Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Bill Browder:

He has no concept of legacy. How could a man who has gutted the Russian state for last 22 years, have all of their money, stole all of it be caring about the legacy of the country, he doesn’t care about it.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Bill Browder. Listeners of this podcast will recognize him as the one time major investor in Russia, who is now one of Vladimir Putin’s most prominent and persistent critics and targets. For over a decade, Browder has been a political activist. He was the driving force behind the 2012 passage of the Magnitsky Act, the law that allows the US government to sanction foreign nationals who have engaged in human rights abuses.

Few people know more about Putin’s financial secrets than Browder, who is now out with a new book on the subject. It’s called Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath. This week, we get into the weeds on Putin, his strategy for maintaining power, his calculus on the war in Ukraine, and the ruthless ways he goes after his enemies, plus, Browder’s life-threatening experiences as a target of the Russian dictator.

That’s coming up. Stay tuned. Hey, folks, before I get to your questions, a quick reminder, Stay Tuned is nominated for a Webby Award for the best individual podcast episode in the news and politics category. The episode features my conversation with the prosecutors who convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.

We discussed their decision making and perhaps one of the most high profile trials in US history. Voting ends today, April 21st. Please head to cafe.com/webby to vote for Stay Tuned. That’s cafe.com/W-E-B-B-Y. Thank you, as always, for supporting our work. Now let’s get to your questions. This question comes from Twitter user @ourreadnyc #AskPreet.

Why did the Fed swoop in and take the NYC shooter prosecution? I’m going to do what I seldom do which is object to the form of the question because among other things, it is argumentative and assumes facts not in evidence. The suggestion is that the Feds big footed the local prosecutors, that’s a common theme on television and in movies, and in novels sometimes. That’s not usually how it works.

You are of course referring to the mass shooting that took place last week on a Brooklyn subway. The defendant was apprehended, Frank James, after he fired off at least 33 shots, striking 10 people. Thankfully, no one is in life-threatening condition. In the early aftermath of the shooting, there was lots of speculation about whether it was an act of terrorism, whether it wasn’t.

There was some reporting that wasn’t being treated as an act of terrorism. I don’t know exactly what that means. But I guarantee you federal authorities were involved at the outset. That’s always how it works when you have a thing like this, where it’s not clear what the motivation for the act was. Ultimately, I’m sure there were appropriate state charges to be brought.

But we can have an act like this that can be targeted with a particular federal statute that implicates terrorism, generally speaking, the local authorities defer to the federal authorities. I think that’s appropriate. That’s tradition, the principle statute here that was used to charge Frank James is 18 United States Code 1992, which is styled as a statute to address “Terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers and against mass transportation systems on land, on water, or through the air.”

Although you might be wondering, well, why is it terrorism if Frank James was apparently acting alone, was not part of any organized terrorist organization? I think the feeling is with respect to that statute and some other statutes that if someone engages in conduct like James did, or allegedly did, and shoots again and again and again on a public transportation system that inflicts fear and terror in the population.

It’s a serious violation, and needs to be treated accordingly. Fundamentally, I don’t think the Feds swooped in, because the Feds were already involved. They’re always involved in things like this. That was true when I was the US Attorney in Manhattan as well. I think it was the appropriate result. We’ll see how the case unfolds.

This question comes in a tweet from user @BertGuilfoyle who asks, “Do congressional referrals to DOJ make a difference, e.g. from the January 6th committee, or does DOJ act independently, regardless, based on publicly available information?” I’ve addressed this a little bit in the past and I’m sure, again, in the future I will.

My preliminary answer to your question is those kinds of referrals don’t make, I think, a dispositive difference one way or another. The DOJ acts independently, not just based on publicly available information, but information that they derive from their own investigation if they think there’s something worthy of investigating.

The one exception that maybe confuses some people is a particular procedure and process in place for Congress or a committee of Congress to make a referral to the Department of Justice with respect to obstruction of Congress. We saw that with Steve Bannon. We saw that with Mark Meadows. Steve Bannon has been indicted. Mark Meadows has not been.

But generally speaking for any other kind of crime, ranging from fraud to I suppose seditious conspiracy, the Department of Justice is supposed to be looking at the world and looking at what’s going on in the country, and taking account of those things, and conducting investigations with all their law enforcement resources and apparatus as they see fit. Not necessarily because some political body has asked them to do so.

Now, the debate here is, I think, a good faith one. The debate is over the question of whether the 1/6 committee should make some formal referral at the end of their inquiry with respect to, for example, Donald Trump to the Justice Department. There are two sides to the debate. I respect admire people on both sides. They’re friends of mine on both sides of the debate.

On the one hand, there are some people who are saying, “The January 6 committee must make the referral. It’s what’s right. It will put pressure on DOJ, and therefore they must do it.” There are other people who I also respect who are I think arguing in good faith, that the 1/6 committee must absolutely not make the referral, because it will make any action by DOJ, look political, and it will invite criticism. Why do that?

Unlike in some debates, I don’t really feel strongly, one way or another. I understand the arguments being made on both sides. I think they’re both a little bit overwrought, in my view. I don’t think it matters much. What we do know for sure is that the January 6 committee is going to have not only public hearings, but issue a very lengthy, detailed, thorough report.

In that report, it will be very clear from the facts that they lay out what that committee’s opinion is on the question of Donald Trump or any other person’s criminal liability. I don’t know if they’ll have a full legal analysis setting for the elements of particular crimes. But I think it’ll be very clear what they think. From some of the remarks being made by members of the committee, I think they’ve already reached the conclusion that Trump and others probably guilty of some crime.

Whether or not they slap a cover letter on that report, and send it directly to DOJ with the instruction that “Please take a look at this. See if there’s criminal liability here.” Whether they do that or not, I don’t think really matters. People are going to make allegations of politics and political reaction, whether or not there’s a formal referral or not. I understand the debate. I respect both sides of the debate. I don’t think it matters a whole hell of a lot. I think the important thing is to see what the findings of the 1/6 committee are.

Finally, as I mentioned last week, I thought it might be useful from time to time during the Q&A section of the program to answer some basic question about the law or about the courts. Because I think we assume too much knowledge on the part of laypeople who listen, who are thoughtful citizens, and maybe could benefit from some more detailed explanation of some basic facts about the law.

This week, I thought I would answer the question that I sometimes get, which is how many levels of courts are there? We talked about this court and that court, and maybe it’s confusing to folks. Let me very quickly summarize how the levels of courts work, at least in the federal system. There are three levels of courts in the federal system.

