more than ever, the world needs w h l. making a healthier world for you that everywhere. ah, you're watching, i'll deserve me, sir. how rollin dough? hot reminder of our top news stories ukraine's president is again pushed for a meeting with vladimir putin to end the war, despite saying that he has no trust in the russian leader. laudermill zalinski also announced that the u. s. secretaries of state and defense are set to visit keith on sunday. how did your castro has more from washington dc? no surprise, the washington has said no comment. why is that not surprising? well, it's typical that when a senior us official makes a visit to a war zone out of security reasons. typically the public doesn't find out about it

until during or sometimes, not even until after the visit has concluded. we know that this is going to be the 1st time that such high ranking us officials have visited ukraine since the beginning of the war. and it is going to be a very symbolic visit. we are having 2 secretary members who will be there in here on orthodox easter, and this is the secretary of state of the u. s. and the secretary of defense zelinski had said that he still wants to extend an invitation to us president joe biden. but despite, you know, the u. k prime minister being there in person despite other presidents having visited, well the u. s. assessment is that it's still too dangerous to send by an artist and vice president common la harris. and so the visit of these to cabinet secretaries may be as close to a state visit as ukraine can get under the circles. under the current circumstances . at least 8 people, including a baby,

had been killed during missile strikes on ukraine, southern ports that have a desa further 18 were injured in the attack, which russia says targeted a military facility. russia says it'll deploy a new salma intercontinental ballistic missiles later this year. but some experts adapt will say more tests the needed. russia says the sediment, myself can carry 10 or more nuclear warheads and a capable of reaching anywhere present. vladimir putin as attended an easter mass conducted by the russian orthodox church, which a strong me back the ukraine war. church leaders around the world have come under pressure to condemn, to, to the starting the conflict. more than a 100 people have been killed in southern nigeria where there was an explosion at an illegal oil, refining deco officials and the niger delta described victims being burnt beyond recognition. fidelis at bars, in the capital of butrend, as the number of people killed, could rise from persons who were bonds,

guarantees hadn't been taken to hospitals. and then some family members took away some of those whose body to recognize for, for burial. this incident happen friday night. into saturday morning because most of the legal refining of products happen overnight and that area is actually just on the boundary with reverse it, which is nice us or a capital you happen in a place called or high g, a. in the most states in out, he's nigerian and the area materials for legal refining of petroleum products. this has greatly over the years, been a problem for government officials because these in the go to finding call centers have come on. does via, you know, i packed by government forces will try to rouse these operators from the locations, but they keep coming. not just in a most states,

but all across the major area. and to some extent it has greatly affected nigeria production over the years. at least 12 people have died under the 10 are missing. after full boats carry $120.00 migrants in refugees sank of the coast to nicea the coast guard rescued. at least 90 people from fax and off the lebanese case, the lease one young girl died when the boat carrying 60 migrants and refugees capsized the vessel got into trouble shortly after leaving the northern coastal town of color moon near triply. at least 40 people been rest and only voting has begun in france's presidential runner, full citizens, living abroad. more than 130000 people are registered to vote in the us. voters are choosing between incumbent demand will macro and challenger math in la pen. i'll be back with more news in half and here on out there at next. it's the bottom line to stay with us. ah,

hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. we hear a lot about one of the strongest western sanctions against russia. the magnificent act. but what's the story behind it? and who was magnet sky? let's get to the bottom line. ah, ever since invading ukraine 2 months ago, russia has become the most sanction country in the world with more than 5000 specific sanctions targeting individuals, industries, companies and organizations. it's going to take months and perhaps years before russia feels the full force of these measures. and we saw some of the 1st effects just last weekend when europe ian sanctions took effect against trucks from russia and bella, russia all told, go keep about one trillion dollars in russian assets from flowing through the markets and banking systems of america and its partners. one of the most powerful western tools to isolate russia is the magnetic sky act. a recent law that allows

