August 2, 2017
Special Report: As Congress
still swoons over the anti-Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and
media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary that debunks the
fable, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Why is the U.S. mainstream
media so frightened of a documentary that debunks the beloved story of how
“lawyer” Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive Russian government corruption and
died as a result? If the documentary is as flawed as its critics claim, why
won’t they let it be shown to the American public, then lay out its supposed
errors, and use it as a case study of how such fakery works?
Instead we – in the land of
the free, home of the brave – are protected from seeing this documentary
produced by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov who was known as a fierce critic of Russian
President Vladimir Putin but who in this instance found the West’s widely
accepted Magnitsky storyline to be a fraud.
Instead, last week, Senate
Judiciary Committee members sat in rapt attention as hedge-fund operator
William Browder wowed them with a reprise of his Magnitsky tale and suggested
that people who have challenged the narrative and those who dared air the
documentary one time at Washington’s Newseum last year should be prosecuted for
violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).
It appears that Official
Washington’s anti-Russia hysteria has reached such proportions that old-time
notions about hearing both sides of a story or testing out truth in the
marketplace of ideas must be cast aside. The new political/media paradigm is to
shield the American people from information that contradicts the prevailing
narratives, all the better to get them to line up behind Those Who Know Best.
Nekrasov’s powerful
deconstruction of the Magnitsky myth – and the film’s subsequent blacklisting
throughout the “free world” – recall other instances in which the West’s
propaganda lines don’t stand up to scrutiny, so censorship and ad hominem
attacks become the weapons of choice to defend “perception
management” narratives in geopolitical hot spots such as Iraq (2002-03),
Libya (2011), Syria (2011 to the present), and Ukraine (2013 to the present).
But the Magnitsky myth has a
special place as the seminal fabrication of the dangerous New Cold War between
the nuclear-armed West and nuclear-armed Russia.
In the United States,
Russia-bashing in The New York Times and other “liberal media” also has merged
with the visceral hatred of President Trump, causing all normal journalistic
standards to be jettisoned.
A Call for Prosecutions
Browder, the American-born
co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management who is now a British citizen, raised
the stakes even more when he testified
that the people involved in arranging a one-time showing of Nekrasov’s
documentary, “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes,” at the Newseum should be
held accountable under FARA, which has penalties ranging up to five years in
prison.
Browder testified: “As part of
[Russian lawyer Natalie] Veselnitskaya’s lobbying, a former Wall Street Journal
reporter, Chris Cooper of the Potomac Group, was hired to organize the
Washington, D.C.-based premiere of a fake documentary about Sergei Magnitsky
and myself. This was one the best examples of Putin’s propaganda.
“They hired Howard Schweitzer
of Cozzen O’Connor Public Strategies and former Congressman Ronald Dellums to
lobby members of Congress on Capitol Hill to repeal the Magnitsky Act and to
remove Sergei’s name from the Global Magnitsky bill. On June 13, 2016, they
funded a major event at the Newseum to show their fake documentary, inviting
representatives of Congress and the State Department to attend.
“While they were conducting
these operations in Washington, D.C., at no time did they indicate that they
were acting on behalf of Russian government interests, nor did they file
disclosures under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. United States law is very
explicit that those acting on behalf of foreign governments and their interests
must register under FARA so that there is transparency about their interests
and their motives.
“Since none of these people
registered, my firm wrote to the Department of Justice in July 2016 and
presented the facts. I hope that my story will help you understand the methods
of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve
major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests.”
Browder’s Version
While he loosely accused a
number of Americans of felonies, Browder continued to claim that Magnitsky was
a crusading “lawyer” who uncovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme carried out
ostensibly by Browder’s companies but, which, according to Browder’s account,
was really engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who then arrested
Magnitsky and later were responsible for his death in a Russian jail.
Browder’s narrative has
received a credulous hearing by Western politicians and media already inclined to
think the worst of Putin’s Russia and willing to treat Browder’s claims as true
without serious examination. However, beyond the self-serving nature of
Browder’s tale, there are many holes in the story, including whether Magnitsky
was really a principled lawyer or instead a complicit accountant.
According to Browder’s own biographical description
of Magnitsky, he received his education at the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow, a
reference to Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, a school for finance
and business, not a law school.
Nevertheless, the West’s
mainstream media – relying on the word of Browder – has accepted Magnitsky’s
standing as a “lawyer,” which apparently fits better in the narrative of
Magnitsky as a crusading corruption fighter rather than a potential
co-conspirator with Browder in a complex fraud, as the Russian government has
alleged.