Every single judge in the federal system at all three levels is nominated by the President of the United States, and is confirmed or not confirmed by the United States Senate. If they’re confirmed, they have life tenure on the federal bench, and they can’t be removed except by impeachment. The first level, and that’s true in all court systems is the trial court.

The trial court or the first entry point for a litigant or a criminal defendant or a government prosecutor is called the Federal District Court. When we talk about trials, when we talk about indictments, when we talk about all manner of hearings, we’re always talking about the Federal District Court, the Southern District of New York has a court and it’s the federal district court. That’s where generally people have access.

It’s not difficult to get access to the federal district court. Trials happen in the federal district court, not at the other levels of the judiciary. That’s the first level. The next level after the district court level, are the circuit courts of appeal. In the federal system, there are 13 circuit courts of appeal, 12 related to regions, and 1 called the Federal Circuit, which deals with specialized cases like patents and other kinds of things like that.

I have practiced my entire career in the second circuit, which embraces the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. Generally speaking, if you’re the losing party in some fashion in the district court, you have a pretty much guaranteed right to appeal to the circuit court, not in every circumstance. But generally speaking, you have pretty good access to the trial court, the district court.

You have pretty good access to the courts of appeal, then comes the heavy duty court, the highest court in the land, that you’re all probably much more familiar with, the Supreme Court of the United States. That court is very difficult to get access to, as we’ve discussed on the podcast, and on the CAFE Insider many, many times, whereas the district court will take all cases and controversies presented to it, may dismiss them if there’s a lack of jurisdiction or some other procedural flaw.

The Supreme Court takes very, very few of the cases that are sought to be presented to that body. District Court, Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court. I think most states are set up the same way. Obviously, my familiarity with New York State, there’s one peculiarity in New York State. It has most judicial systems, three levels of courts, but they’re named kind of funny.

In New York State, the lowest level of court, the trial court is called Supreme Court, State Supreme, which is very confusing for a lot of people if you haven’t practiced in New York, why the lowest court is called the Supreme Court. Sometimes you’ll see an article, and it’ll say something is pending in Supreme Court. I worry that the laypeople will naturally think, “Wow. It’s going to the most important court in the state.” Not true.

The second level of court in New York State is the Appellate Division. There are four appellate divisions in New York based on region. The appellate courts in New York, just like the Federal Circuit Courts, generally speaking, you have a right to appeal if you lose in the lower court. Then the highest court in New York State is called the Court of Appeals. Go figure. Stay tuned. There’s more coming up after this.

Hey, folks, we have an event coming up next Tuesday, April 26th, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. I’ll be speaking with New York City Mayor Eric Adams for a live recording of Stay Tuned at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. Get your tickets for free at cafe.com/events. That’s cafe.com/events and tickets are free. I hope to see you there.

My guest this week is my friend, Bill Browder. Once the largest foreign investor in post-Soviet Russia, Browder found himself in the crosshairs of Vladimir Putin in 2005, turning his life completely upside-down. After Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Russian jail in 2009, Browder dedicated his life to exposing Putin’s crimes, and holding accountable those who profit from them.

Bill Browder, welcome back to the show. What a treat to have you again.

Bill Browder:

Great to be here.

Preet Bharara:

I love having you every time you come on. There’s a particular occasion. Last week marked the launch of your new book, Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath, which has done very well. It’s a great book. I read it cover-to-cover. I think lots of people are buying it. Everyone who’s listening within the sound of my voice should buy it and read it also.

For a lot of different reasons, we’ll talk about the relevance of it particularly this moment, but it was great seeing you in New York briefly last week for your book launch.

Bill Browder:

It was a great party and a great way to kick off the book. Also my kids were there.

Preet Bharara:

Your kids were there. I enjoyed speaking to them very much. Let’s start with something that you said. You gave a brief talk at that event. Obviously, you and I have been talking about this book for a while in different contexts. You’ve been writing it for three years. It comes out in week, I guess, five of this unprovoked war between Russia and Ukraine.

It has massive additional relevance that it might have otherwise had. Can you describe that coincidence?

Bill Browder:

The book is a sequel to my first book. My first book was about my career in Russia and ending up in trouble with Putin and ultimately, the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and getting the Magnitsky Act passed. Then this book was all about, for the last 10 years, going after the people who killed Magnitsky financial aid, because Sergei had discovered as massive financial crime, a $230 million crime.

One of the things I said to myself after he was killed was these people shouldn’t be able to enjoy this money. Let’s get governments to issue freezing orders over this money so they can’t enjoy it, which is the name of the book Freezing Order. We pursued this path of going and trying to find the money and we found a lot of it and we got various freezing orders in different countries.

The book describes how we found the money of these Putin cronies of the Putin regime, what methods they used to launder their money and how they hide it in the West. I spent three years writing this book. Then six, seven weeks ago, Putin invades Ukraine and one of things everyone wants to know is where does Putin keep his money?

As close as anyone can come to answering that question, I’ve done it. I’ve got a 350-page book going into the details. Originally, the book was supposed to come out in June. I said to my publisher, “Why are we waiting till June? Every politician I know wants the answer to this question. I’m sure they all read this cover to cover. Simon & Schuster moved the publication up to last week, and here we go.

Preet Bharara:

Where does he keep his money? You’ve addressed this before, I think on this podcast. How much money is there?

Bill Browder:

One of the things which is interesting. We said, “Here’s this $230 million crime. We investigated, investigated.” We found that a bunch of the money went to a bank called Danske Bank in Estonia, their Estonian branch. Once we found that we got all sorts of data and information and various leaks, and so on. Then we started working with some journalists from various organizations in Denmark and a big international NGO called the OCCRP.

We discovered when they got to work with their databases, and the leaked data that the number wasn’t 200 million, it was 230 billion of dirty money had flowed through the Estonian branch of this Danish bank, Danske Bank, which is effectively dirty money from Russia. This is just one bank, one European midsize bank with one branch.

I would guess, and based on capital flight numbers that the total amount of money that’s been stolen by Vladimir Putin and his cronies over a 22-year period is a trillion dollars. We know how they laundered it. We know which banks it went through. We know where some of it is, a lot of it is, and who holds this money ultimately for these people. It’s these people known as the Russian oligarchs, the guys who you see them on these big yachts and these big private jets and so on.

Preet Bharara:

Is your mindset, It’s great that western nations are finally engaging on their own initiative in freezing orders and seizing property of oligarchs? Or are you somewhat annoyed that it took an unprovoked invasion of an innocent country to cause that to happen?

