During the Trump-Putin Helsinki meeting, President Putin called out Kremlin critic Bill Browder for allegedly making money illegally and contributing it to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Bill Browder, Hermitage Capital Management CEO, responds to the allegation.
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Kremlin Critic Bill Browder Responds To Putin's Accusations
Transcript
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 referred 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 as 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 that perfect 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 U.S. 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 MICEX agent and about 1000 other things and so they just kind of that he's kind of unhinged in these accusations. You said before Bill that this 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 you increase it to 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 ten 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 after 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 the 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 in this type of stuff which I find awful and unpleasant. And at the same time Trump completely surrounds himself with people like Payoh jumat Madis Nikki Haley and others who are completely clear eyed about what a criminal and monster whatever of Putin is and so it kind of doesn't make sense. I would almost describe it as schizophrenic because U.S. policy towards Russia is actually quite tough. The sanctions are tough.
U.S. is applying military equipment to Ukraine which is tough and various other things and so it's all very confusing it's not clear what Trump could actually do because the apparatus doesn't agree with him. Have the sanctions that have been put in place against seven oligarchs 12 companies.
