Accessing u. S. Banks, and the use of the u. S. Banking system. The committee is chaired by charles grassley. It was moderated by senator chuck grassley. I reconvene our hearing, i gave my Opening Statement yesterday, so i do not have anything to add to it but i have a few housekeeping things to take care of. I am disappointed that the two hour rule was invoked to shut down this hearing before we could hear from mr. Router r yesterday. He has traveled from overseas to be here today to testify about russias efforts to manipulate the government media. This is an important topic to discuss. If the other party is truly serious about getting to the bottom of the russian interference investigation, they should hear them out. I thank you hear very much for changing your travel plans to be here. This committee very much appreciate your thing is to stay here today. I am going to introduce items into the record, three in number. The first is a statement by the president of the Human Rights Foundation where he alleges that 2and others uncovered a billion corruption scheme involving venezuela government and the Foreign Company laundering money through jp morgan. He claims that the Foreign Company hired companies which dossierss years containing false information regarding the whistleblowers involved. It planet slanderers news items, and intimidated journalists reporting on of the corruption scheme. The second item, is an article by lee smith which illustrates the brave new of manufactured news for higher the third item is an article in the New York Times titled soviet veteran who met with trump jr. Is a master of dark arts. It describes the the activities of the russian foreigns named in the agents registration act complaint. So, without objection, those will be included in the record record. I in the would like to introduce in the record, a senator who has a constituent who would like to submit written testimony about his experience with the two companies for the record. He may do sotion, within one week from today. I also want to insert a letter from Airline Pilots association, alleging that the u. S. Travel association has not properly registered under fair pharaoh. Fara. Without objection, i would do that, now, let the Ranking Member make any statements she has, then i will introduce and square our witness. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. Today our committee continues its investigation into the fara act. We heard from representatives in the Justice Department and the fbi along with doj inspector general. That discussion, confirmed that there is a significant problem with under enforcement of the law. Engageuals who lobby and in Political Activities on the health of foreign governments, and interests in the United States, do not register in a way that works with the Justice Department. This is because right now, there are no real consequences for failing to register. I think we should change that. Heard as we also yesterday, the Justice Department relies heavily on finding out about potential violations by monitoring press reports and other public information. At times there were 4 the department receives complaints alleging that individual companies have failed to register their lobbying and other Political Activities on the health of foreign interests. From one suchhear individual william browder. I do not know mr. Browder that it is my understanding that in july 2016, he filed a fara complaint alleging that a number of individuals failed to register their russian backed lobbying efforts against the y act. Ski act magnitsk among those names in mr. Browders campaign is the russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya who met with the Trump Campaign in june 2016 with the understanding that she would offer incriminating information into hillary clinton. That mr. Understanding browder is very familiar with another russian figure who attended the june 9 meeting. Because of their work to oppose the magnet ski act magnet skimagnitsky acts. His experience with these pacific individuals and his rod or understanding of how the russian government operates, may well advance the committees understanding of what motivated that meeting. At least i hope it will. I look forward to hearing from our witness today and with that i yield this. Thank you, i will first introduce mr. Browder, ceo of an Investment Firm based in london. Russian members of organized crime engaged in Corporate Identity theft, stole the Corporate Identity of three Hermitage Companies and used them fraudulently, obtaining 230 million. Hermitage filed a criminal complaint with russian Law Enforcement and in response to russian government the russian government assigned the case to the very russian officials involved in the crime. Mr. Magnitsky, mr. Browders lawyer, uncovered the fraud and was eventually jailed and died under very suspicious circumstances. Worked with the u. S. Congress to pass the magnet seek to punishitsky act the officials involved with this and other human rights abuses. Would you please stand serve, and do you swear let me start again. The you confirm that the testimony you are about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god . I do. Thank you, i would like to have you take several minutes, if you can we would like to save time for questions. So lets say, seven to eight minutes. Grassley, Ranking Member feinstein, and the committee, thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell my story about russian about the , the vladimirgn Putin Campaign to repeal the magnitsky act in washington dc. I am william browder, founder and ceo of Hermitage Capital management, once the