the u. s. government to sanction specific people identified as corrupt or human rights abusers. different versions of the law have already spread to the u, the u. k. canada and many other countries, and it's been a real foreign in the side of russian president vladimir putin since day one. so how and why did putin become so obsessed with this law? and how is it being used in russia and beyond? today we're talking with 2 of the people who've been personally involved in the magnetic act from the beginning. congressman jim mcgovern is a democrat who is represented massachusetts in congress for more than 25 years. and wrote this circ a magnet sky rule of law accountability act, and introduced its follow up the global magnets in 2016 and bill browder, the founder of hermitage, capital management, whose company was at one time, the largest foreign portfolio investor in russia. it's his lawyer, sergey magna ski, who allegedly was killed in a rush in jail in 20 o 9, setting off the chain of events that us too today. bill has just published his 2nd

book telling his story and it reads like a real thriller freezing order. a true story of money laundering, murder and surviving vladimir putin's wrath. thanks to both of you for joining us. i just have to start at the beginning with the name sergei magnet ski. and i just want to tell our audience, when you read this book, you'll learn or warmer us congressman dana roarback or worked very hard to try to keep magnets keys name from being on a version of bill. was there way to get to that in a moment, but tell us build router who's sergei? magnet. sky was surgery, magnet sky was my russian lawyer. i ran the largest for an investment fund in russia. the hermitage fund back in the 90 s and early 2 thousands. my offices were i would say that i started pointing out corruption in the companies i invested in the authorities didn't like that. they expelled me from the country, declare me a threat to national security rated my offices seized my documents. and those documents were used in a, in a complex and very cynical,

$230000000.00 tax rebate fraud in which officials stole $230000000.00 in taxes. the my firm and paid my hired the smartest lawyer i knew in moscow, a guy named sergei, my nikki. at the time he was $35.00, he worked for an american law firm. he was the one who uncovered the fraud, figured out who was involved, testified against those officials. and in retaliation, he was arrested, tortured for 358 days and murdered in russian. police custody on november 16th, 2009. and it's been my mission since his murder, i put aside all of my business activities to go after the people killed him and make sure they faced justice. and that's where to i guess we're going to talk about today and lead me to, to congressman mcgovern who eventually introduced megan ski at counselor mcgovern. you have been involved with writing this at the very beginning. i'd like to hear about it. but i also like to give our, our audience a sense that this was not

a slam dunk in this country in the united states at the beginning. in fact, i think one of the shocking things to me as a journalist in the media, i look at law firms. i look at p r firms. all of us have watched the events that bill browder has been connected to unfold over years. and now we're acting. wow. so you were there early on. why were you there early on, and what is the magnet ski act do from your perspective? well, i co chair the timeline to human rights commission and it's named after tom went to the only holocaust survivor that served congress. and we were doing a hearing bill broader testified before that hearing that was in a may of 2010 if i believe. and i listen to him tell the story of survey magnet sky and the corruption and the human rights abuses that continued in russia. and, and i thought to myself, we, we got to do something and kind of the, the usual thing that members of congress do was we issue

a statement or we use your press release, or we do something. and i said to him, after a test, right, we, we need to put, we need to put this into legislator for me to pass a bill. ah, to make it clear to those who are guilty of corruption, human rights violations, and russia in quite frankly, around the world that there's a consequence. and it may not be a blanket sanction, but you will be sanctioned individuals will be sanctioned for bad behavior. that's essentially what the bill does. it took us a couple years to, to get past and not everybody was universally excited about us passing it on. there were people in the ministration at the time. oh, bama was president, but i don't think it would matter where there was a democrat or republican office who didn't like the fact that kind of congress was maybe micromanaging a little bit here. i don't think that's what we were doing, but we were giving them a tool to hold corrupt individuals and human rights abusers. accountable was senator john mccain was a big supporter of this act. i know senator roger wicker with both of whom i would

put on the conservative and end of the republican party working with a liberal massachusetts congressman jim mcgovern in there. so you know, there was by park who were the opponents to this. i mean i, i just reading with dana wor, backer jim, and i'm, i'm a somewhat stun. yeah, i mean, i don't, i don't know what planet dana ro barker lives on, but he was somehow under the illusion that vladimir putin was not a bad guy. and there was some people, i think, in the mid, in the establishment at the time who, who preferred us not to move forward legislatively. i but look that the stories are gay, magnus, he is incredibly powerful. the atrocities and the corruption of vladimir putin and those around him really are almost unequalled anywhere in the world. i. and i thought, and again i give bill broader and the credit for this because he inspired us that we needed to do something beyond just isn't this terrible?

