia community haley, even Rex Tillerson. If y you listen to his speech lt week at the Wilson Center in washington, thats an extremely hawkish speech. The actual policy of the United Statesst of america come the trp administration is tough based on st just mentioned and putin hasnt gotten an inch of whatever he thought he might get by supporting donald trump. At the moment we have a person who is tweeting nice things about Vladimir Putin as saying nice things in interviews that the policies havent changed so far as of yet. Host based on reporting this morning covering his speculation on how long Rex Tillerson will stay on as secretary of state. The headline is he hasnt learned his lesson according to trump allies making references hes open to negotiations with north korea and as you indicated, some of his criticism of the russian government. Guest i dont know. Ive read a lot of things over the course of weeks the Rex Tillerson was absolutely out an average statements from donald trump saying is absolutely not a the one and so forth. Very much like to show the apprentice. Who knows who is knows who is in and who is out. Hes still the secretary of state and the policies seem to be tough towards russia. Donald trump has a lot of political latitude to warm up relations with russia with whoever he appoints because there is an extremely heavy cloud hanging over his head about whether he is at some kind of side dealings with putin. While that hangs the race had he cant do anything without having the whole country question his decision. Host ay i want to be clear, are you saying the russian president is a killer . Guest i am saying Vladimir Putin is a coldblooded killer. Hic host will he be reelected next year . Guest there is a very big assumption in your question that theres a real election taking place. In russia they have this facade of democracy, but there is no democracy in russia. What is Vladimir Putin do to make sure there is no chance is not the leader . The arrests come in some cases kills or exiles anyone with any chance of challenging him. He controls absolutely every aspect of the media. Television, radio, newspaper, internet so if anything bad is said about him wont be seen by people. And then he created this fake election with a stuffed ballot boxese to make sure they get results that looks like what they want. 100 certainty of Latimer Pruden will be in power until he dies a natural death or until somebody overthrowsws him. Host we are talking with William Browder, head of transfer capital, graduate of of chicago and earned his masters froms stanford. Tell us about your firm and will get to phone calls. I went out to russia when the berlin wall came down. I come from an initial family background. I thought it was late of the American Communist Party and the rebellion was to become a businessman. When the berlin wall came down i decided if my grandfather was the largest, communist america would become the largest capitalist and easternge europe. Set up a firm called hermitage capital. But while for a long time and then it went very now but when we discovered corruption, exposed to and in that case i was being a threat to National Security, expelledse from russia on my offices were then rated. It took my documents, stole 230 million of taxes they paid, my lawyer and covered it, exposed it as he was then arrested, tortured and killed by the putin regime and couldnt participate in the covered up. Washington journal he was also on our podcast online and anywhere you can check out your cspan radio app also for apple users. Lets get to phone calls. Don and lawrence, kansas with William Browder. Caller guesstimate my question for mr. Browder is how many oligarchs adversely affect it by the magnitsky active had reported contacts with Trump Associates in the news and such and if you are aware, could you name a few, please . Guest the magnitsky has sanctioned 34. False iraq, torture and death, and other murders. There were no oligarchs as you describe on the list at present. Theyre a senior Government Officials, jailers, judges and other human rights violators. Some people are wealthy, very wealthy in their own right. Ht summer amid level officials. The reason the magnitsky active so terrifying is not out what its done so far. Its what it could do in the future. What i said a few minutes ago as putin is the richest guy in the world with 200 billion. That is not held by him personally. Its all but oligarch trustees and we have since determined putin is one of the recipients of the crime that Sergey Magnitsky discovered, exposed and was called for. What will happen is if hes not holding the money and the money in his the money in his own income in the u. S. Government will go after the oligarchs and thats where the realfo risk lis for Vladimir Putin. Post to where is the money being held . Guest is being held by russian oligarchs, the ones you see in the forbes list and they invest their money through major u. S. And european banks and hedge funds, private equity funds, and all sorts of other things. What looks like legitimate money a russian oligarchs through Financial Institutions is in some cases prudence money. Host kenyas joining us. Lorain, ohio. Morning. Caller good morning. Its curious how the Reagan Mondale benefited america. Guest im not that familiar with uranium one deal, so i dont know how to analyze who did what to whom im not, but i am an expert on all the things Vladimir Putin is up to. Host your former partner who is still left behind a wife and how many children . Guest sir circa magnitsky behind a wife and two children. They are now out of russia. Host good