Browder’s mother also has
described her son as an accountant, although telling Nekrasov in the
documentary “he wasn’t just an accountant; he was interested in lots of
things.” In the film, the “lawyer” claim is also disputed by a female co-worker
who knew Magnitsky well. “He wasn’t a lawyer,” she said.
In other words, on this
high-profile claim repeated by Browder again and again, it appears that
presenting Magnitsky as a “lawyer” is a convenient falsehood that buttresses
the Magnitsky myth, which Browder constructed after Magnitsky’s death from
heart failure while in pre-trial detention.
But the Magnitsky myth took
off in 2012 when Browder sold his tale to neocon Senators Ben Cardin,
D-Maryland, and John McCain, R-Arizona, who threw their political weight behind
a bipartisan drive in Congress leading to the passage of the Magnitsky
sanctions act, the opening shot in the New Cold War.
A Planned Docudrama
Browder’s dramatic story also
attracted the attention of Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a well-known
critic of Putin from previous films. Nekrasov set out to produce a docudrama
that would share Browder’s good-vs.-evil narrative to a wider public.
Nekrasov devotes the first
half hour of the film to allowing Browder to give his Magnitsky account
illustrated by scenes from Nekrasov’s planned docudrama. In other words, the
viewer gets to see a highly sympathetic portrayal of Browder and Magnitsky as
supposedly corrupt Russian authorities bring charges of tax fraud against them.
However, Nekrasov’s documentary
project takes an unexpected turn when his research turns up numerous
contradictions to Browder’s storyline, which begins to look more and more like
a corporate cover story. For instance, Magnitsky’s mother blames the negligence
of prison doctors for her son’s death rather than a beating by prison guards as
Browder had pitched to Western audiences.
Nekrasov also discovered that
a woman who had worked in Browder’s company blew the whistle before Magnitsky
talked to police and that Magnitsky’s original interview with authorities was
as a suspect, not a whistleblower. Also contradicting Browder’s claims,
Nekrasov notes that Magnitsky doesn’t even mention the names of the police
officers in a key statement to authorities.
When one of the
Browder-accused police officers, Pavel Karpov, filed a libel suit against
Browder in London, the case was dismissed on technical grounds because Karpov had
no reputation in Great Britain to slander. But the judge seemed sympathetic to
the substance of Karpov’s complaint.
Browder claimed vindication
before adding an ironic protest given his successful campaign to prevent
Americans and Europeans from seeing Nekrasov’s documentary.
“These people tried to shut us
up; they tried to stifle our freedom of expression,” Browder complained.
“[Karpov] had the audacity to come here and sue us, paying high-priced libel
lawyers to come and terrorize us in the U.K.”
The ‘Kremlin Stooge’ Slur
A pro-Browder account
published at the Daily Beast on July 25 – attacking Nekrasov and his documentary
– is entitled “How an Anti-Putin Filmmaker Became a Kremlin Stooge,” a common
slur used in the West to discredit and silence anyone who dares question
today’s Russia-hating groupthink.
The article by Katie Zavadski
accuses Nekrasov of being in the tank for the Kremlin and declares that “The
movie is so flattering to the Russian narrative that Pavel Karpov — one of the
police officers accused of being responsible for Magnitsky’s death — plays
himself.”
But that’s not true. In fact,
there is a scene in the documentary in which Nekrasov invites the actor who
plays Karpov in the docudrama segment to sit in on an interview with the real
Karpov. There’s even a clumsy moment when the actor and police officer bump
into a microphone as they shake hands, but Zavadski’s falsehood would not be
apparent unless you had somehow gotten access to the documentary, which has
been effectively banned in the West.
In the documentary, Karpov,
the police officer, accuses Browder of lying about him and specifically
contests the claim that he (Karpov) used his supposedly ill-gotten gains to buy
an expensive apartment in Moscow. Karpov came to the interview with documents
showing that the flat was pre-paid in 2004-05, well before the alleged
hijacking of Browder’s firms.
Karpov added wistfully that he
had to sell the apartment to pay for his failed legal challenge in London,
which he said he undertook in an effort to clear his name. “Honor costs a lot
sometimes,” the police officer said.
Karpov also explained that the
investigations of Browder’s tax fraud started well before the Magnitsky
controversy, with an examination of a Browder company in 2004.
“Once we opened the
investigation, a campaign in defense of an investor started,” Karpov said.
“Having made billions here, Browder forgot to tell how he did it. So it suits
him to pose as a victim. … Browder and company are lying blatantly and
constantly.”