and as you know, i mean this became pollutants number one obsession. he wanted to get to repeal the magnet ski, acta i appeal to donald trump and his advisors to get rid of it. but luckily we had people like john mccain, roger wicker, a ben kardon, who was our leader in the senate, a bipartisan group of senators and congress, people who said, you know what, we're going to do something here will do something meaningful. and we did. but this would not have happened without bill broader and bringing the sore attention. and i just want to say for the record that he's one of the most courageous people that i have ever met. to my admire. his tenacity and not giving up an understanding that the, that survey magnets keys a legacy is going to be that where he's with it, we are holding human rights abusers and corrupt officials and russia and around the

world accountable for their actions. well, thank you. a congressman, jim mcgovern as well. we know you have to run, so we'd like to thank you for this time with us today. we're going to continue the conversation now with bill. ah, thank. well, right now, i bill, i would, i, you know, argue that on vladimir putin's dashboard or maybe his dark board, there are 2 faces. there's bill browder and there is a president's a landscape ukraine. and you know, maybe there's a link between some of these, which we can get to in a moment, but it's rare to find a case. i mean, look, i mean you're, you're a money manager and you may be great, but it's very odd to hear someone like vladimir putin obsessed with some one, like you. but it was in, in, in full, broad daylight in, in the meeting between donald trump. ah, an latimer putin, where, where putin said in response to trump talking about some g r u officials that had been picked up in united states. you know, maybe we could trade these or, you know, expedite them. if we'd only give up, mister browder, vladimir putin said this in,

in response. let's hear what president trump said. president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial to day and what he did is it incredible offer. he offered to have the people working on the case, come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. i think that's an incredible off bill. browder did the president of the united states just offer to trade you in because of the magnus, because of these issues to the president of russia. that is as simple as that. i mean, i was, i normally live in london, but i was in the u. s. at the time and, and i started getting my phone, started lighting up with messages from all sorts of people saying, you gotta watch this thing. i was, i hadn't been watching it and i, i turn on the recording and, and indeed, so this was the summit in helsinki was taking place just after robert molar had indicted 12, russian,

g r u officers were hacking the 2016 election. and so the question to put in was, are you going to have these guys over and put in said yeah, i'll hand them over if. if you hand over, if america hands a rebuild browder and then they go to trumpet. as you said, you just said, trump said he thought that was an incredible offer. and so i was sitting there having all sorts of emotions, probably the mostly negative emotions flowing through my head at the imagining that a bunch of s blacked out, s u, v. 's from the department of homeland security. we're going to pull up any 2nd, grab me and put me on a rendition flight. but you know, when things calm down and it took, by the way to trump for days and a senate vote 98 to 0. not to hand me over and before a trump walked it back. and so those 4 days are pretty harrowing. but during those 4 days i also came to think that the maintenance guy act must be really important.

if i've gotten under vladimir putin skin in such a profound way, right? also the other thing which is really important, really interesting, which is that couldn't never mentions the names of his enemies. right? almost if you listen to him say he says that man, that politician that lawyer for him, dimension, my name really shows how i'm living rent free in his brain at the moment. bill. you know, one of the other, just hard to miss dimensions of your book is that so many of the people you work with on this act to worked to try to bring to fix that, you know, to understand where the money was going, have died or were poison, one of these is, is vladimir car mercer and i guess my question to you in all of this is, you make a point in your book to talk about the good russians, the russians who are there to help one another. you talk about the doctor who said latter mirrors life when he was poisoned before. when you have a significant disagree of skepticism as well, about the players or how do you distinguish between good and bad in that system.

