Kremlin Critic Bill Browder Responds To Putin's Accusations

joining us first on CNBC to react the man in question bill Browder Hermitage Capital Management bill good to have you here I bet you're not surprised to hear Vladimir Putin and refer to you directly it's not the first time and it won't be the last time Vladimir Putin is very mad at me he's mad at me because of the Magnitsky Act the Magnitsky Act is a piece of legislation named after my murdered lawyer Sergei Magnitsky he was murdered after uncovering a 230 million-dollar Russian corruption scandal some of that 230 million dollars went to Vladimir Putin himself and so Putin feels personally exposed and potentially at risk of having his assets seized in the West and so every chance he gets he tries to get foreign countries to come after me this is just one of many of his attempts he leveled an accusation at you that you funneled and helped funnel lots of money to Hillary Clinton did you I did not I did not I'm not a US citizen I don't live in the United States I've been living in Britain for 29 years I don't make no campaign contributions and so that's not true I should also point out that Vladimir Putin and his regime have accused me of serial killing of being a CIA mi6 agent and about a thousand other things and so they just kind of he's kind of unhinged in these accusations you said before bill that this is not the first time that President Putin has mentioned you had has called you out what is your reaction in terms of your personal security after such a news conference do you increase it you look behind you when you're walking down the street a little bit more often well my personal security has been at risk for a very long time this is not that this struggle that I'm having with Putin has been going on for 10 years I mean just a month ago on May 30th in Madrid I was arrested on a russian interpol arrest warrant by the spanish police thankfully I was Interpol contacted them two hours after I was arrested and made sure I was released but the Russians have been coming out for me for a long time and so I'm not surprised it doesn't change anything I'm always on high alert and there's a lot of people around the world governments people who are looking after me what do you think when you see an American president on foreign soil standing next to the president of Russian Federation basically embracing or at least not distancing himself from mr. Putin's denials of involvement in an American election well the whole thing confuses me I've been watching Trump and his public statements and this type of stuff which I find awful and unpleasant and at the same time Trump's completely surrounds himself with people like Pompeo Jim mattis nikki Haley and others who are completely clear-eyed about what a criminal and monster Lattimore of Putin is and so it it kind of doesn't make sense I would almost describe it as schizophrenic because US policy towards Russia is actually quite tough the sanctions are tough we're yes applying military equipment to Ukraine which is tough and various other things and so it's it's all very confusing it's not clear what Trump could actually do because the apparatus doesn't agree with him yeah the sanctions that have been put in place against seven oligarchs 12 companies 17 government officials they are the strongest thus far a lot of people would argue it's because of Congress and not because of the president but indeed he's got foreign policy Hawks all around him who are very very tough on Russia back a melissa's question about your safety with the the poisonings that we've seen now in London which the UK blames also on the Russian government are you spending less time there I don't really sort of comment on where I spend my time where I don't but what I what I can say is that you know if the Russians want to poison me using you know military-grade chemical weapons there's pretty much nothing I can do and they could do it here they could do it they could do it there they could do it anywhere it's there's no there's no clarity about how you how you prevent yourself you protect yourself from a from a terrorist a government-sponsored terrorist attack using chemical weapons but I take lots of precautions and and so far I've survived it's been eight and a half years since my lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was murdered and I'm still here and it's my hope that I'll still be here eight and a half years and twenty years from now what do you think of president Putin's offer let me put it that way to invite FBI people to come in and talk to the 12 individuals who were indicted on Friday with respect to election meddling in the United States in return for the United States opening its law enforcement auspices into the investigation of you what do you think of that well these deals never sort of when it actually gets pushed down to the level of people conducting investigations it will never come to fruition that the Russians will never allow real investigators to come and speak to those people and the US authorities will never allow Russian investigators to come here is it's not going to happen it's it's like there was there was an agreement that the Russia and an America would join a cybersecurity task force to fight election meddling that never came to fruition and this one won't either when you heard Putin's response didn't you think it was almost in jest that the whole thing was offered when he says sure one person and then we'll start to do oh you want to do that then we'll do this to make it clear that of course it's it's never gonna happen and and and and that's how Putin operates he's a very clever man he's been at this it game for a long time he was a KGB officer and the head of the KGB before that you know he's been thinking about this summit for months and months and months and looking at every different nuance and potential weakness of Trump and and and he's he's he's playing Trump and the United States like a fiddle right now and the Pres our president called it a mystery that mr. Putin has a very interesting idea I believe is what he how he characterized to that well exchange and what will happen afterwards is he'll sit down with his with his administration and and they'll say you know that's not how things work mr. president I'm sure he said that conversation plenty of times bill I mean I don't know if you saw the body language between the two when when President Putin made that it change offer but you saw president Trump they're basically nodding in a very big way to that not even looking very dismissive is there no doubts or any shred of doubt in your mind that that perhaps the president could do this unconventional thing which would be in a long string of unconventional things that this president has done well the you have to understand that the president has to rely on people working for him and those people aren't going to conduct illegal activities on behalf of the president in the public in such a public way because people will end up getting indicted for doing that if they do it's it's just not gonna happen president's been criticized for everything he said at NATO in particularly to Angela Merkel but let me ask you this how do you feel about the fact that Germany wants to be so reliant on Russian energy well at the same time wants to be defended by the United States and our military spending when it comes to a potential Russian attack well this is one place where I actually agree with with Trump on foreign policy which is that as far as Germany is concerned they should not be building a pipeline from Russia a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that makes them more dependent on Russian gas you don't have to be a history student to just look into recent history to see that Russia uses gas as a tool for political pressure and leverage and they've turned off the gas on numerous occasions before for exactly that purpose and so the idea that that Germany would become more reliant on Russian gas is not a good idea Trump was right to point it out now that doesn't mean that that that we shouldn't I mean the all of our military could all military commitments of NATO should be held exactly as they are but it's not unreasonable and I know a lot of other politicians in European countries that agree with me and agree with Trump that Germany shouldn't becoming more reliant on on Russian gas and yeah we don't hear it from them very often right I mean the whole discussion for the last week is everybody is aghast at what the president said to the leader of Germany without seeming to acknowledge what is a very inconsistent position on her part well you know everybody is is is relying on or reacting to one sound bite or two sound bites but but in that particular case that you know putting aside partisan politics or anything Germany should not be allowing Russia to get its claws and its leverage and into into German affairs because the next thing that will happen is German politicians will say oh we can't be tough on Russia because they'll turn off the gas they shouldn't put themselves in that position what did Putin want out of this meeting he called it twice used the word negotiation this negotiation president Trump never referred to it as negotiating a meeting engagement etc what do you think that means and what wouldn't Putin ultimately hope for well I I think Putin got 90% of what he wanted just by the whole thing happening I just understand that that Putin is a guy who's running a country with an economy the size of the state of New York with a military budget 90% less than the United States his military budget and he's been put on an equal footing to the most powerful man in the free world and he came an hour late to the meeting and so for Putin just the fact just the optics that he had this important meeting is all that he really needed whatever agreements or non agreements or whispers or nudges that's all bonus but the fact that he had a summit with the most important man in the free world when he comes from such a a second-tier country with so little influence other than negative influence is a big win for Vladimir Putin

Channel: CNBC

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Keywords: CNBC, business news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, bill browder, Putin, vladimir putin, donald trump, trump putin meeting, putin net worth, trump treason, trump putin summit, bill browder cnbc interview, mr browder, who is bill browder, bill browder putin, bill browder russia, bill browder net worth

Id: R0aRgOe8fuo

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 16 2018