However, since virtually no
one in the West has seen this interview, you can’t make your own judgment as to
whether Karpov is credible or not.
A Painful Recognition
Yet, in reviewing the case
documents and noting Browder’s inaccurate claims about the chronology, Nekrasov
finds his own doubts growing. He discovers that European officials simply
accepted Browder’s translations of Russian documents, rather than checking them
independently. A similar lack of skepticism prevailed in the United States.
In other words, a kind of
trans-Atlantic groupthink took shape with clear political benefits for those
who went along and almost no one willing to risk the accusation of being a
“Kremlin stooge” by showing doubt.
As the documentary proceeds,
Browder starts avoiding Nekrasov and his more pointed questions. Finally,
Nekrasov hesitantly confronts the hedge-fund executive at a party for Browder’s
book, Red Notice, about the Magnitsky case.
The easygoing Browder of the
early part of the documentary — as he lays out his seamless narrative without
challenge — is gone; instead, a defensive and angry Browder appears.
“It’s bullshit,” Browder says
when told that his presentations of the documents are false.
But Nekrasov continues to find
more contradictions and discrepancies. He discovers evidence that Browder’s web
site eliminated an earlier chronology that showed that in April 2008, a
70-year-old woman named Rimma Starova, who had served as a figurehead executive
for Browder’s companies, reported the theft of state funds.
Nekrasov then shows how
Browder’s narrative was changed to introduce Magnitsky as the whistleblower
months later, although he was then described as an “analyst,” not yet a
“lawyer.”
As Browder’s story continues
to unravel, the evidence suggests that Magnitsky was an accountant implicated
in manipulating the books, not a crusading lawyer risking everything for the
truth.
A Heated Confrontation
In the documentary, Nekrasov
struggles with what to do next, given Browder’s financial and political clout.
Finally securing another interview, Nekrasov confronts Browder with the core
contradictions of his story. Incensed, the hedge-fund executive rises up and
threatens the filmmaker.
“I’d be very careful going out
and trying to do a whole sort of thing about Sergei [Magnitsky] not being the
whistleblower, it won’t do well for your credibility on this show,” Browder
said. “This is sort of the subtle FSB version,” suggesting that Nekrasov was
just fronting for the Russian intelligence service.
In the pro-Browder account
published at the Daily Beast on July 25, Browder described how he put down
Nekrasov by telling him, “it sounds like you’re part of the FSB. … Those are
FSB questions.”
But that phrasing is not what
he actually says in the documentary, raising further questions about whether
the Daily Beast reporter actually watched the film or simply accepted Browder’s
account of it. (I posed that question to the Daily Beast’s Katie Zavadski
by email, but have not gotten a reply.)
The documentary also includes
devastating scenes from depositions of a sullen and uncooperative Browder and a
U.S. government investigator, who acknowledges relying on Browder’s narrative
and documents in a related case against Russian businesses.
In an April 15, 2015
deposition of Browder, he, in turn, describes relying on reports from
journalists to “connect the dots,” including the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is funded by the U.S. government and financial
speculator George Soros. Browder said the reporters “worked with our team.”
While taking money from the
U.S. Agency for International Development and Soros, the OCCRP also targeted
Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych with accusations of corruption
prior to the Feb. 22, 2014 coup that ousted Yanukovych, an overthrow that was
supported by the U.S. State Department and escalated the New Cold War with
Russia.
OCCRP played a key role, too,
in the so-called Panama Papers, purloined documents from a Panamanian law firm
that were used to develop attack lines against Russian President Vladimir Putin
although his name never appeared in the documents.
After examining the
money-movement charts published by OCCRP about the Magnitsky case, Nekrasov
notes that the figures don’t add up and wonders how journalists could “peddle
these wooly maths.” He also observed that OCCRP’s Panama Papers linkage of
Magnitsky’s $230 million fraud and payments to an ally of Putin made no sense
because the dates of the Panama Papers transactions preceded the dates of the
alleged Magnitsky fraud.
The Power of Myth
Nekrasov suggests that the
power of Browder’s convoluted story rested, in part, on a Hollywood perception
of Moscow as a place where evil Russians lurk around every corner and any
allegation against “corrupt” officials is believed. The Magnitsky tale “was
like a film script about Russia written for the Western audience,” Nekrasov
says.
But the Browder’s narrative
also served a strong geopolitical interest to demonize Russia at the dawn of
the New Cold War.