and who are some of the other heroes that we should know about in the story? well, thank you for bringing a bladder memory care marizza. and i should just have put some context for, for your viewers. to get the magnet ski act passed. it wasn't just me going to congressman mcgovern and others. there was a whole sort of village of people doing that. and, and one of the most important questions that, that congress asked was, what the russians think about a piece of legislation to freeze the assets of some of their corrupt individuals. and boris names awful is the leader of the opposition and vladimir care mirza, who is, who is one of his proteges, would routinely cut ship show up in parliaments and in congress all over the world with me. and they would give it, they would say it from the russian side, and they would say that the maintenance guy was the most pro russian legislation that's ever been introduced because it sanctions, the crux and criminals were stealing all the money from the russian people. and so

the latimer and boris went out there and said dad and boris was assassinated in february of 2015 in front of the kremlin. and then at after that, vladimir was poisoned and he came within an inch of his life of dying. it will literally, and i and then they poisoned him again. and a couple weeks ago i was with him in london. we were both them speaking at a, at a fundraiser for victims of in ukraine of this russian war. and afterwards we had dinner and i, i said to him, are you gonna come to my book party in washington? is it? yeah, i'm going to be there, but i'm going to moscow 1st. and i said, no, you can't do that. they've already tried killing you twice. and he said, how can i not do that? i'm a leader in the opposition movement. i'm calling on russians to rise up against vladimir putin to, to, to, to defy him. and what are they going to think of? i, if i'm not, if i'm too scared to go back to my own country,

he went back to russia. he went back to moscow, right after our dinner. he was interviewed on cnn on cnn. he called vladimir putin a murderer, and an hour later he was arrested and he's currently in custody in russia, in the custody of his killers. and so when you talk about good russians and bad russians, there's a lot of bad russians in vladimir prudence, government. but we have to distinguish between effectively occupied country occupied by criminals and murderers. and then the people like vladimir care moors, are they the heroes? and there's alexis of all me, who's currently in prison after they tried to kill him. and worse name south was no longer with us and, and many, many others. and so the russian people aren't uniformly in any way supporting this murderous war. there's, there's a lot of people who really, really don't want it. and, and the ones who are, are speaking out, are so brave because you're not allowed to say you don't want a war, you know, even allowed to call it a war, or you go to jail for 15 years, just calling it

a war. and so it's a very fraught situation, but we have to understand that blended reputed is the one who's responsible for this is cronies around him, are responsible and, and he has, of course, co opted many russians, but we shouldn't tar every russian with this brush where you have a number of people that have come out and basically said in right in vladimir putin camp, that bill browder was the one who committed the criminal act. bill browder was the one who killed circ, a magnet ski, that bill browder was the one who took this tax rebate, which your company had given to the russian government gotten a rebate. and he had engaged all these fraudulent schemes. it wasn't just the russians doing this, and i write about it in great detail, my book. effectively, russia, the russian intelligence services have co opted and paid explicitly. there's not even hidden a bunch of americans, p r agents, lobbyists lawyers,

and other people in washington in new york to go round and tell their story and try to convince everybody that the russians are the good guys. and the victims are the bad guys. and we had, there's a very famous, some lobbyist in washington, a guy named glenn simpson. when simpson has, he was the guy from fusion gps that put together the trump dossier. and while he was working on the trump dossier he was working for the russians, trying to stop the magnet ski acts and try to defend me in washington. look that until already and for a minute the book is complex and it's, it's fasting. need to go through, you see banks that you know, like the, you know, in denmark, danica bank with literally billions upon billions of dollars going through a small branch and telling estonia, and you see this woman, natalia vessel, nice guy who you were battling with over one of the companies that hit it, allegedly been part of the scheme that you were able to track, given the precision of,

of american tracking of us dollars. you able to track one of the players to this in the u. s. you know, basically federal investigators were going after this, this company and, and, and i guess in this i'd love you to just tell us a little bit about that. but also sergei roll doogan, who turns out be vastly richer than yo yo mom, a cello, us from russia, the richest cellist in the world that i've never heard of until reading your book. but you, you link all this to vladimir putin himself. and that's something i've never seen done before. and perhaps you can tell us why you're on his ash board. well, this is really an important story. so after surrogate magnets key was murdered, we my, my 1st priority was to get the maintenance gas past, which we've discussed. but my other priority was to figure out who got the $230000000.00 that he had expose the lead to his murder and. and we spent 10