Bill Browder:

I would say annoyed is an understatement. I’m furious. I’m heartbroken. I mean, if we look back at how we dealt with Russia over the last 22 years, Putin, actually not Russia, but Putin. We’ve given him a pass at every step. The guy has done so many terrible things. He invaded another country, Georgia, nothing. At the time, President Obama has said, “We urge all sides to restrain themselves.” He took Crimea, no sanctions of any significance.

He poisoned using a banned chemical nerve agent, Novichok, a bunch of people in Salisbury, England. They had to close the whole city down for a week and some chemical weapon attack in the UK. Six months later, all these British people we’re going to the World Cup. We’ve basically given this guy a free pass, and every step of the way and every time I’ve been going around the world to parliaments, some governments trying to get governments and everybody to be tough on Putin.

They look at me as I’m some type of Party Pooper. I’m an extremist. Bill, interesting story, we understand you have some issues. Here we are.

Preet Bharara:

The guy killed your lawyer.

Bill Browder:

Yeah. Here we are. Putin is committing mass murder on a daily basis of innocent civilians, and we’re watching it live on television. I can’t tell you how upset I am by this. Every day that I wake up, and I just feel more upset.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve asked this question of a lot of people, including our mutual friend, Garry Kasparov. How is it that a guy who’s always been thought of as savvy and smart and shrewd in many circles, and I think in many western circles, engage in such a huge miscalculation? Is it because of what you’ve just said that at every juncture he took an aggressive step, and a cruel step and no one did anything about it and he thought he could do whatever he wants or something else?

Bill Browder:

Well, we don’t know what his calculation is yet. We think it’s a miscalculation. Yes. He certainly miscalculated.

Preet Bharara:

It hasn’t gone according to plan, right?

Bill Browder:

It definitely hasn’t gone according to plan. But my analysis is something different. Why did he do this war? I believe this war comes back to that trillion dollars, a trillion dollars that was stolen should have been spent on healthcare and on education and roads, and all the things that a government supposed to do for its people. Instead, it went into the yachts and planes and villas, and all this in Swiss bank accounts.

After a while, the Russian people got mad. Every time they got mad, what did Putin do to deflect their anger? He started a war. The war in Georgia in 2008 and you can look at the chart. His approval rating skyrocket. The illegal annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Eastern Ukraine in 2014, again, his approval rating skyrocket.

Then now with this murderous invasion, full scale invasion of Ukraine, and his approval rating skyrocket. His calculation is all about him being worried about getting kicked out by his people. He maybe didn’t miscalculate because his approval ratings are where he wants them to be so that he can be safely the leader of Russia, and not have anyone challenged that.

Yes, of course, it’s very expensive now because of all the sanctions and monies being frozen. Yes. He lost 20,000 troops. But he doesn’t care about 20,000 troops.

Preet Bharara:

Other nations are joining NATO now.

Bill Browder:

He doesn’t care about that either. That’s all for spin. He doesn’t care about NATO. He doesn’t care about European Union and Ukraine. He doesn’t care about recreating the Soviet Union. Everyone says he’s doing this for his legacy. That’s complete nonsense. He has no concept of legacy. How could a man who was gutted the Russian state for last 22 years have all of their money, stole all of it be caring about the legacy of the country? He doesn’t care about it?

He’s kind of like that … Remember that dictator from a country used to be called Zaire? His name is Mobutu Seko, who stole all the money from the country and took it down to the south of France. That’s what Putin is. He’s not a patriot of any sort. He doesn’t care about any of this stuff.

Preet Bharara:

But can you explain something to me? He’s been in power over two decades. I believe when you say he’s stolen all this money, I think there’s some consensus about that. The amount how many 10s of billions maybe people can quarrel about. What is the point of having that much money? Obviously, he lives some lifestyle of some opulence if you see some of the photos that get taken of him.

Is he thinking about having a lavish retirement somewhere? As I’ve understood it, he’s planning to die as the leader of Russia. What’s the point of all those excess billions?

Bill Browder:

Well, you speak as a man who’d hasn’t stolen billions and …

Preet Bharara:

I have not. I’ve done many things, but I have not stolen billions.

Bill Browder:

Well, it’s impossible for you to empathize with him. In Russia, you can’t be the most powerful person without being the richest person. You have to be the richest, most ruthless, most powerful person, and you can’t be one of the three. You have to be all three of the three. To answer your question, there is no Putin presidential library that he is going to retire to and give speeches or paint paintings or whatever.

Preet Bharara:

It’s status? It’s a matter of status?

Bill Browder:

It’s just you got to be the biggest, most everything is person on the scene. Otherwise, people don’t respect you.

Preet Bharara:

But what’s weird about that is usually you do that ostentatiously and he will deny it. He doesn’t say I have $200 billion.

Bill Browder:

He doesn’t say it. But he has a $1.3 billion house in the Black Sea that Alexei Navalny exposed. I’ve got a friend who owns an unbelievably nice ski chalet in Switzerland. I won’t say where to keep him safe. Putin wanted to buy it. He kept on raising the price five times the price to try to buy his ski chalet. Putin probably owns 200 properties around the world. He loves to have all this stuff. It’s highly ostentatious, and everybody in his circle knows about it, for sure.

Preet Bharara:

You said something interesting. I’ve said this many times about the oligarchs. In Russia, they only exist by the grace of Vladimir Putin. What do you mean by that?

Bill Browder:

Well, a lot of people are thinking maybe these oligarchs, if we just freeze their money, they’re going to rise up and overthrow Putin. It’s a complete wrong analysis, because the oligarchs only exist and are only rich and are only free and effectively only alive at the pleasure of Vladimir Putin. At any moment, he can do anything he wants to them. He has on a number of occasions to make the point. He put Khodorkovsky in jail for 10 years.

Preet Bharara:

[inaudible 00:23:40] explain who Khodorkovsky was because that’s a great precedent, and every oligarchic or aspiring oligarch saw that example and learn something from it.

Bill Browder:

Mikhail Khodorkovsky when Putin had come to power was the richest man in Russia. He was the biggest oligarchy on the biggest oil company called Yukos. He was fairly what I would describe as independently wealthy. He was talking to western oil companies about mergers. He was talking about corporate governance and improving transparency. He was doing all sorts of stuff, which you might think of as being a smart thing to do if you’re a billionaire oligarch.

He also criticized Putin. In retaliation, Putin had him arrested off his private jet in Siberia, brought back to Moscow, put on trial for tax evasion. By the way, in Russia, there’s a 99.7% conviction rate in a criminal trial. There’s no presumption of innocence. They just put you in a cage during the trial, because that’s where you’re going to end up after the trial. They allow the television cameras to come in and film Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia is sitting in a cage.

If you were, let’s say the 17th richest oligarch in Russia …

Preet Bharara:

You get the message.