largest Foreign Investment advisor in capacity, iin that discover we discovered massive corruption, in the companies that we invested in, to bite to fight the corruption. We started researching how they went about how the oligarchs went about the stealing and shared that research with the international media. This naming and shaming campaign, had some positive effects on the share price of the company and it was also it made russia a better place for some. Of time. For some period of time. But you can imagine, exposing millions of dollars in malfeasance upset the people benefiting from it. The steeple had very close connections with the putin regime. November20 5 2000 five, i was expelled from the country and declared a threat to National Security in response to my anticorruption activities. In june of 2007, might Moscow Office was raided by 25 officers from the moscow interior ministry, and 25 more officers raided the office of my american law firm. In those rates, they thought to get the stamped seal certificates of our Holding Companies and with those stamped still atstamp certificates they were able to initiate Corporate Identity theft. Serged a young man named magnitsky who was 35 years old as my lawyer to investigate who did what and how we could stop them. He investigated and came back with an outstanding include conclusion. Which was that the purpose of stealing our companies was to try to steal our assets which they did not succeed in doing. However, they did succeed in stealing millions of dollars in taxes that we paid to the russian government from the russian government. I should point out that the theft was not of my money or my firms money but the russian governments money. Tax then, a large largest tax refund fraud in russia. Serge and i were both and i were both convinced that putin would not have allowed his own officials to steal from his own country. We figure that if a brought it to the attention of the highest of there were these in russia, then the good guys would get the bad guys and that would be the end of the story. We wrote criminal complaints to every branch of the russian criminal justice system. I went to the newspapers and rush it se andrgei gave testimony to the committee which is known as the fbi. It turned out that in putins russia there are no good guys. On november 24, 2008, a few weeks after magnitsky testified before officials. The same officials he testified before arrested him and put him in pretrial detention where he was then tortured to get him to withdraw his testimony. 14y put him with cells with inmates and eight beds, left the lights on 24 hours a day, no heat, no windowpanes in december, in moscow. He almost froze to death. They put him in a cell with no toilet, just a hole in the fall in the floor. They moved him from l to sell in the middle of the night, hoping to get them to withdraw his testimony and get them to sign a sign confession that he stole the 230 million under my instructions. He refused to do that. The pressure increased and after six months, his health deteriorated where he developed terrible pains to his stomach, lost 40 pounds and was diagnosed with pancreatitis and gallstones. He was scheduled for an operation in august 2009. A week before his operation, they promptly moved him to a maximum security prison considered to be one of the most awful presence in russia. Most significantly for magnitsky, there were no medical facilities there. His health and he went to constant agonizing pain from his pancreatitis. They reached they refused him medical treatment. He and his lawyers wrote 20 different medical requests and all of them were either ignored or in some cases denied in writing. After a couple of months of this horrible torture, sergeis body could no longer hold out. On the night of november 16, he went into critical condition. The prisonht, authorities did not want responsibility for him, so they put him in an ambulance and sent them to a prison with medical facilities. When he arrived in that prison, instead of giving him putting him in the emergency room, they put him in an isolation cell change to a bed. He was being by guards with rubber but dont batons until he died. He was 37 years old. He left a wife, and two children. I got the news of his murder this morning the morning of the 17th and i have made it my lifes work since then to get justice for serge magnitsky. Unfortunately, justice is impossible to get in russia, they circled the wagons and exonerated everyone involved, the people who were most implicit. So, i searched for justice outside of russia, coming here to washington. I spoke to senator john mccain, telling them the same story that i shared with you today. They came up with the magnitsky act to freeze assets and then visas of the people who killed him and people who commit other similar human rights abuses in russia. The act passed, 924 in the senate. In december 2012. As well as the house. President putin was absolutely infuriated by this. He then in retaliation, banned the adoption of russian orphans by american families. That the reason he took such a drastic step was that he was one of the beneficiaries of the 230 Million Dollar fraud. We have traced some of that money to an account of a man radugin who was implicated in the Panama Papers as being one of his nominees. They put magnitsky on trial three years after they killed him and put me on trial as a codefendant. In addition to that, a number of people having killed have been killed in connection with the case. Seven people have died, either from murder or sis wishes circumstances, or suspicious circumstances. Nemtsov, oneboris of our allies in fighting