morning. Caller good morning. In 1849, russia sold at alaska for 7 million. Donald trump is upset about that. He will never beat that deal. Seeing as russia was our ally in world war i, world war ii, we gettingg the most half a Million People in world war i. The United States and britain combined, the russia lost 15 million. They were working on Nuclear Weapons and we as a nation for some reason or another dont even think about the fact some of our policies are leaving us bur situation in our backyards, nuclear fallout. It is the shame gossip seems to rule on this planet. You see these policemen shooting individuals in the back, no arms on them and you start putting those on thehe news. We wont have time for anything else but talking about the inhumanity. That is my comment, buddy. I hear you about all the terrible things going on in america and i agree with you. That does not justify the terrible things Vladimir Putin isis doing. A lot of people say we should be thinking about russia to minister to russia maybe they would behavewe themselves. Appeasement has proven never to work. If you remember back in world war ii, very famous british Prime Minister and britain didnt want to be involved in world warr ii. His name is Neville Chamberlain and he went and had a meetinger with hitler and he thought hitler had gotten something, had made a promise that he was ready to appease hitler by giving away czechoslovakia. In reality, appeasement didnt work with adolf hitler in appeasement will work with Vladimir Putin in the world right now where putin is an extremely nasty man causing all sorts of trouble, bombing children in syria, doing a lot of that stuff and the only policy we can have truth to it than russias one of appeasement. Notme at the end of year the russian president as a marathon news conference. The headlines in the Washington Times are invented. Cspan. Org. Here is the next. Well all do respect for the opposition in the u. S. Thats an object about gone. There have been some themes not been able to execute like a Health Care Reform for national relationship, promise to improve relations with russia. Even if he wanted to do that, he is not able, but does he still haveve this decision . You have to ask him. I really hope he has that desire because its the threat of the russian and american nation that weat will overcome shared threa, terrorists, terrorism, environmental issues. Issues, what can you glean from his answer . What does is terrible things. He invades Foreign Countries and gets involved i in crazy, dope e olympics, gets involved in meddling in our election and then he says we shoulden work together. Yes, of course we should be working together but here you have country with an economy the size of italy thats basically starting its own people and using these resources to cause trouble in the rest of the world and it is out there saying we should work together. Well, hes got a responsibility just to stop the bad stuff that he does. We have this possibility as americas. And europe as strong democracies, as free countries to stop him from doing the nasty stuff he is doing. All this talk of working together only works if he works with us on the terms of civilized western countries, noncriminal countries and so the duties is on him and the burden is on him to stop doing that stuff he is doing. Host an extensive piece cowritten by greg muller and Philip Rucker of the washington posts front page above the fold how trumps pursuit of has led the universe vulnerable to the us bride and heres a summary of it. Your response. Guest so far he has not been able to rollback anything because so lets look at the chronology. Russia hacked the election by hacking dnc and spreading a fake news and many other things we dont know aboutt. Yet. Thats a matter of fact. The Obama Administration in the last days of their administration imposed sanctions on russia for doing that. After those sanctions were put in place andt they are put in place by executive order there was some talk with donald trump came into office that he was thinking about lifting those sanctions. Since he was talking aboutd. Lifting the sanctions congress got involved and said it was a nonpartisan issue were democrats and republicans got together and they said should o the president be able to lift sanctions on russia on his own volition based on these things that have already been put in place. Congress decided the summer on a vote i believe 98two and 413four to take away the power from the sanctions where they would vote on them in the future. There has not been an inch given away on a this particular issue. In terms of the importance of making sure that we are not exposed to the stuff in the future i think theres a big agenda of not allowing russia to metal in the future elections and this has become a partisan issue because many people think that if you put too much attention on the fact that they meddled in the past election that takes away from the legitimacy of the election and i think that whatever happened in the last election we need to look forward and say we shouldnt let any country whether russia or anyone else have an impact on elections here or anywhere else in the world for that matter and my home country of britain this is a big issue and in france and the shouldnt be a partisan issue but an issue of National Security. Host richard join is from virginia. Independent line with bill browder who is in new york. Good morning, richard. Caller good morning. This issue, antipathy towards russia that is so prevalent today its thedi media screams t in the bankers scream it. It needs to be understood that