Bill Browder:

You turn on the TV and you see a guy far richer, far more powerful than you sitting in a cage, what’s your natural reaction? You don’t want to sit in the cage yourself. All these other guys go to Putin and say, “What do we have to do to not sit in a cage?” Putin said, “50%.” That’s where Putin’s wealth comes from. The oligarchs are all totally beholden to him. If they didn’t give him 50%, then he just took 100%.

Preet Bharara:

It’s the most massive shakedown of modern times.

Bill Browder:

Indeed.

Preet Bharara:

Then, let me ask you the follow-up question, which is if it’s the case that these sanctions and freezing orders against the oligarchs who are close to Putin, are not in any way by your analysis, going to cause them to influence Putin to withdraw from Ukraine, what’s the point?

Bill Browder:

It’s the 50% point. Very shortly after he launched the war, the EU, US, Canada, and the UK all sanction Vladimir Putin. That’s very nice symbolically. But he doesn’t hold any of the money in his own name. All the money is held in the name of people he trusts, who are these oligarchs, trustees, custodians, nominees, proxies. The oligarchs are the ones holding his money.

If we’re trying to starve him of his resources to execute this war, one of the main sources of offshore resources he has is his own money, and potentially the money of the oligarchs if he needs it. I would view the whole sanction program now as not to influence the oligarchs to rise up against him, nor to change his mind, his mind is unchangeable. Once he started this war, he can only escalate.

The point of the sanctions at this point is to completely and absolutely surround him and starve him of the money to continue buying bullets and missiles and everything else that he needs to kill Ukrainians.

Preet Bharara:

It’s not a bank shot as some people analyze, that you put pressure on the oligarchs, and then they will in turn put pressure on Putin does the fact that Putin know that his own wealth is being seized, not just the oligarchs wealth, but his own wealth, does that have some influence on him or not?

Bill Browder:

It infuriates him, it’s highly disrespectful. I have always compared his psychology to that of the toughest guy in the prison yard. Nobody can show him disrespects, because if they do, then everyone will disrespect him, and all of a sudden, he won’t be in his tough place anymore. The fact that we have sanctioned him and frozen his assets through the oligarchs is a sign of immense disrespect on a worldwide basis. That’s helpful.

It’s not going to change his mind. But it’s important for us to stand up to this guy. He’s got to be punished in every way possible. He has to be deprived of these resources. This is a good way to do it, for sure.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve said a number of things about Putin’s mismanagement of his country, including the theft of a lot of its money. But another thing you said recently, that’s interesting, with respect to everyone’s expectation, that the Russian army was powerful and modern and effective. It turned out that that was not so. You said you weren’t surprised, explain why.

Bill Browder:

What I’ve seen in all of this investigation we’ve done in everything that we’ve been involved in the last 10 years is that everything is being stolen, just starting with the Magnitsky case where Sergei Magnitsky discovered $230 million of Russian government money was stolen. He exposed it. We expected that he would be given a pat on the back by Putin for finding a major crime against the government.

Instead, he was arrested, tortured for 358 days and killed. When we then wanted to go after his killers, and the people who stole the money, Putin then promoted them, gave them state honors, and then put Sergei Magnitsky on trial in the first ever trial against a dead man in the history of Russia. It showed Putin very clearly as a total, absolute criminal.

Preet Bharara:

But now linked that to the failure of the Russian army.

Bill Browder:

Everything in Russia is operated in the same criminal way. Every ministry it’s like the sopranos. You have the Philadelphia mafia and the New Jersey mafia and all this kind of stuff. They feed up to the mafia boss, who’s Vladimir Putin. In this case, it’s the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, the Minister of Telecom, they all do their own stealing, and then send money up to Vladimir Putin.

Guess what? In the Ministry of Defense and the army, they do the same damn thing. They’re selling the gas out of their tanks. They’re selling the parts off of their planes, they run MiGs in Russia. India’s got an air force with lot of MiGs. Their air force is really, really good. They know how to run their planes. Guess what? They’re buying all the spare parts off of the parts being cannibalized out of Russia.

The wages for the soldiers are being stolen by their bosses. Every step of the way, the whole thing is just hollowed out by dirtiness, corruption and so on. What we have is just a Potemkin army. That’s been very good in one sense because it’s led to the Ukrainians who care profoundly about their country and their freedom and their land and their children to be able to be outmanned and outgunned, but not really because the Russians were running out of gas as they were running their tanks into Ukraine.

Preet Bharara:

Does anything about the unfolding of this war surprise you?

Bill Browder:

Well, the only thing that surprises me is the fact that he did what he did. I have watched Putin for the last 22 years, and I’ve been in a real full frontal conflict with him for the last 15 years. Everything he’s always done up until now has been plausibly deniable. When Russia invaded Georgia, there was a whole big thing where they say, “Well, Georgia fired first. We were just fighting and self defense.”

When they took Crimea, they said, “These weren’t our soldiers. These were little green men. They were Russians on vacation.” They somehow were able to convince the world, the International Press Corps to describe the people in Eastern Ukraine as separatists. They weren’t Russians. They were separatists. When they hacked the US elections, they say, “It wasn’t us.”

When they sent guys to Salisbury, they were there for the cathedrals for the poisoning. Everything that Putin has done has always been this weird, plausibly deniable thing. Why did he do that? Because he always wanted to have one foot in the civilized world while he had one foot in the criminal world. He wanted to show up at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at the G20. Host international sporting events, at the same time, as he was planning assassinations of his enemies and plotting all sorts of other malicious activities.

It surprised me that he would just basically put both feet into the criminal world. Leading up to it, I always thought, “No. No. He must be bluffing. He must be bluffing. Get every world leader to come to kiss his ring in Moscow. Then he’ll get some concession from us and declare victory.” I was surprised that he decided to just go full on and just damn the torpedoes and go straight into it the way he did. That was different than anything else he did before.

Preet Bharara:

Was it really different? Or did he think in his mind that’s aged somewhat and he’s had a track record of successful examples of plausible deniability, as you say? Do you think he initially thought that he would be able to do the same thing here, denazification and styling this as some defensive act, but the west got the better of him on it?

Bill Browder:

I think to a certain extent that is true. I mean, the one thing that President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson did very effectively was for two months before, they just shared all the intelligence with the world on a daily basis on the Nightly News. They said, “Russia is going to invade, Russia is going to invade. Russia is going to invade.” Putin had a big plan to say that this was going to be self-defense and all sorts of other nonsense, which what didn’t work with anybody.