years with, with a team of full tank full time investigators looking for that money. and as time passed, we were able to put together little bits and pieces which lead to the puzzle becoming clear. and one of the things we discovered was that the money went all over the world. you mentioned the tally a vessel, nice guy, and she was the lawyer for a, the son of a russian government official who got some of the money and then bought a whole bunch of properties in new york. we alerted the department of justice to those properties and they froze those properties and file that federal forfeiture order, which ended in a settlement where the u. s. government got some got $6000000.00. but as we were doing the investigation, probably the biggest and most interesting discovery was that there was a guy who is, who is in his surrogate role doogan. he was a cellist from russia. so he played the cello in saint petersburg. and according to

the panama papers, this particular cellist was worth a $2000000000.00 and, and where he get all this money, he got the money from russian state banks, russian oligarchy. and then the obvious question is, why do it a cellist get all this money from all these people? why i mean he, as you mentioned, yo, yo, my bank is worth, i think, 25000000 in this guy's worth 2000000000. he's wit, richard, cellist. and the answer is, and this is widely acknowledged by the u. s. government by very by the european union, that this particular cellist is a nominee for vladimir putin. he was coons, best friend in childhood. he's the godfather of one important daughters. he introduced pollutant to his 1st wife, right. and he's a guy in trust and, and that the most interesting part of our investigation was we discovered that sort of a role doogan companies were connected to this, to the magnet ski case that they got some of the money. and, and so if you put it altogether, you link up all the dots. what we discovered is vladimir putin was

a beneficiary of the crime that sergei magnet sky was killed over. and why is that so significant that explains why he was asking trump to hand me over. it explains why he was ready to ruin his relations with united states over the mag sky at. it explains why he never prosecuted anybody who was obviously involved in the killing because he was part of the organized crime group. got the money. let me just ask you finally bill, you know, a freezing order, which is the title of this book. freezing order is an order of a national government to freeze assets within a boundary of a government and you go through the various reason, orders that your efforts help stop. but let's be candid for a minute. $230000000.00 is a lot of money to me, but it's not a lot of money to vladimir putin. so a lot of money to governments. and so i guess to take the small tribute to where you had and kind of look at that. how big is this network? what are your suspicions about how big the corruption in government and vladimir,

you know, putin's other ro, dorgan's out there because it, what you've done just seems too small, given all of the heat you've taken for what's, what's really going on. but that, that's the let me call it the trillion dollar question. so what we discovered was, when we were looking for the all this money monitoring, we discovered that 200000000, the 230000000 of the crime that sergei maintenance key was killed over flowed through dam sky bank and estonia, their branch. and so this is a danish bank with a stony and branch, 200000000 flowed through that bank when we started to pull the strings. and we started working with some investigative journalists from denmark and other countries. we discovered that when all was said and done, it wasn't 200000000 going through that branch, but 230000000000 going to that branch of dirty russian money. so this is one bank, one branch of, of a danish bank,

230000000000. and so i would estimate that if we could lift the hood on everything, the total amount of money stolen by the potent regime since student 1st took power is a trillion dollars. and that explains why he's asking trump to hammer over that explains why he made it a single largest foreign policy priority to repeal the maintenance guy act. that explains why everything is, is focused on this, this piece of legislation and this investigation because couldn't understand that, that this is achilles heel. his money in the west and all the money he stolen is what he's ultimately, that's what, that's what he was banking on. having using, using for war using for whatever he wanted to use it for. and now all of a sudden it's getting frozen by governments around the world as we speak. well, putin foe bill browder, author of freezing order. thank you so much for being with us today. thank you. so what's the bottom line? what you heard today is not straight out of a jason bourne or

a john la curry novel. it's real life. we're talking about billions upon billions of dollars sliding through global networks of money laundering, an intrigue. offshore havens. people who think they're way above the law, huge investments and property markets in america and in europe. you name it in these circles. if you raise your voice, you could be in big trouble. yes. today we do have the magnet ski act, but it took years to get here and these were years were western governments were giving lectures to the world about fighting corruption. and all these watchdog agencies, banks, law firms, and even the media sat on the sidelines. these days, folks around the world understand a lot more about how the rich and powerful operate. but sadly, quite a few brave people working with my guest the day will listen. they died in efforts to get the magnet ski act passed in the u. s. and in other western countries, now that personal palaces and giant yachts are being confiscated around the globe, perhaps the rule of law can fight its way back and purge out enablers and push reset on the protections that rule of law societies are supposed to have. and

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