for justice for magnitsky, coming to the european parliament, was that she was lobbying for the magnitsky act and was murdered in 2015. His protege, car mores the was poisoned. Urza he went into organ failure and barely survived. The magnitsky family lawyer, was thrown off the fourth floor balcony right before he was going to testify in court about this. I have had numerous threats from up and down the russian government about my life. It is not just violence that the russian government does, but it is also political violence. It came in the form of a Massive Campaign launched last year in washington. A number another of individuals and tell a false they in order to have magnets me act repealed. , chrisage Glenn Simpson engaged andell of number of other people in the was of the engagement in addition to a being campaign the question is p you. When the lawyer came to this country, what year was that . I believe she came here in 2014. Continue. Sorry that i went over, i am just about done. These in addition to this being morally reprehensible, none of these people registered as Foreign Agents under the Foreign Agents registration act. My firmogether put together a complaints to the department of justice where we listed what they did, who did what, and the fact that they were not registered as Foreign Agents. 2016, and i in july am here today to tell the story, clarify any details, because i believe that the fact that these people were allowed to run around on clintons agenda, without any on putins agenda, is something that is to be stopped in the future and i think the rules governing this should be strengthened. Thank you very much. Testimony,u for the yesterday we announced that we would have seven minute rounds of discussion, but we cut that down to five because of the two hour rule. So each of you will have seven minutes. Mr. Browder, in your written statement you said that the lawyer who met with Trump Campaign officials had hired gps to computeon conduct a Smear Campaign against you and magnitsky. You said that he contacted a number of newspapers to spread false information. Mr. Simpson told the media that he only did some research as Litigation Support. Propaganda and publicity work for a foreign principal requires legislation as a Foreign Agent. So it is important to understand whether mr. Simpson was pushing negative information about you in the media. I have several questions along this line. Could you explain exactly how mr. Simpson manipulated the media just near you and undermine the magnitsky act, and how you know about that . Browder Glenn Simpson was calling a number of journalists, ditching a story to the journalists as the magnitsky act was being debated in congress to rid the story he was pitching, was that magnitsky had not been murdered. That he died of natural courses, and magnitsky was not a whistleblower, he was a criminal. That the story i had told the u. S. Congress, was incorrect thereforeitsky and should be repealed. That was the story he was pitching. I know because he was a number of journalists pitched by him, came to me and asked me about it. He was unsuccessful for the most part in getting the story written, but it does not take away from the fact that he was trying to get the story published. Support,ot litigation it is impossible for me to see how it could be Litigation Support because had those theies been written, during litigation that he was supposedly supporting, any juror reading those stories wouldve been disqualified from being on the jury. So, that could only have been the purpose of manipulating and trying to change the legislation here in washington. Grassley your testimony to not today outlined a multipronged effort, do you think these agents were working together in a coordinated campaign or were these separate and isolated efforts, and how do . Know jacob jago fusion do you know about gpss efforts how are you aware that they were in the interests of the putin government . To answer your first question, this entire effort was the lawyeruspices of who was organizing it. It was paid for by her client, which was the katsev family in russia. The patriarch of the family there, is a senior Government Official in russia, former transport minister of the Moscow Region. He is currently Vice President of russian railways, the secondmost important date company after gaffe from gaz prom. Could you repeat the second part of your question . Grassley what basis do you have a believing that gpss efforts were on behalf of the russian government other than in the interest of the companys holdings . That fusion work gps was doing to repealed the magnitsky act could not have had the holdingto company because the company was under investigation by the department of justice for us pacific Money Laundering statute. Even if they had been successful act,pealing the magnitsky a one and a million shot, even if they had been successfully would not have had any bearing on the case against them in justice. It is hard to see how that would have been opposing the legislation. Grassley there have been media reports alleging that some of the stolen magnitsky money went to a Russian Investment Bank m called renaissance part capital. What can you tell us about that and what is the companys connection if any, to the russian government . Browder it is a Russian Investment Bank headed by at the time of this crime, by a man named stephen jenins jennings, a man from new zealand who lives in london. A dust and other official was a british citizen of russian staff ofnd at the Renaissance Capital, they trumpeted the fact that they had fsb officersormer and their staff. I should point out there is