It didn’t work with the Germans or the French, or the Hungarians even who were the biggest Putin acolytes in Europe. Everybody saw this is what it was, which is a naked aggression against an innocent sovereign state. Yes. He was definitely played by Biden, and by Boris Johnson. Whatever he had planned didn’t work. But still, I mean, it’s just so brazen what he has done.

Preet Bharara:

You say something that I’ve been thinking about, and talking about with other guests as well. When all said and done, do you think that the most brilliant stroke on the part of the United States, and you also mentioned the UK, was this real time release of Intel?

Bill Browder:

Definitely. Definitely. It was the most important thing, because all of the apologists couldn’t hang on whatever his excuse was, because it was just so feeble. That was a world changing, future changing decision and because that may give the Ukrainians a chance. But by getting everybody on the same side, or all the people that matter, I should say on the same side there.

We can talk about the ones who aren’t on the same side. But to get all of Europe on the same side, it’s something that has never been done before.

Preet Bharara:

I want to ask you about something you said a few minutes ago that bothers me. You talked about all the times that Putin has done some outrageous thing to change the subject. It’s been in the service of increasing his popularity. I guess one question is why does he need to worry if he has a tight grip on power?

The second thing is, do you think that’s really true now? One would like to think that there are a sufficient number of Russians who are clear-eyed and are getting some outside information and in particularly relatives of the soldiers who are dying by the thousands that there’s some undercurrent of antipathy towards Putin. Even that goal of trying to be more popular in his own country has failed. What’s your real sense of the popular feeling about Putin at this moment?

Bill Browder:

I think he’s really popular at this moment. I think that there’s a lot of families, there’s 20,000 mothers who have lost their sons and various other family members and friends that are furious. But I mean, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. People who … All you have to do is look at some videos of interviews of random people on the street, and they’re all brainwashed.

Speaker 3:

Many Russians believe that government that the war was forced on them by Ukraine, backed by NATO.

Speaker 4:

I know the truth. This was a forced measure on our side. After what Russia went through in World War Two, it’s madness to believe we want war.

Preet Bharara:

Those aren’t actors?

Bill Browder:

They’re not actors. These are people being approached … Westerners approaching them saying, “What do you think about this war?” These people are just like, “The Russians have somehow degraded the Ukrainians to sub-humans.” Like what they did in Rwanda to do the genocide, where everybody just says, “It’s okay to do these terrible things.” It’s not made up.

I’ll tell you a very interesting little anecdote. We all think, “Well, the information must be getting through, people must be understanding what’s going on. Because the internet still works and there’s still ways of watching things and hearing things and seeing things.” I was with my wife, who is from Russia, we met in Russia, and we were coming back from a trip and she was reading to me the headlines, the Russian headlines, which are just completely untrue and the opposite of what’s really going on.

I said, “This is really interesting stuff. Can you just text me some of these headlines because I’d like to put them onto my Twitter feed, so people can see what the Russians are reading for themselves?” We got home from this trip. I forgot about my request for to send them in this stuff. An hour or two later, I was working out on my elliptical machine and just had my phone on the machine. I wasn’t really paying attention.

I saw these news alerts coming through. Not newsletters alerts. But alerts coming through saying Ukrainians take 15,000 hostages. My heart sank. I wasn’t really paying attention. My heart sank thinking myself, “The Ukrainians have had such a good story up until now and all of a sudden, they’re taking hostages and doing all this terrible stuff.”

Then I realized there was actually my wife just sending me these Russian headlines. But even me, not really looking at it out of the corner of my eye, reading these headlines, I had an emotional reaction. Now imagine you’re in Russia, you get this stuff bombarded at you 24 hours a day, everybody you know, like and respect has the same information, have the same opinions. That’s how you end up with this 83% approval rating.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Bill Browder, after this. I think an accurate way to describe both your writing, your two books, and what you’ve dedicated yourself to that the theme of your work and your writing is justice and the seeking of justice. But within that, I think there are two sub-themes that relate to the concept of finding justice. One is impunity.

I was thinking about that word. I realize you can’t spell impunity without Putin. There’s something about certain kinds of transgressions that are different when they are done with just absolute extreme impunity. That’s what happened in the case of your lawyer who was killed, and lots of other things that you write about in your books that we’ve been talking about.

The other thing, the counter-forced impunity is courage. It’s not just the laws. It’s not just the law books. It’s not just the courts. But extreme personal courage on the part of brave people. But you’re among them. I want to talk about some of those brave people. People are aware of and you’ve summarized in this conversation, the story of Sergei Magnitsky, in whose name you do all this work.

There’s another person who was killed you had been talking about recently, Boris Nemtsov, who’s a Russian, critic of Putin. Can you remind folks what happened to him?

Bill Browder:

Yeah. Boris Nemtsov, he was once the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia under Yeltsin. Then he saw what I saw and what most Russians saw Putin and he decided, unlike most other people in the political sphere, instead of enriching himself at the troth, he thought it was just wrong and bad what Putin was doing. At a great personal cost, he became the leader of the opposition.

He said, “We can’t tolerate this. The stealing has got to stop.” Moreover, Boris became my partner in lobbying, the Magnitsky Act around the world as we went to try to get some sanctions placed on Putin and his cronies. Boris showed up in the US Congress of the Canadian Parliament, the British Parliament, all these parliament. When I was there telling the Magnitsky story and all the terrible things Putin was up to, Boris was there giving the Russian perspective and he called it the most pro-Russian law ever passed the Magnitsky Act because it sanctioned the people stealing from the Russian people.

Boris, he did this at a great personal risk. I mean, the Russians have been after me and all sorts of ways, but he was living in Moscow. One night, in late February 2015, he was walking across the bridge in front of the Kremlin after a dinner with his girl boyfriend, and he was shot five times in the back and killed.

Preet Bharara:

Right in the shadow of the Kremlin?

Bill Browder:

This is a place where they have … this probably the most heavily surveilled CCTV, security camera.

Preet Bharara:

Yes. I was going to say, Bill, surely this was captured on video? No?

Bill Browder:

Well, it just so happened that according to the Russian authorities that all the video cameras were down for maintenance at that moment in time. It’s laughable when they come up with those types of excuses. But that’s how they do stuff. PUTIN ordered the hit. I mean, it’s obvious. It’s so clear that Putin ordered this hit. He killed Boris Nemtsov in front of the Kremlin, in cold blood.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have a view as to why it is? Sometimes he offs people by means that have plausible deniability, like poison, and sometimes he has people shoot them in the back?

