One of the claims about the now infamous Trump Tower meeting between members of the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian government is that it was about “adoptions.”
But why adoptions? What have they got to do with it?
Over the last several years there have been a series of sanctions put in place against the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin. One of the most important was something called the Magnitsky Act, named after Sergei Magnitsky, a murdered business associate of a former major investor in Russia, Bill Browder.
In a despicable and non-symmetrical response to the imposition of sanctions due to the Magnitsky Act, Russia decided to deny U.S. families the opportunity to adopt children from Russia’s squalid orphanages. Imagine the cruelty, the heartlessness, that led to that decision: Putin is denying parentless Russian children an opportunity for a better life with a loving family, condemning those children to a deprived upbringing, and a possible future of poverty, prostitution, and crime.
The Magnitsky Act and the ban on adoptions happened at the same time, in December 2012. They are connected. The Magnitsky Act creates a mechanism to directly target the Russians guilty of the murder, and cover up of the murder, of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009 – the legislation is very specifically about appropriate punishment for people who are human rights abusers.
Putin’s scatter-fire response was the adoption ban.
The Magnitsky Act has always intensely irritated Putin. Having this sanctions measure removed has been one of his number-one priorities ever since it was passed by the United States. So, when Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitska and others go into a meeting in Trump Tower and start talking about “adoptions,” what they are actually talking about is “sanctions” – specifically relief from Magnitsky Act sanctions.
The deal on the table is clear, drop the Magnitsky Act, and the ability to rescue Russian kids from children’s homes will be reinstated. If your mind doesn’t see how depraved this is, well, you have a problem. This is now one of the excuses being punted out by people in the Trump orbit – the meeting was about “adoptions.”
Magnitsky Case
Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in prison for a crime he did not commit.
As an accountant working in Browder’s firm, Heritage Capital, Magnitsky was looking into a scam that had been perpetrated by individuals connected to various Russian state and law enforcement bodies. That scam involved $230 million of Russian tax payer money.
It began with a raid on the offices of Hermitage Capital: in that raid special police officers and tax agents seized corporate documents and stamps that allowed them to re-register ownership of companies that were part of the Hermitage Capital group. After this illegal change of ownership, the new “owners” of the companies in question then applied for, and were granted, a rebate of some $230 million of claimed overpaid taxes. The court hearing to deal with this matter was convened within days, the award of the $230 million was granted without question, and the largest ever tax refund in Russia’s history became the fastest ever tax refund processed and paid in Russian history.
When Magnitsky investigated the crime and started to uncover the identities of those responsible (which included senior tax officials, the judges who heard the cases, and so on) he was accused of carrying out the crime he was trying to expose, and was arrested.
What followed was an attempt by prison officials to break Magnitsky. Over a period of time he was tortured and beaten, he was denied medical treatment not only for the wounds inflicted on him by his jailors, but also for other health problems. Eventually, the abuse meted out to Magnitsky in prison killed him. The U.S. Magnitsky Act is designed to punish those who committed this vile murder, and their accomplices.
Thus when there is talk on the U.S. political scene and in the U.S. media of “adoptions,” it should be clear to all that what was in fact being discussed is this: Russia’s long-standing demand to repeal the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act 2012.
Trump Tower Timeline
The meeting itself happened on June 9, 2016. We know the details of how it was set up from an e-mail chain released by Donald Trump Junior (the president’s son) over one year ago, and many “no collusion” cries later. A Moscow-based Trump contact (of which, there are many) specifically offered Don Junior “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, and he also specifically said that this was part of the Russian government effort to help his father, and that the approach was as a result of a conversation with Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.
For the avoidance of doubt, the only correct course of action in the case of an outreach like this, from an adversary offering to interfere in a U.S. presidential election, is to call the FBI. Immediately.
Instead, Don Junior wrote back, “I love it!” Without any treason alarm bells ringing in his head, Junior exchanged several more e-mails with his Moscow contacts on June 6, and the e-mail chain shows that a phone call was set up to feel the offer out.
In the fullness of time we will no doubt learn for certain that a participant in one of the flurry of phone calls that took place on June 6 was none other than the current President of the United States. We know for certain that in between the Moscow outreach and the last phone call back to Russia to confirm things, Junior called a blocked number. While his memory of his phone calls that night was remarkably vague when he was called to testify before the U.S. Congress on this matter, it is known that his father was using a blocked number at that time.
It is not unreasonable to assume that between calls to an oligarch’s son in Moscow, the Trumps spoke. Junior laid out the offer, and the then candidate for president instructed him to bring Manafort and Kushner into the meeting with him. It is unlikely that anyone other than Donald Trump would have had the authority to order those two additional senior campaign members to be part of this meeting. Duly, the next day, June 7, at 1814, the younger Trump told his man in Moscow that Manafort and Kushner would be sitting in too.
As for there having been “no follow up” to this meeting, which actually took place within days (seemed important, right?) of the calls to arrange it, there are an awful lot of things that must have happened by sheer coincidence.
Within days of the meeting, DCLeaks (a site known to be controlled by Russian cyber-espionage group Fancy Bear) started dropping leaked e-mails. Then later WikiLeaks joined in too. Trump publicly called for Russia to find Hillary’s e-mails, the GOP platform was changed regarding the provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine, Kushner wanted to set up a back channel for communication with Moscow from the Russian embassy, and former Trump National Security Advisor Mike Flynn (on whose orders we will also find out, particularly as he has pled guilty and accepted reduced charges for his cooperation with Special Council Bob Mueller) was discussing sanctions relief with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak.
While collusion is not a crime in and of itself, the events that are described by that word most certainly does amount to a series of crimes. This collusion is right under our noses and plain to see; this is the part that we know that we know. What more does Bob Mueller know?