In the documentary’s
conclusion, Nekrasov sums up what he had discovered: “A murdered hero as an
alibi for living suspects.” He then ponders the danger to democracy: “So do we
allow graft and greed to hide behind a political sermon? Will democracy survive
if human rights — its moral high ground — is used to protect selfish
interests?”
But Americans and Europeans
are being spared the discomfort of having to answer that question or to
question their representatives about the failure to skeptically examine this
case that has pushed the planet on a course toward a possible nuclear war.
Instead, the mainstream
Western media has hurled insults at Nekrasov even as his documentary is blocked
from any significant public viewing.
Despite Browder’s professed concern
about the London libel case that he claimed was an attempt “to stifle our
freedom of expression,” he has sicced his lawyers on anyone who might be
thinking about showing Nekrasov’s documentary to the public.
The documentary was set for a
premiere at the European Parliament in Brussels in April 2016, but at the last
moment – faced with Browder’s legal threats – the parliamentarians pulled the
plug. Nekrasov encountered similar resistance in the United States. There were
hopes to show the documentary to members of Congress but the offer was
rebuffed. Instead a room was rented at the Newseum near Capitol Hill.
Browder’s lawyers then tried
to strong arm the Newseum, but its officials responded that they were only
renting out a room and that they had allowed other controversial presentations
in the past.
“We’re not going to allow them
not to show the film,” said Scott Williams, the Newseum’s chief operating
officer. “We often have people renting for events that other people would love
not to have happen.”
In an article about the
controversy in June 2016, The New York Times added
that “A screening at the Newseum is especially controversial because it could
attract lawmakers or their aides.”
One-Time Showing
So, Nekrasov’s documentary got
a one-time showing with a follow-up discussion moderated by journalist Seymour
Hersh. However, except for that audience, the public of the United States and
Europe has been essentially shielded from the documentary’s discoveries, all
the better for the Magnitsky myth to retain its power as a seminal propaganda
moment of the New Cold War.
After the Newseum
presentation, a
Washington Post editorial branded Nekrasov’s documentary Russian
“agit-prop” and sought to discredit Nekrasov without addressing his many
documented examples of Browder’s misrepresenting both big and small facts in
the case.
Instead, the Post accused
Nekrasov of using “facts highly selectively” and insinuated that he was merely
a pawn in the Kremlin’s “campaign to discredit Mr. Browder and the Magnitsky
Act.”
Like the recent Daily Beast
story, which falsely claimed that Nekrasov let the Russian police officer
Karpov play himself, the Post misrepresented the structure of the film by
noting that it mixed fictional scenes with real-life interviews and action, a
point that was technically true but willfully misleading because the fictional
scenes were from Nekrasov’s original idea for a docudrama that he shows as part
of explaining his evolution from a believer in Browder’s self-exculpatory story
to a skeptic.
But the Post’s deception –
like the Daily Beast’s falsehood – is something that almost no American would
realize because almost no one has gotten to see the film.
The Post’s editorial gloated:
“The film won’t grab a wide audience, but it offers yet another example of the
Kremlin’s increasingly sophisticated efforts to spread its illiberal values and
mind-set abroad. In the European Parliament and on French and German television
networks, showings were put off recently after questions were raised about the
accuracy of the film, including by Magnitsky’s family.
“We don’t worry that
Mr. Nekrasov’s film was screened here, in an open society. But it is
important that such slick spin be fully exposed for its twisted story and sly
deceptions.”
The Post’s arrogant editorial
had the feel of something you might
read in a totalitarian society where the public only hears about dissent
when the Official Organs of the State denounce some almost unknown person for
saying something that almost no one heard.
It is also unlikely that
Americans and Europeans will get a chance to view this blacklisted documentary
in the future. In an email exchange, the film’s Norwegian producer Torstein
Grude told me that “We have been unsuccessful in releasing the film to TV so
far. ZDF/Arte [a major European network] pulled it from transmission a few days
before it was supposed to be aired and the other broadcasters seem scared as a
result. Netflix has declined to take it. …
“The film has no other release
at the moment. Distributors are scared by Browder’s legal threats. All involved
financiers, distributors, producers received thick stacks of legal documents
(300+ pages) threatening lawsuits should the film be released.” [Grude sent me
a special password so I could view the documentary on Vimeo.]
The blackout continues even
though the Magnitsky issue and Nekrasov’s documentary have become elements in
the recent controversy over a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump
Jr. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How
Russia-gate Met the Magnitsky Myth.”]
So much for the West’s vaunted
belief in freedom of expression and the democratic goal of encouraging
freewheeling debates about issues of great public importance. And, so much for
the Post’s empty rhetoric about our “open society.”