Bill Browder:

He always does this in a way so that he can say, “It wasn’t me.” But at the same time, stare everybody down and say, “It was me.” He wants the apologists and the appeasers in the west who are enjoying doing business with him to say, “There’s no evidence.” But at the same time, he wants all the other opposition politicians in Russia to say, “Oh, my God. This is what happens. I better leave the country. I better moderate my behavior. I better not say these things anymore, because I don’t want to be shot five times in the back like he was.”

That’s his way of governing is by picking the biggest target out, doing something terrible to them, and then staring down the rest at the same time snickering and say, “It wasn’t me.”

Preet Bharara:

But sometimes, and maybe there’s no logic or rhyme or reason with respect to certain people like Putin, sometimes he doesn’t kill the person. Alexei Navalny remains alive. Do you have any explanation for that?

Bill Browder:

Well, he intended to kill him. Alexei Navalny is like Boris Nemtsov, perhaps even became more popular than Boris Nemtsov because he was an expert at using social media, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram in putting out all Putin’s crimes and the crimes of the regime. He even put out all the details in Putin’s $1.3 billion palace on the Black Sea. Putin hates this guy and understood that Alexei Navalny could very well be … If there was a free election could be the next president of Russia.

Alexei was in Siberia on some type of campaign trip. Putin had a bunch of Novichok, this chemical nerve agent placed in his underwear as Navalny was leaving to go on an airplane to Moscow and it got absorbed in his skin as the plane took off, and he started having convulsions and they were up in the air. It was a five-hour flight to Moscow.

If the flight had gone all the way to Moscow, he would have died. But it was just the pilot decided to bring the plane down in another town in Siberia in Omsk, Siberia. They bring the plane down in Omsk. The ambulance crew hasn’t been given an instruction to let Alexie die. They give him some atropine, which is an antidote. He’s still extremely gravely ill, but he doesn’t die. Then his wife comes to Omsk and demands that he’s allowed to be medevac.

They eventually get him to Berlin where he spends three weeks in a coma. Then he overcomes this unbelievable poisoning assassination attempt. Then Putin tried to keep him from coming back to Russia by saying that he had violated his parole because they had charged him on some trumped up thing a few years before. He’s supposed to be meeting with his parole officer. He couldn’t meet with his parole officer because he was in a coma from Putin’s assassination attempt.

This is a mark of unbelievable bravery. Alexei, who has been his mind his duty to his country was greater than his personal fear about his freedom or his life. He gets on a plane from Berlin back to Moscow. Then what do they do the moment he hits the ground? They arrest him. He’s now sitting in a prison, and they sentenced him to another nine years in jail.

What Putin doesn’t seem to understand is that, yes, Alexei is not physically free, but he has now been elevated to the level of Vladimir Putin. Should Vladimir Putin ever misstep at any point along the way, and there’s every possibility he will based on what he’s doing right now, Alexei Navalny is the President in waiting.

Preet Bharara:

There’s another person, not quite as well known as Alexei Navalny, who follows a similar pattern. I know that he’s an associate of yours. He was a very close associate of Boris Nemtsov. That’s Vladimir Kara-Murza, who you should tell a little bit of the story so people know who he is. He’s in your book, obviously. But he’s somebody who was also poisoned not once, but twice.

A few weeks ago, this is not in your book, because it’s too recent. Tell folks what happened a few weeks ago when Russia invaded Ukraine with respect to Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Bill Browder:

Vladimir Kara-Murza was the protege of Boris Nemtsov. Boris Nemtsov was the godfather to one of his children, and he was the political protege. He’s a truly unbelievable young man, incredibly articulate, speaks a number of different languages fluently. He’s a historian by training. Vladimir, in addition to Boris was also accompanying me to various parliaments lobbying for the Magnitsky Act.

He’s truly beloved by anybody who meets him and particularly, all these foreign parliaments when they heard this young man speak. He spoke so passionately and so articulately about the crimes of the Putin regime and the need for sanctions and his hope for a fair and free Russia. You couldn’t not want to do what he asked you to do, because it was just so compelling.

He was with me at all these different Magnitsky lobbying events and he was in Russia. After Boris Nemtsov was killed, he went back to Russia. They poisoned him, the same way as they did with Alexei Navalny. I was deeply involved with his wife and with his friends and trying to figure out what he had been poisoned with, and the doctors gave him a 5% chance of living.

Somehow, we thought for sure he was going to die. Then somehow, he was able to overcome the poison, and eventually clear it from his system, and recover.

Preet Bharara:

In the process, by the way, I should point out to folks, that’s one of the craziest parts of your book when you describe that ordeal, and having to figure out a way to smuggle out blood samples and get them treatment. It’s really something.

Bill Browder:

He had acquired a British passport having studied at Cambridge and various other places. He was a dual citizen, Britain and Russia. The British government did absolutely nothing for him. We were trying to get them to help us with the blood samples. They basically said, “Doesn’t matter.” That was really ugly part of the story and something when he and I talk about it, something that really upsets him is how badly he was treated by the British government, even though he is a British citizen.

The other really ironic part of the story is that the person that saved him in the end was the Russian doctor. We tried to get him evacuated from Russia. He was just too ill to be evacuated. But the Russian doctor decided that he wasn’t under instructions to kill him. He saved him. Vladimir, he was terribly disabled after this. He had to learn to walk again and eat and talk and everything. He had strokes. He was just terrible in his mid 30s.

But he was able to rebuild his strength. He’s such a patriot, like Alexei Navalny, that he went back to Russia afterwards. Then they poisoned him again. Again, he survived. What makes the story truly crazy and remarkable is that Russia invades Ukraine. And Vladimir sent me an email saying, “He’s coming through London where I live.”

I say, “Fantastic.” I said, “I’m giving a speech at a fundraiser to help Ukrainian refugees, maybe you can come along and share a few words yourself?” He came and talked about the future of Putin and how Putin didn’t have a future. I told my story. Then we got together with our wives and had dinner afterwards. I said, “Are you coming to my book party in Washington?” Because his wife lives in Washington?

He said, “Yeah. I’m definitely coming. I can’t wait.” He said, “But I’m going to Moscow first.” I said, “No. You can’t. You can’t go to Moscow.” I said, “They’ll kill you.” They’ve already tried killing them twice. I said, “Vladimir, you have to not go to Moscow. You have to not go. He said, “If I’m an opposition politician, and I’m asking the Russian people to stand up to Vladimir Putin. How can I do that if I’m too afraid to go back to my own country?”

I was really emphatic, I mean, to the point of really almost burning my friendship with him, because I was so concerned. But he went, and he carried on talking, and he gave an interview to CNN, where he calls Putin on CNN a murderer. An hour later, he gets arrested, and he’s in prison right this minute. It’s terrifying.

Preet Bharara:

Are you able to be in contact with him?

Bill Browder:

I am through his wife, who is able to speak to him once a day. He’s in good spirits. He wrote a beautiful message to read out in my book party in Washington, which made us all very sad. He wrote an unbelievable letter, a letter from the Moscow jail in the Washington Post, which I urge everyone to read. It’s literally the modern day equivalent of Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham jail.

He’s talking optimistically about how it’s all going to be okay in the end, how Putin will be overthrown and how justice will prevail. It’s amazing to read and it’s sad and scary because I know what the Russians are capable of. He’s in the custody of the people who tried to kill him.

Preet Bharara:

Can we talk about you for a moment. I very much admire the respect and deference you give to these other people, some of whom have died, including your former lawyer, but you’re in direct parallel as well. You’ve had this ongoing feud with Vladimir Putin. Your lawyer was murdered. You were arrested on a red notice in Madrid and almost were whisked away to Moscow.

There was this business between President Trump and Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki Summit in which there seemed to be an agreement to give you up to the Russians. Then finally, I wonder if Vladimir Putin is so unhinged now given the kinds of atrocities that he is overseeing and perhaps even ordering directly in Ukraine that he cares even less about what he does to people who he perceives as his enemies, domestic and foreign. Do you feel that you’re in more danger now, less, or the same?

Bill Browder:

Much more. I described before, he always had this one foot in the civilized world and one foot in the criminal world. I think that that’s ultimately what’s kept me alive this last 12 years. The way he wanted to kill me was to get me back to Russia, quotation marks around it “legally.” In other words, he wanted to have me arrested on an Interpol notice, or an extradition request, and then have me sent back to Russia so they could kill me in their own plausibly deniable way in a prison.

Of course, after pulling out all my fingernails to get some force confession to say that I did all the crimes that they did. I think that that was his plan. That’s why they didn’t blow up my house or poison me with Novichok in the last 12 years, because he always wanted to go to the Davos, and host the World Cup and all that kind of stuff.

Now, he doesn’t have any of that restraint. He’s already been sanctioned right up to the edge of capability of sanctions. There’s nothing stopping him from doing something terrible to me now. Of course, I’ve got to be much more careful than I was before, because God knows what he’s capable of doing without any restraints.

Preet Bharara:

He’s probably not a fan of the book, in your press tour.

Bill Browder:

Yeah. Yeah. He doesn’t come out looking so good, definitely not.

Preet Bharara:

To the extent there can be anything somewhat humorous, in the fact that you’re in peril? Can you describe for folks who are not aware of what a honey trap is?

Bill Browder:

In the early part of my story, when I was going around the world, trying to get the Magnitsky Act passed in different countries, I had this one great opportunity, which was that parliamentarians from, I don’t know, 40 different countries were all meeting to discuss human rights at something called the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe, hosts these different summits every year.

I had an opportunity to meet with parliamentarians from all these different countries. I had various contacts with different ones. I was going to show up at this place, this summit. It was taking place in Monaco of all. Monaco is a member of the OSCE as is all sorts of other countries. Normally, they’re not in such salubrious places. But in 2012, it was in Monaco.

I go to Monaco. As part of my presentation to these parliamentarians, we made a little movie about a Russian gangster named Dmitry Klyuev, who’s head of the Klyuev organized crime group. He was the criminal partner with the Russian government and stealing all the money that Sergei Magnitsky had discovered and was killed over.

We made a movie and we showed it to a bunch of parliamentarians. My big pitch to them was that there is no difference between organized crime and the government. They’re effectively merged. After the movie, I was invited by one of the parliamentarians who said, “There’s a party going on tonight hosted by the government of Monaco at the Le Meridien Hotel on the water. Why don’t you come to the party?”

Along with my associate, young man named Mark, we go to this party. They walk in. It’s interesting, because there’s all sorts of Russians everywhere. Anyways, I go to the party. I line up at the table where they’re serving this buffet, which is the Monaco government had spared no expense, and all sorts of fancy food, and I hadn’t eaten all day, and it’s pretty excited to have a big dinner.

As I’m standing in line, I feel something bumping into my back. I move forward. Wherever is bumping in my back has space. Then they’re bumping into my back again. I turned around and I find this six-foot blonde model standing behind me. She starts talking to me and she says, “What are you here for?” I said, “I’m here at this conference.” I said, “What are you here for?” She said, “Well, normally I’m in fashion, but I think I find politics so interesting.”

I thought that’s a bit weird. Last thing I wanted to do is talk to a Russian after accusing the Russians of being merged with organized crime. I just wanted to get away. I’m moving up getting my food and then up walks a bunch of the parliamentarians from the movie. They all started asking me questions. This woman is standing there as well. At the end of this little conversation, they all asked me for my card. I start handing on my card to all.

This woman puts her hand out to grab one of my cards as well. I gave her a card. I finished my dinner. I go back to my hotel. All of a sudden, I get this message from her saying, “Mr. William, I thought we had such a big connection. It would be great to meet up.” I ignore it. Half an hour later, another one comes in and says, “I can’t stop thinking about you.” I just have to laugh.

I mean, I’m 5’9″. I’m bald. I’m a middle aged businessman. This just doesn’t

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. You wrote in the book. You write a list in the book and say, “Models don’t throw themselves at me.” I think you’re being overly self-deprecating. I just want to say for the record. This could absolutely happen to you.

Bill Browder:

Well, it’s nice of you to say so. But it’s funny because I have a very famous libel lawyer named Geoffrey Robertson QC here in the UK. I had him read the book early on to make sure that I wasn’t saying anything that I could be sued for. He read the whole book and he said, “It’s totally watertight. There’s only one person who could sue you is maybe this Svetlana because maybe she really did want you.”

Preet Bharara:

But it’s your belief that she was a Russian agent?

Bill Browder:

There’s no question. It was a honey trap. That this is what a honey trap is.

Preet Bharara:

That’s honey trap.

Bill Browder:

Yes. That’s a honey trap.

Preet Bharara:

You are a wise man who did not fall for the honey trap.

Bill Browder:

I definitely didn’t fall for it. A lot of people do fall for these things and lots of bad stuff happens, absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

Did you immediately get the hell out of dodge?

Bill Browder:

The very next morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn. I ordered a taxi, not the one sitting in front the hotel, in the opposite direction, Nice Airport. It was too early and make sure no one was following me. Then I turn around and go to Nice Airport and get the hell out of there. Because it turns out that Dmitry Klyuev and his crew were in Monaco, at the conference with the intention of trying to overturn the Magnitsky Act.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a good segue, because obviously, some of the most important work you’ve done over the last number of years has been to get the Magnitsky Act passed, not just in the US, but in lots of places. My question is, do you think … I think the answer is obvious. But I’m just wondering. Do you think that Russian aggression and the war in Ukraine will accelerate your efforts in various countries?

Bill Browder:

It’s crazy how … I mean, I spent 10 years banging on closed doors. I got a lot done even when the doors closed. We got 34 countries to pass the Magnitsky Act. But it was really like pulling teeth. Then all of a sudden, in two weeks at the beginning of the war, everybody now …

Preet Bharara:

Everybody wants the Magnitsky Act.

Bill Browder:

Everybody wants everything. I mean, it’s interesting. I was in Washington last week, meeting with a number of senators and congressmen. I pointed out … They say, “Well, how are we doing on sanctioning Magnitsky’s killers?” I said, “Well, we’ve sanctioned about 50 of them. But we have … There’s 250 people who we have evidence were involved in either the false arrest, torture, murder of Magnitsky, or the Crimean covered, or the cover up, which were all covered under the Magnitsky Act that hadn’t been sanctioned.”

These senators said, “Well, we want the list. We want the evidence.” Just this weekend, they sent out a letter to the President, Secretary of State, and Attorney General saying that, “Here’s the evidence of these 235 people, let’s clean it up and sanction them.” This is just one of many conversations I’m having not just about Magnitsky, but about the broader issues where now everything is possible where nothing was possible before because all restraint is off.

There’s no more appeasement. There’s no apologists. It’s now let’s get tough on Russia, which is a relief. But as I said at the beginning of our conversation, it’s also infuriating that I spent all this time trying to tell everyone to do this and we might have avoided this terrible thing.

Preet Bharara:

In the United States. Am I correct that the Magnitsky Act had to be reauthorized recently?

Bill Browder:

It did. And we had a piece of legislation which … It’s not just for Russians. It’s for all bad guys everywhere in the world kleptocrats and human rights violators. It had a five-year life and it needed to be reauthorized. They had a vote in the House of Representatives. It was something like 434 to 8 to reauthorize a piece of legislation to freeze the assets and ban visas of human rights violators. Can you imagine there are eight members of the House of Representatives that rule against this?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Let’s talk about some of them.

Bill Browder:

Lauren Boebert from Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, I can’t even imagine how they can stand in front of their constituents and justify that.

Preet Bharara:

What is the justification they give?

Bill Browder:

I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, there is no justification. They are Putin’s party. I mean, people sometimes generalize and overgeneralize and say, “Well, there’s Republicans that are supporting Putin. That’s not true. I mean, there’s a few crazies. But there’s no daylight between Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, when it comes to Putin, in my experience with the Magnitsky Act.

But these people, I mean, they have to be voted out. I have a friend in Colorado who’s running as Lauren Boebert. He’s my friend. I showed up in his campaign event, but I would have shown up at anyone’s campaign event to lobby against Lauren Boebert.

Preet Bharara:

What’s interesting is some of the people you mentioned that they’re among the most widely recognized and famous members of Congress and I sometimes wonder if part of it is not just that, some of them are not on committee. No. I don’t think that Marjorie Taylor Greene is even on the committee anymore. But she’s talked about all the time.

Bill Browder:

I mean, this is a way to get attention is just do outrageous things. But my God, I just hope that in these people’s districts that there’s plenty of reasonable people in both parties that can be elected other than these people voting for Putin. I mean, it’s just crazy.

Preet Bharara:

Bill Browder, thanks once again for being on the show. It’s a real honor to know you and to hear about your work. Congratulations on the book Freezing Order: A True Story of Money laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath. Please be safe.

Bill Browder:

Thank you.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Bill Browder continues for members of the Cafe Insider community. To try out the membership for just $1 for a month head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider. To end the show this week, I want to talk about a very important issue that plagues our country and should break your heart. I’m talking about the rise of hate crimes in America.

As a warning, some of the descriptions may be upsetting. Hate crimes have risen significantly across the country in recent years, as you may have heard. In October, the FBI released data showing that reports of hate crimes in the US had reached the highest level in 12 years. That’s just from the data that the FBI was able to collect, which is incomplete since not all local law enforcement agencies are even required to track and report hate crimes.

There are of course high profile hate crimes, like the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, which we spoken about on the show many times. A jury recently found the killers guilty on all counts in a federal hate crimes trial. Of course, the defendants were already each convicted of murder in a Georgia state trial. That’s all good.

We’ve seen ugly anti-Semitic attacks involving assaults on Jewish people in the streets of New York City, and swastikas painted on buildings and school buses. According to a report prepared by the Human Rights Campaign for trans and gender nonconforming people, 2021 was the deadliest year on record in the United States. We’ve witnessed an outbreak of anti-Asian violence across the country, including a number of brutal attacks in New York City, which we’ve also discussed before.

Anti-Asian hate crimes in New York have increased by four times in the last year. Most recently, a 67-year-old Asian woman was beaten and called anti-Asian slurs. Another young woman was stabbed repeatedly after the assailant followed her into her apartment in Chinatown. Just last week, we saw multiple violent attacks on members of the Sikh community, or the Sikh community as people who practice the religion like my father, say it.

There’s evidence of a broader trend of hate crimes against Sikhs. In Richmond Hill, Queens, a neighborhood commonly referred to as little Punjab, three Sikh men were brutally attacked on the same street within days of each other. At 45, 58, and 70 years old, all three men were assaulted, and had their turbans ripped off. Two men were arrested in connection with the attacks, one 19 and one 20 years old.

As reported by the New York Times since the attacks, younger community members have actually begun escorting their elders to and from religious services in an effort to help protect them. Obviously, these attacks have really shaken up the Sikh community in the place they consider home. That should shake everyone up. According to new data from the New York Police Department Hate Crimes Task Force, overall hate crimes have increased 76% this year, compared to the same period of time last year.

Let me repeat that, 76%. Notably, the New York Police Department hate crimes dashboard doesn’t include a category for crimes targeting Sikhs specifically. There’s no way for the city to keep track of accurate data for certain demographic groups. The crimes are recorded under the general umbrella of anti-religion. These crimes I’m sure you will agree are heinous and disgusting.

They make my blood boil, and my heart sank as an immigrant and a South Asian American and just as a human being who cares about the well-being of my fellow citizens. I wish the victims of these horrible crimes a speedy recovery and to everyone. Please look out for one another and be safe.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Bill Browder. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the #askPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com.

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tamara Sepper. The technical director who’s David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Shawn Walsh, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara, Stay Tuned.